I 3 several machines, 2 with avast home and one with AVG. Both XP SP3 with windows auto-updated. I won’t talk about the AVG machine I’m using.
A few days back I updated the program on my workstation and re-booted. The PC booted as far as the blue background for the desktop but didn’t show any icons or toolbar. It wouldn’t respond to ctrl+alt+del either. I powered off using the button on the front of PC.
Tried again - same.
Booted into safe mode - OK. Scheduled a hard drive scan. That went OK. Re-booted - hang again.
Uninstalled Avast in safe mode and booted normally - OK.
Downloaded clean version of Avast and installed. Hang on re-boot.
Uninstalled it and the machine is fine, but not running any anti-virus software.
My laptop was OK. Until…
Yesterday on my laptop I was notified of an update and I allowed it to load on the laptop. Re-booted and it hang at the desktop - but this time it was showing icons on the desktop and the taskbar. If I put the mouse over the taskbar I got an hourglass. I left it for a while - no activity from HDD but was still hung. Responded to ctrl+alt+del very slowly. I asked it to shut down which it attempted. I had to click a button to confirm halting explorer.exe
Blah, blah blah - same old stuff shows it’s to do with AVG.
Clean install with file downloaded then and there followed by re-boot with a scan showed no virii and allowed laptop to boot and be used OK. On a re-boot I’m back to square 1 with the laptop unable to complete booting, with the hourglass etc - exactly the same as the first time.
The only machine I can safely use on the net now is the one using AVG. Well - not strictly true because the desktop with Avast! on it is dual boot with Kububtu.
What’s going on and why do I seem to be the only person with this problem? On two machines too.
The desktop has no firewall apart from windows. There’s no other AVG running. In fact, the only thing the machines have in common is FlashGet, although it’s not set to auto-start. Is there a problem with Avast! and FlashGet? Sorry, I only just thought about that, I’ll check the posts.
I just registered to tell of the same problem.
Avast Home Edition was running fine for a long time on my XP PRO SP3, yesterday I got the little green box telling me of a newer version, but I ignored it.
Today my computer starts up normal, until logon screen, after logon it just shows the background of my user but nothing else happens.
I tried several reboots and once I got the task manager up and could see a process called “avast.setup”.
I could not kill it for some unknown reason.
When I ran safe mode of XP I used MSCONFIG to uncheck the avast services and after that the machine boots just fine, but avast is disabled.
As soon as i activate the avast services and reboot it will hang up again after logon.
So far so good… I then retried complete uninstall of Avast, then reboot, then the uninstall tool, reboot again, then fresh install of avast.
First reboot then went well, everything was back to normal. Then I just switched the sounds of avast off, and tried another reboot to be sure everythings working again.
And know what? It hangs up again after logon.
Now I disabled the avast services once again in safe mode to be able to use my computer at all.
Hi just registered as well to report same problems with the latest Avast program online update. At the end of installation it asks for reboot, all ok.
After reboot windows gets past the “loading your personal settings” screen and desktop comes up with no icons, toolbars or Taskbar at all Just the background, even ctrl alt del does not open task manager or enable shutdown.
The only solution I’ve found as well is to switch off power, reboot in safe mode, and uninstall Avast.
Reboot then works and all is hunky dory again but with no antivirus.
This is repeatable and I have tried it with two different XP Pro SP3 installations and my main XP Pro SP3 installation twice with the same results.
I had exactly this after a previous Avast prog update. With mine, I waited 3/4 minutes and eventually it booted ok. After this, I clicked ‘Prog Settings’ then ‘Troubleshooting’ and selected ‘Delay loading of Avast services til last’, Reboot - and for me things worked ok after that. When it’s going ok, remember to uncheck ‘Delay loading etc’.
OK, I thought I’d try geoffo’s suggestion, so I re-intalled it but even after leaving it 2 hours it wouldn’t complete booting. A forced shutdown hangs when it says “saving settings”.
I also gave geoffo’s suggestion a try, but it didn’t work out.
It had no effect at all.
I’ve set the Service “avast! Antivirus” to manuel which works well on startup.
When everything is loaded and working then im manually starting the service and avast is working again.
I would suggest that you all try a clean reinstall. Although you all have one common issue some have been experiencing other issues which might well indicate a failed update.
@DavidR - Thank you for trying to help, but if you read my first post you’ll see I already installed a clean version. I uninstalled in safe mode.
There may be a solution
Despite the scan yesterday not showing any problems I found a possible problem today.
I started the machine up in safe mode and ran a scan. It thinks it found Win32:Patched-HP[trj] in c:\windows\system32\dmserver.dll in memory. All I could do was delete it (as opposed to quarantine or delete to recycle bin).
I then did a boot time scan which took offence at FlashGets updater.exe file and found a couple of things in system restore backup files (archived versions of dmserver.dll?).
After it booted I ran the command “sfc /scannow” to replace windows system files (of which dmserver.dll is one) with the genuine versions.
All seems happy now (so far) but I’m not sure whether the file I deleted was really trojaned or whether it was a file updated by SP3. I’m running a scan now.
At no point in that post did you say you used the avast uninstall utility and that is what I mean by a clean install as that ensures all registry entries are history.
Thanks DavidR. Noted.
I just had a go at my workstation again and Avast! picked up on the same dmserver.dll. I deleted it and nicked a spare copy of it as a replacement from my xp sp3 machine running AVG. The version is 2600.5512.503.0.
Avast! scans this one as OK so I guess something modified my files. It’s solved for me.
Mine picked up on dmserver.dll. I did a search and there was a different version 2600.2180.503.0 in the $uninstall directory. I’ve copied that into system32 and so far seems to be okay.
I use Vista. I updated this morning, did not reboot right away, then shut down. When I powered on later Outlook and IE work fine, but there was no Avast twirling icon on bottom right, and an Adobe update icon came on and I was about to install one of their updates before I realized the Avast icon was missing. I then tried to just start the program from the menu and it seemed to come on and run through a start up procedure but still no icon and I’m afraid to try to scan a file with it or otherwise use it or reboot or anything right now.
Anyone else with a similar problem? I will probbaly uninstall and work immunocompromised until Avast or someone comes up with a fix.
Whenever an icon is missing in the tray, I usually start the program by hand or reboot. It appears to be a timing issue with Vista. If Avast is running but no icon, (check via task manager), there is a way to get the icon back without restarting. I would have to search this forum. Other pending updates have done this to me. I just boot gain after the other program has updated.
Thanks, but the lack of icon is not as much a concern as the program’s running properly. I did start it and check task manager but it was not there. I may try to reboot and see what happens. . . .
It has always worked for me (the reboot solution). I have a APC battery backup that is connected via USB permanently and APC’s program running for shutdown in lieu of Vista’s. Occasionally it doesn’t show up in the tray. I know it is working but I reboot and then it appears. To complicate the issue, the systray icon for my Logitech keyboard/mouse shows up instead of being hidden. I just ignore it and chalk it up to Vista.
