PapyNet,

I used to have this same problem. For my case, on top of that problem that you’ve described, the auto-update function also failed, although manual update works perfectly.

I found out, through pure luck, that the cause of my problem is because my “system environment variables” for ‘TEMP’ & ‘TMP’ are pointing to an invalid directory.

I used to have a RAMDISK pointing to Z:, and thus, I defined the following “system variables”:

TEMP = Z:
TMP = Z:\

And with that, I installed Avast, and Avast was working fine for a long time, until I decided to remove my RAMDISK, and forget to re-define these 2 variables to point to a new temp-directory. As a result, Avast started to exhibit those behaviours that I described above. After I re-defined the 2 variables to point to a proper and valid directory (e.g. C:\temp), and rebooted my PC, Avast immediately reverted back to it’s normal mode and did everything correctly. I’m a happy man now. :slight_smile:

Here’s how you can check whether your environment variables are correctly defined:

  1. Do a mouse-right-click on ‘My Computer’ icon, and select ‘Properties’.
  2. A ‘System Properties’ window will pop-up.
  3. Click on ‘Advanced’ tab.
  4. At the bottom of the window, click on ‘Environment Variables’ button.
  5. Another window will pop-up, displaying 2 sections – User vs System
  6. Check both sections for the variables 'TEMP and ‘TMP’.
  7. Change them to point to a valid directory.
  8. Reboot PC.
  9. See if Avast is working fine now.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Phi.