Was messing around trying to get rid of a newly installed Sykpe icon on the Firefox tool bar and couldn’t, so did a system restore to 3 days earlier. Dunno why 3 days - 1 would have been sufficient. Anyway…
The computer froze on rebooting. ie: When it was about to open up to the desktop after I’d put in the computer password, it stayed black, and eventually I had to switch it off at the wall. Then it wouldn’t reboot properly, so I had to start in safe mode. Eventually, I got it to boot up normally, but found that Avast had stopped and I couldn’t start it again.
I get a notice: “File System shield provider not found.” I tried opening it via the Avast icon on the desktop, and when attempting to start it got this notice: “Unable to start the web shield. Shield unreachable.”
I tried uninstalling it completely using Revo, but noticed when clicking on Start that the Avast icon was still present in Programs. It gave the same results as in the para above. I then downloaded a new version of Avast from Cnet, but it still won’t start, and still gives the notices as per para 2 above.
I’m not feeling panicky that even a fresh install didn’t work, and that my computer is unprotected. What could I have done to cause this, and how do I fix it??
Haaalp PLEASE!
Cheers
Ross
PS: Don’t think this is likely to be relevant, but just in case: I changed my router settings to Open DNS a couple of days back. Browsing and everything else has been as per normal until now.
After uninstalling, or after the repair, have you rebooted?
1_ Reboot.
2_ Uninstall avast. If you see avast listed in “Add/Remove Programs”, but you can’t uninstall it, try to do it under Windows Safe Mode.
3_ Follow http://www.avast.com/uninstall-utility, also under Windows Safe Mode. Run it several times, selecting each version of avast you ever had installed or updated to.
4_ Reboot into Windows Normal Mode and install avast (even better if you “right click → run as administrator” if you can).
5_ Once the installation finishes, reboot.
6_ After the reboot, wait 10 minutes, so avast has time to update the definitions.
7_ Check if avast is working and updated.
Thanks very much ady4um, for getting back with those instructions.
I had already rebooted after both the repair and uninstalling - several times, in fact - but no joy. Weird thing is, after leaving the computer off all day and only just switching it on now in the evening, Avast sent me notices that registration period had expired, and that I needed to re-register. I duly did, and was asked to do so again. So I did again. Then I was able to activate each of the shields etc that had been switched off, one by one.
It seems I’m now fully protected again.
All seems very strange. I’ll run Avast and do a quick scan, and see if that works OK. If it does, do you think any further action is indicated? I’m happy to follow your directions if you think it necessary, of course.
If avast says it is registered now and all shields and updates seem to be OK (avast man GUI → summary), and your scans are working correctly, then all is fine.