I’ve been using Avast successfully with Fedora Core 5 & 6 since June. A strange problem occurred today that I can’t seem to find a fix for. On my FC6 system, I went to update the Avast database today and when it appeared that it had completed the update, the GUI then disappeared from the screen. The process had been killed. I tried to re-launch Avast, but it would never start again.
I uninstalled using rpm -e, then re-installed from the rpm file. When I tried to start Avast, it gave me an error message saying something about a problem with a file named “lockfile-username” in the .avast directory. The program then quit immediately.
I found that by uninstalling Avast, then deleting the .avast directory in my home directory, then re-installing, I am able to launch the program again. Problem is, I can’t update the database without it crashing inexplicably again.
I had the same problem today after installing in on FC6. I also tried removing the RPM and deleting the //.avast directory which you have to do manually. I’ve tried this twice and haven’t been able to figure it out.
I just compiled a new kernel so I don’t know if you may have done something simular since you say it was working before. I’ll post more after I test some other options.
Looks like I was wrong about this, my problem isn’t solved. I’ve been trying to update the database since December 21st, but there have been no updates. It says that my current version of the virus database is 659-1, 12/16/2006 .
I then had a look in the Downloads section to see if there was a newer, updated version of the program, but it appears there is not. I am using the Linux Home Edition RPM package avast4workstation-1.0.6-1.i586, and that’s the same one that’s still listed in Downloads.
There is also a message on that page saying:
For latest virus database (400.vps) updates, please use kernel library 4.7.x. Older engines cannot use latest 400.vps files due to limitations in the former algorithm.
I saw in another post that there is going to be a new version of avast! for Linux released after new year’s eve. I think I’ll just wait until then and hope that they release a new RPM file. I really don’t like using .deb packages or even tarballs on my Fedora Core 6 system if I can avoid it.
Oh, that is correct, I apologize for this. The VPS file that’s exposed on the server is indeed from the 16th of December… this is something we needed to do temporarily, and which will be fixed (on our side) during the first week of January.
Hallo,
the regular update will be back on 14.January 2007. The update was temporarily frozen to give extra time for all OEM customers to update their engines to the latest version, and we agreed on this schedule.
Please note that AFTER 14.Jan 2007 ALL engines older than <4.7.x could segfault. Thus, upgrading to 4.7.x will be necessary.