First: if I’m not wrong, you won’t be able to update. Run the service manually if this occur. Maybe the service is just needed for automatic update. If this is true, never, mind let the service manual but do not forget to manual update avast.

Second: if the services are manual, you must ‘start’ them to use on-access protection. I could be wrong as I never thought doing this with avast. How did it detect eicar virus: on-demand (manual scanning) or on-access (downloading the file for instance)?