Since installing Avast 4 Home, I can’t play music files in my major players. I’m running Windows 98 and there are no errors in Device Manager on my hardware.
Windows system files play fine (start-up, shut-down, etc.).
Voyetra Audio Station plays CD’s fine.
I have not been able to play WAV, Midi, or Mp3 files in RealPlayer 10, Windows Media Player 7.1, JetAudio, or MusicMatch Jukebox. They all bring up the music file information (title, length) but won’t play the file. They are all blocked. When I open Avast it shows that particular player or the last music file I tried to play in that player as the last file scanned. When I shut down Avast, they all play. I tried moving the Standard Shield setting from High to Normal, but they still won’t play.
What do I have to do to get Avast to allow these files to play?
There are two errors in the log file from a system scan I ran two days ago after the initial install. It reads:
12/3/04 5:14:26 PM é |Ì | 4294607903 ODBC function CREATE TABLE LocalObjects (Id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, Type INTEGER, Label VARCHAR(50), Comment VARCHAR(255), CreationTime INTEGER, Creator INTEGER); failed. Error description: [Microsoft][ODBC Microsoft Access Driver] Table ‘LocalObjects’ already exists…
12/3/04 5:14:30 PM é |Ì | 4294854499 During the parsing of C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA\avast4.xml XML document, following error occurred: C.
Guess what? This morning I booted up and my music files were playing. I have no idea why. I changed nothing. Yesterday evening I rebooted quite a few times and the only times the music players played music was when I booted up without Avast auto starting.
I will continue to check and if they start hanging again, I will do as you suggested above.
Do you have avast! sounds on or off? If on - does it help if you disable all avast! sounds from the program options? (if the problem appers again, I mean)
As a matter of fact, my music files weren’t playing again today when I turned the computer on. I checked sounds in Avast and they were enabled. I disabled them, but still could not play music files. I rebooted and the music files played. I’ll post again if my music files cut out again while Avast sounds are disabled.
There have been no new event messages in Windows 98’s Msievent.log file since before I installed Avast. The only new event notices in Avast are concerning Virus Database updates.
I’m afraid DrWatson won’t tell us much unless a real crash occurs
It may be some kind of conflict or bad initialization of sound libraries. I don’t know if it has any relevance, but avast! loads WINMM library at the startup (so that it can play sounds later). It may initialize the sound subsystem(?)… and maybe the particular hardware doesn’t like initializing so early (for example, it may need its own applications to load first)… don’t know, it’s just a theory.
Eddy, as far I know, Startup Delayer does not control Services, only startup items (Registry and Folder). I think the problem - if any - will be on the concomitant startup of avast services and other applications :
I would say, give the delayer a try. If it doesn’t solve it, just remove it. No harm done (if everything works like expected ofcourse and I don’t see why it wouldn’t)
I’m running a 5-year old Dell system, Windows 98, with an nVidia TNT 16mb sound card. No problems until now. No problems in Device Manager. System sounds are playing.
It’s a hit and miss thing. One time when I boot up the music players play with no problem for the whole session. The next time I boot up they might not. Right now they are not.
I downloaded the delayer and will give it a try. I have a list of things in start-up such as Pop-up Stopper, ACS95 surround speaker system, MS Intellitype Pro keyboard, Logitech wireless mouse, Tweak UI, ZoneAlarm and Avast. Any particular order? How far down the process should I put ZoneAlarm and Avast?
Might be totally off-base with this, but a 5 yr old system might be suffering from chip and card creep (especially with Dell cutting corners on system cooling)
Might not an internal clean up, remove and re-seat pci cards etc be helpful?
