Exclusions not saved (tried forum suggestions)

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I recently added 2 HDDs to my system. Exclusions will not accept them. The paths were entered correctly; F:* & R:*.

I’ve tried these two suggestions without effect:

Left click the “a” icon, select standard shield, customize button, advanced tab. (the paths DO remain here)

(After entering the paths in Exclusions and hitting OK) right click on tray icon and select Stop On-Access Protection and Exit, now restart your computer

In both cases I’ve entered the paths as shown above and hit the OK buttons where applicable. They still do not show in Settings>Exclusions. What am I missing?

2

Temporarily disable the avast self defense module:

  1. Right click the ‘a’ blue icon on system tray.
  2. Programs settings > Troubleshooting (tab)
  3. Disable self defense module

Then open avast4.ini file into Notepad and add to [Common] section the value Exclude.
Then write down the paths there.
See http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=1647.msg10256#msg10256

Post back if it helped.
I can’t imagine why the settings aren’t being saved. For me, no problems with the Exclusion Lists ???

3

Why stopping the resident protection?
The exclusions should take effect immediatelly. I suggest to skip that “step”.

4

Sorry but avast is confusing you. The exclusions entered in the Standard Shield panel are not shown in the Program Settings > Exclusions panel because …

There are two different exclusion functions in avast.

There is one set of exclusions for the Standard Shield (on access protection) which is managed via the Standard Shield Panel.

There is a separate set of exclusions for the “On Demand” scanners that is shown in and managed by the Settings > Exclusion panel.

You need to decide when you want these disks excluded, if from both On Access and On Demand then you must enter them in both lists.

5

Thanks Tech, that worked. And Igor, you were right too.

Alanrf, I understand the dif. Trying to present all actions taken, just in case.

Anyone have an idea why?
I’d like to not have to remember what I did in case something similar happens in the future (old brain, faulty memory).

(edit) I should add that although I’m new to the forum, I’ve used Avast Home for nearly a year and already had 2 entries in the Exclusions list that were unaffected. What ever happened, it was fairly recent.

6

I bet on self-defense module…

If you temporarily disable the avast self defense module:

  1. Right click the ‘a’ blue icon on system tray.
  2. Programs settings > Troubleshooting (tab)
  3. Disable self defense module
    Can you add the exception?
7

Sorry Tech. That made no difference.
Even though you did solve the problem for now, that elusive “why” is making me a little nuts (OCD?)

8

We should probably ask which version of avast are you using.

I am testing with the current beta version but having no problem adding F:* and R:* to the exclusion list and it staying there (in Program Settings > Exclusions) even though I do not have an R: drive.

By the the way is it the same with both manual add and the “Browse” option?

9

Thanks for the continued interest alanrf. :slight_smile:

Version 4.8 Home. XPSP2

Yeah. Sorry again. Trying both manual add and browse was one of the first things I thought of.

And again, before anyone wonders, I’ve been conscientious about the OK button too.

10

Sorry to persist … can you add the avast build number to the 4.8 ?

11

My fault. 4.8.1169

12

Have you tried to manually add the exclude rule in the “avast4.ini” file?
In mine it looks like “Exclude=C:[path]*”, inside the section “[Common]”.

13

Thanks for getting involved LorenzoC but, if you go back a few replies, you will see that that’s how I was able to make the changes as per Tech’s advice.

Now I’m just trying to find out why the normal way still doesn’t work.

14

Can you try if the latest beta version solves this?
Download the updater (http://files.avast.com/files/beta/aswbeta.exe) and run it or go here for more information.

15

I will Tech. It may take a while for me to do this and get back to you.

16

We’ll be here… today or tomorrow :wink:

17

d4l3d,

I have XP-Home, SP2 with all current updates on a PC with 2 hard drives (4 NTFS partitions - C:,D:,E:,F) and I’m using Avast! 4.8.1192 with VPS 080510-0. For the purpose of the test I manually entered exclusions for D:*, E:* and F:* in the Standard shield\advanced - locations not scanned, and also in the Program Settings\Exclusions using both manual add and browse methods. In all cases the settings remained after a reboot. When I subseqently did a right click, Start Avast! Antivirus and then selected local hard disks, all partitions were still shown in the selected paths, however only the C: partition was scanned. I did not disable the self defense module to do these tests.

18

The selection of the local disks will select all local disks, but on the scan the Exclusions will come into effect as you have found.

You shouldn’t need to disable self-defence to do the tests you mention as you weren’t directly editing the avast4.ini file, the avast interface (Program Settings, Exclusions) was so the self-defence shouldn’t object.

19

Yes, thanks David, that is the reason I did not (as I said in my post) disable the protection, but the point is worth noting by other readers.

20

olddog has essentially confirmed the testing with the same avast version and conditions that I reported earlier in the thread. It is good to get confirmation that we are getting the same results.

However, for the problem reported by d4l3d we either need someone with version 4.8.1169 to repeat the tests or for d4l3d to be convinced to try the latest beta version of avast and repeat the attempts to update the exclusion list.