I’ve used and trusted Avast Free for more than 5 years and recommended it to many friends and colleagues (as I am a networking professional), so I was extremely disappointed when I found my computer, last night, Mar 19, in an endless blue screen crash on reboot loop after in-program-updating (by answering an alert) . I attempted uninstalling Avast using Safe Mode and reinstalling from the website, but I still faced the crash loop thereafter. I had to go into safe mode to uninstall Avast and install Avira to resolve the issue.
According to Alikhan, Avast Beta is stable, but I’m not going to try it right now. Boot BSOD loops are too serious for me and it really hurts me to know I installed Avast on my sister’s XP computer this week, and if she updates it, she may face the crash loop too. I’m done with Avast for at least a few months (until the next main release). I hope you guys work it out because I find Avast Free to be an efficient, professional and full-featured experience with a nice interface.
– Brandon
4 Years + Avast Free User / Installer
Windows XP
Dell Insipron 9300
Nvidia 6800 go GPU
Blue Screen Error: STOP: 0x0000008E (0xC0000005, 0x00640066, 0x954B87E8, 00000000)
Alikhan, In response to your post: I apologize: I was using the version number from the properties Avast installer I downloaded today from Avast.com. The file properties probably weren’t updated. I don’t know what version they’re handing out right now, because it doesn’t say on the download page, and I wouldn’t unless I installed it again (which I don’t want to do), so I simply updated the post with the date of download rather than presumed version number.
The first install was from the program (I have kept it up to date for over 4 years). Now, as I said, the first thing I did was uninstall Avast in safe mode, and do a clean install with a fresh download file from avast.com, but it resulted in the same boot crash loop. And as for the memory dump, it’s a 2GB file, and I didn’t let the screen complete the lengthy process of dumping it and using up 2GB on my hard drive (nor do I even want to know how long that would take to upload). As I said, I don’t want to fix this or install it again. I’ve switched to Avira because of this at least until there is another official Avast release. At that point, if it happens again, I will probably attempt a registry clean of Avast entries too. I don’t want to risk this happening to my or my friends’ computers again. I just want to alert the developers of this issue.
It was probably an update from a newer version (I update it whenever I’m prompted to). And, yes, I uninstalled and reinstalled and had the same issue. It may also be helpful to note it doesn’t crash directly after install (I could use the Avast interface and even do a quick scan without issue) … The issue only happens after boot. Windows boots almost fully and a few of my tray icons would appear, but the blue screen occurs before the Avast icon appears in the tray. Maybe others haven’t reported the issue because they aren’t using Windows XP SP3 (as I am). I can’t risk my computer becoming unusable (especially from software designed to protect it).
Avast works fine with XP SP3. The only thing I would suggest if you want to re-try avast! is a clean install. This normally fixes nearly all issues that are not known. It is most likely a corrupt install that happened. Here are a few thread examples, though they are not related to your BSOD, they all occured after a program update.
Uninstall Avast by control panel [If you don’t have Avast in control Panel go to #3]
Uninstall in safe mode using Avastclear. [Running Avastclear is normal mode will give a prompt to go into Safe Mode]
Check : Once uninstalled check in device manager>view>show hidden devices if there is anything related to avast with a yellow triangle… if so, uninstall it and reboot.
Install the version you downloaded.
Reboot.
Free: If you have the Free version, register the product for free for a year from the avast! UI.
Paid: If you have a paid license, insert the license key/activation code after the reboot at stage 6.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. It’s better to ask than make a mistake and start over again with the process.
Thanks for informing me of Avast Clear… that may be helpful when I’m willing to try again. It makes sense that after using Avast for more than 4 years, it could become corrupt to the point where it prevents me from booting, but it’s still disappointing. For now, I’m going to stick with Avira at least until the next official Avast release to give the dev team time to fix potentially un-yet-discovered issues.