Avast stalls at My Document.
I have tried it a number of times but it stalls every time.
I have looked at the folder but found nothing unusual.
The stall occurs just as the folder opens with zero files scanned.
There is only one file and that is desktop.ini, the rest are folders and there are no other files.
Any idea as to what is happening?
Who is the owner of this ‘My documents’ folder?
You? The Administrator?
What do you mean with ‘stalls’, freeze? Is there any error message?
There is only one file and that is desktop.ini, the rest are folders and there are no other files.None of the other folders contain any files?
By the way, welcome to the Forum. 
I will explain what I was doing.
Yes I am the Administrator of the one user system.
This WinXp sp2.
I wanted to run a scan of the system.
I started up Avast in the normal way.
I selected that it scan thoroughly all drives.
I hit the run button.
After a while I look back at the computer and it is on the folders named “Documents and setting” and is running.
10 minutes later I again look at the computer and it still on the same folder. I check the file count and it note what it is.
Again later I go back to the computer and it still at the same place and the file count has not changed, it say it is still running.
I wait 20 minute and go back to the computer, it is still in the same state that I left it in. No change in file count and still running but not going any where.
http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/2636/avastmain01xg2.jpg
This is just an example not the actual screen.
You see where is says Files tested this file count did not change for 40 minutes.
I tried to stop the process but the Stop button would not work. so I killed the process. I restarted the computer and again did the same thing as described as above but waited over an hour. Again I had the same results, it would stall and not go any farther then some where inside of “Documents and Setting”.
Through trail and error I narrowed it down to the folder
“C:\Documents and Setting\me\My Documents”.
This the folder that hangs up the scan, it just sits there and does not proceed any farther.
As stated I have looked at the folder for anything unusual and have not found anything. Yes I have it so there are no hidden files.
So any ideas as to what might be the problem here. I have looked through the forum but I can not find a match for this problem.
Additionally, you can go to the program settings and turn on the creation of the report file (with “OK files” to be included as well in the report). This way, you can find out where the scan really stopped (it’s going to be close to the end of the report).
After avast! disappears, check the end of the report file - the “troublesome” file is likely to be close to the end (close in the sense that this particular file will probably not be written in the report, but the previous one will be the last line, so it shouldn’t be hard to guess). We would certainly like to have this file - if it really causes problems to avast! - so that we could fix the problem.
The report file created (if you turned it on in program settings) will be (default location) at \Data\Report\Simple User Interface.txt
Ok I attempted to run the program. The computer completely lockup and I had to use the restet button and restart Winxp.
However a report was there for the time frame involed.
I did not know if you want the complete report or not.
Here is the results of the report for the beginning and last 7 lines of the report.
…
C:\Documents and Settings\me\Recent\CD Drive.lnk [+] is OK
C:\Documents and Settings\me\My Documents\desktop.ini [+] is OK
C:\Documents and Settings\me\My Documents\My Pictures\Desktop.ini [+] is OK
C:\Documents and Settings\me\My Documents\My Pictures\Sample Pictures.lnk [+] is OK
C:\Documents and Settings\me\My Documents\My Music\Desktop.ini [+] is OK
C:\Documents and Settings\me\My Documents\My Music\Sample Music.lnk [+] is OK
C:\Documents and Settings\me\My Documents\CyberLink\PowerDVD\Default.PLS [+] is OK
[b]In checking through the various folders I found files listed in NeroVision. I had previously add been attempt to create a video and there were 2 files in there both over 1 gb each.
Since I did not need these files any more I deleted them.
I re-ran the Virus scan and the problem went away. It seem that these 2 video files were the cause of the problem.[/b]
So it seems like my problem is cured with the deletion of the files, I hope this is of some use to you. I will have to see if this causes problem in the future if I create another video.
Well… if you are scanning all files, all type of files (extension), a 1Gb will give you the impression that the scanner halted… nothing is happening.
Indeed, scanning (unpacking) a file with 1Gb will use a lot of resources, for sure.
No it was that it gave the impression it lockup. It did lockup, I could get no movement out of the mouse or any other type of reaction from the computer. In the past I still was able to use the mouse but not this time, also I could not get clt-alt-del to pull up the tasklist. The total time running when I got back to it was over 40 minutes which should have been plently enough time to get out of C:drive.
So I am pretty sure it was locked up. Also there was not hard drive activity as shown by the led for the hard drive.
I have run scans with this size file before being present and had no problems, but this was on an other computer.
As I stated I will be looking out to see if this problem occurs again in the future.
Do you need anything else??
Tech is right in that during a “thorough” scan, the whole files are scanned. So, if there are 2 files, each 1GB in side in the folder, it can take a while to scan (depending mostly on the speed of the hard drive). The number of scanned files doesn’t change during that time, of course… but the “activity indicator” should be moving at least.
If, however, the computer got completely frozen (including the mouse pointer), I’d bet on a hardware problem - possibly because of the scanning process increasing the temperature somehow and some components (CPU, memories, possibly even hard drive) got overheated and caused the system to freeze.