Cant sign-in to Avast account form the Avast UI

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hi,

I have searched the forum before posting but cannot find a relevant answer so sorry if this has been covered elsewhere :

I recently became aware that one of the computers I monitor through my Avast account had stopped reporting its status. This PC is in fact my elderly father’s computer for whom I look after house keeping stuff such as updating, etc, so I use my account.

When I investigated further, this had happened some time ago (November 2015), but I just hadn’t noticed.

When I next visited my father, I went through the Avast UI on his computer and noticed it wasnt signed-in so I tried to sign-in.

When I try to sign-in, after several seconds I get a message telling me something along the lines “media is unavailable, try again later”.

Despite many attempts, on that visit and several otrhers, I keep getting the same result.

I have tried repairing Avast, and it is the latest version, but it still gives the same message.

My father’s PC is running Vista, all updates applied.

Any ideas ?

Thanks.

2

The login through the UI is bugged for about a year.
For many it is not working.
There are already many posts about it on this webboard.
Seems that avast has this on the bottom of their to do list >:(

A repair of that installation is perhaps solving the problem about the reporting.
Make sure the latest version is installed.

3

Thanks Eddy,

The repair made no difference to the reporting, in fact it made no difference at all !

Now I know the UI is a known issue I wont worry too much about it. I may try a re-install sometime.

Appologies for not finding the other posts - my search criteria must have been wrong. If anybody can point me at them I would appreciate it as they may include actions I havent tried yet.

Thanks again.

4

The search option in this webboard software isn’t exactly great.
Personally I use Google to search here.
e.g: keyword1 keyword2 site:forum.avast.com

5

Does he have a hosts file? That was an issue a few months ago, as one of the entries blocked access to one of the urls that is checked for my.avast.com login thru the AvastUI. Temporarily remove or rename hosts and attempt access again thru the AvastUI.

6

I have nothing blocked in my host files (several systems) when it comes to avast and for over a year the problem exists on all systems.

7

Hi Gopher John,

Thanks for taking the time to rely.

The honest answer is I dont know whether he has a hosts file or not.

Can you give me some idea how to check - his PC is running Vista, he uses Firefox browser.

Hello again Eddy,

Sounds like this isnt going to be the issue but if I know where to look it might be worth a try - I dont know what changed last November to start the problem in the first place, I have the same version of Avast running on two other XP PCs, one Win 7 laptop plus one Win 10 PC and they all work just fine ! ???

Thanks again.

8

No problems connecting via the AvastUI. The hosts file was what was causing my problems. Temporarily renaming it so it wouldn’t be used for lookup allowed login on my 3 Win 7 machines. Once logged in, the hosts file was reinstated and I can still access it on all 3 machines. Perhaps some 3rd party security program is causing problems for some people, or some configurations only.

9

On WinXP and Win7, the path is C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc . On Vista, I’m not sure as I never had Vista.

10

Thanks guys :slight_smile:

I will be visiting my father next week so will give this a try.

If that doesnt work, I’ll wait for the buggy UI to be fixed but I wont hold my breath while I’m waiting :wink:

Cheers.

11

I generally don’t have a problem connecting to the my.avast.com account from the UI (just tried it). Basically mine connects automatically, once I have connected to the my.avast.com site I leave it connected. I don’t log out from it or the avast forums, so when I open the avastUI I see my User Name displayed in the top right corner.

Presumably your father doesn’t see his user/screen/display name.

I also prefer logging in directly to the my.avast.com account from my browser (not the UI), I do this because the layout is better in the browser rather than the restricted size of the UI window.

12

Hello DavidR and thanks for the reply.

I didnt explicitly say in my intial post but my father doesnt have his own account (and therefore his own user name/display name) I use my account on his PC to sign-in.

However, you have made me think about a possible solution.

I have never signed in to my account using a browser on his PC as I had never seen the need before - the only reason his machine is signed-in to my account is in order that I can use the Status functionality in the Avast UI to remotely keep an eye on his machine, so I have always signed-in to his PC using the UI.

So next time I visit him, I will sign-in to the Avast Account web page on his PC using the browser and then see if the Avast UI shows signed-in.

To be honest, I had read on other posts about peolpe not bothering with UI sign-in and just signing-in on the browser page but I hadnt understood how this worked. Your reply gave me a lightbulb moment - thanks :slight_smile:

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You’re welcome.

14

http://screencast-o-matic.com/screenshots/u/Lh/1463358216632-88634.png

15

In case anybody stumbles on this topic while searching for the same problem:

In the end, I eventually managed to fix the issue by completely uninstall Avast and then re-installing it.

Using the updater made no difference - each time it updated, the non-functioning UI remained.

16

Thanks for taking the time to report on the solution that worked for you. It nicely concludes the topic and may help others.