Hi, I have a question on the scanning engine of Avast. I have been on a custom built pc since Feburary of last year. I have tried to run full scans many times with the program and it gets hung up on a folder. (don’t remember the name of it I think it is a system folder but anyway.) it is early on in the scan and it just locks up completely. and sometimes shortly after that my mouse will lock up and there is no way to close it down other than powering it down at the tower. I have waited for a few minutes on that scan thinking it will move but it never has. it worked fine on the dell that I had that the hard drive went out on but it doesn’t work on this one. I can do a quick scan fine just not a full scan. is there a work around for this or another way I can approach it? I have really liked the program and have used it for years on the other machine. it just doesn’t work on this one for some reason.
do you get these hang-ups only when doing a full scan with avast?
yes and I am on windows xp
I have seen situations in which the computer hanged up when doing an antivirus scan (it was not avast). the problem was from the tons of software that was installed/uninstalled, it somehow messed things up. i don’t know if this is your case, but just to be sure, you can do an online antivirus scan (bitdefender, kaspersky) to rule out a virus infection.
How exactly does it freeze? Does it happen always approximately at the same place/folder of the scan?
Do you see a hard disk activity (when it freezes)? Is only the program frozen, or the whole computer (possibly with mouse cursor)?
You can go to the program settings and turn on the creation of the report file (with “OK files” to be included as well in the report). This way, you can find out where the scan really stopped (it’s going to be close to the end of the report).
After avast! disappears, check the end of the report file - the “troublesome” file is likely to be close to the end (close in the sense that this particular file will probably not be written in the report, but the previous one will be the last line, so it shouldn’t be hard to guess). They would certainly like to have this file - if it really causes problems to avast! - so that they could fix the problem.
The report file created (if you turned it on in program settings) will be (default location) at \Data\Report\Simple User Interface.txt
Also, let’s say clearly: if during an avast! scan,
- avast! freezes or crashes, it’s probably avast! problem.
- The computer freezes or restarts, it could be e.g. a conflict with some other program, or a hardware problem.
- The computer powers down - it’s probably a hardware problem (e.g. overheating). The scan generates a lot of hard disk activity (and is also CPU intensive), which may increase the temperature of your hardware. I suggest to check the coolers in the case.
- If you get a blue screen, it could have a bug in avast! drivers (but then, there is not a power down).
after a while the screen will freeze but not right away. there is usualy no more hard disk activity other than that of the red light blinking like it usualy does. but there is no activiy other than that. I usualy close everything out when I do a scan because the scan takes about an hour to do but when it sticks like that it does it just within a few minutes of the scan. how far into it I am not real sure. a lot of times there has been no way to check as at times I have had to reformat the system because of an error I have gotten from it.
Do you use ZoneAlarm?
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=38353.msg321609#msg321609
no I haven’t had zone alarm installed in some time. I don’t think it is an avast problem though as it freezes in avira as well when it is going into a rootkit scan.
So are you saying that you have both avast and avira installed at the same time ?
Having two resident scanners installed is not recommended as rather than provide twice the protection it can cause conflicts that could leave you more vulnerable and this possible conflict may be the cause of the freeze…
Or are you saying, that it used to happen when you had avira installed (without avast) ?
I don’t have two scanners installed at the same time and I never have had. I have installed them at different times. and yes, the same thing has happened with that one. if I could find a way to run avast in a full scan mode without it freezing up I would be glad to go back to it. but for right now I am on AVG.
You can go to the program settings and turn on the creation of the report file (with “OK files” to be included as well in the report). This way, you can find out where the scan really stopped (it’s going to be close to the end of the report).
After avast! disappears, check the end of the report file - the “troublesome” file is likely to be close to the end (close in the sense that this particular file will probably not be written in the report, but the previous one will be the last line, so it shouldn’t be hard to guess). They would certainly like to have this file - if it really causes problems to avast! - so that they could fix the problem.
The report file created (if you turned it on in program settings) will be (default location) at \Data\Report\Simple User Interface.txt
something else I just noticed a few days back. I had reinstalled avast after uninstalling avg and tried to do a boot time scan. and it froze in the beginning of it on the file C:\Docume~ or something similar to that that was a txt file in there. so I don’t think it is necessaraly an avast problem :s
The report file is created automatically in \Data\Report\aswBoot.txt
Is there a report in your case?