I noticed my definitions were out of date around the same time I noticed avast.setup was running in my task manager but not actually doing anything, so I went to try and manually update and avast refuses to update it just says “initializing, please wait…” it has been upwards to ten minutes since it started, so I am now going to try a restart and see if that solves the issue.
I am running Windows XP SP3 with Avast Version 7.0.1466 and Definitions 120930-1
If the avast.setup is still running in the task manager starting a manual update is likely to fail also as you would have multiple instances of the avast.setup running.
I would suggest that you do a repair of avast.
A manual restart has cleared the issue up, I’ll be watching things carefully for now but everything updated just fine, both automatic and manual on it’s own.
OK, should it happen again if the reboot doesn’t resolve it the next step try the avast repair.