Hi there,
I seem to have an issue with my system since I upgraded to Avast 5.0 Pro from 4.8.
I run Vista Business on a Dell 630.
I followed the instructions and successfully updated to 5.0.545. However, when I rebooted the system, almost every application did not work correctly, including Windows Explorer, or could not be found. After several reboots (most due to blue screens), I have many applications back, but several ceased to even start and the system is unstable (frequent crashes).
Here are a few of the application not working any longer:
Apoint.exe (dll launcher fails on startup)
Trillian (accounts are gone: settings, history, ini files …)
Portable applications: PSNotes fails to launch; FreeCommander lost the ini file
Acrobat 7 Professional does not launch or crashes the system
Odd behaviour: exec path gets corrupted (Win can’t find applications); I often loose the screen (goes black, but I have the mouse) before system crashes
The system is always “very busy” with a resident appl (TeaTimer: this had never caused any problems with 4.8 ) taking ~ 50% CPU time and Explorer taking most of the rest
I’m positive Avast upgrade is the only modification to the system lately (no HW or Windows or application updates).
[/list]
On the positive side, Firefox seems OK and Thunderbird seems to work fine after excludiing SSL on POP accounts (no issues with IMAP, apparently).
Uninstall avast from Control Panel (if possible). If, for any reason, you can’t run it, try booting in Safe Mode and doing it from there. Anyway, boot after that.
Run the avast! Uninstall Utility saved on 1. If, for any reason, you can’t run it, try booting in Safe Mode and doing it from there. Anyway, boot after you’ve run it.
Install avast! using the setup saved on 2. Boot.
Register your free copy or add the license key for Pro.
Yes, Avast 4.8 Pro reported the system clean before upgrading.
And yes, I tried a quick system scan after upgrading that reported no threats either.
I’ll proceed with the uninstall/install procedure asap and will post back the result.
However, I wonder if it’s just something going wrong with Avast causing the system to malfunction or if there has indeed been some corruption (which could be difficult to quantify)? Portable apps, for instance, have no tentacles around the system: only by tampering with the its files can you corrupt an application. How could FreeCommander loose its ini file? Are my PSnotes still there, somewhere? Are my Trillian accounts just inaccessible or are they gone for good?
I might be better off restoring my last system backup …
I had 4.8 installed before upgrading (I’m a long time customer) which never flagged anything.
I ran a full disk check with Avast5 and with Spybot S&D after upgrading: both found nothing.
I ran Avast at boot time which found nothing as well.
My problems might look malaware doing, but they should not (I’d better ask my money back otherwise ??? )
I also tried a few things like disabling the resident Tea Timer, running different applications, … nothing! The consistent pattern is that, after a while, resources (including RAM which goes up to 90% even if there is basically nothing running) are eaten up and the system is unable to even save open files. Can’t launch the task manager; cannot even shut down.
I uninstalled Avast5 in Safe Mode:
PSNotes now launches, but all my notes are gone
I then rebooted:
Apoint.exe does not start (error message about missiing stuff)
PSNotes does not start (“need to close because of an error”)
Since Avast is not even installed at this point, I suppose the first installation really screwed my system.
However, the system has been up and running for over 30’ now; then Avast must indeed be involved in the system instability.
Would it be worth trying to revert to an earlier safe restore point before resorting to restore a system backup? Even if I went that way, there is no way to tell upfront if the same issue(s) will show again, is there?
I’ve been using 4.8 Pro for two years and never noticed any issues with TeaTimer (the resident part of Spybot). In any case, it is now disabled.
Still, after running a full day without Avast 5.0 (and without any other Anti Virus for that matter), I’m positive Avast was eventually and consistently crashing my system. I believe it has been also the cause of the initial corruption of the system.
A faulty initial installation is my only (slim) hope. I will try to reinstall but the system is already corrupted. If crashes start again after reinstalling I suppose the conclusion is that there is something incompatible with my system. Not sure what to do then … one thing at a time.
There are issues with the 5.0 version. (Disabeling it is not enough, you have to uninstall Spybot…!)
You shouldn’t run without any AV…!!
Please remove any prior installed AVs. Eventually you’ll need an uninstall utility for that. (for avast it’s here: http://www.avast.com/uninstall-utility)
Really, TeaTimer and Spybot are tools of the oldies… Nothing that useful anymore and bad (horrible) detection rates.
I’ll change them for MBAM and WinPatrol (both the free version).
Then follow steps on my #1 post.
I’ve never used TeaTimer, but I am having no problems with full immunizations of SpyBot Search & Destroy and SpywareBlaster. SpywareBlaster was recently updated to 4.3. SpyBot S&D has promised a major update to version 2 for a long while now, but not even a public beta yet.
Neither SpyBot Search & Destroy, Malwarebytes Free, SuperAntiSpyware Free, nor Avast 5 Free has ever found anything on this machine except one false positive(confirmed).
TeaTimer, if alerts are answered incorrectly, will cause problems with any software installs when required system changes aren’t allowed.
Thanks everyone for comments and suggestions about Spybot. SBS&D has served me well so far, but if this was the problem, I would gladly give up with it. This is beside the point though.
In any case, Asyn, could you please elaborate?
If TeaTimer and Spybot are not running, how can they possibly interfere with Avast so to crash my system?
What are the issues with Avast you refer to?
Tech and all:
I’ve uninstalled Avast (with aswClean in Safe mode) and
ran for a couple of days without issues (other than those due to the stuff I could not recover yet);
Downloaded and installed Avast 5.0 (English only this time) from scratch
Immediately experienced the same issues.
I believe this proves there are issues with something installed on my system. As per a previous post, in fact, I ran a couple of full scans which showed nothing. If would be pretty bad if it was some malaware Avast cannot detect!
Any suggestions? This is the worst case scenario in my mind and I ran out of options.
Some users reported problems about avast 5 together with spybot.
Disabeling it did not solve their problems, deinstalling did.
So, did your run Mbam yet…?
asyn
I suppose your point is to make sure the system is clean … otherwise why should I used a Mbam when I have payed for Avast?
At any rate, Mbam fast scan reports a setup.exe infected by Rogue.Installer. This had been flagged as a false positive of Mban long time ago which would be consistent with Avast not reporting it. Should I trust Mbam or Avast?
Mbam full scan (“/developer”) is still running: let’s wait for the results.
And whatever the results are, I wonder what to do next: there could be slightly different viewpoints (Mbam finds threats not found by Avast or Mbam reports false positives), but basic scenario is that Avast 5.0 seems incompatible with my system.
