Internal Error Message

Avast Mac Security
1

I am getting a periodic internal error message which tells me more info may be available if I open Avast or check the system logs. Opening Avast tells me nothing and the only error I noticed in the Console was the peer was reset.

Any thoughts? I never had this issue until I had restored my HD.

2

Hallo,
at least when you start the gui manually, you will be prompted to log as administrator, and the issue would be fixed - is this true?
Then, after reboot, the fixed state shouldn’t be broken again - if so, something (some backup software?) probably modifies avast’s internal appsupport data.
Also, please, when the “internal error” pop-up is present, could you do, in terminal, this command: ps -lax | grep vast … and send us the output?

As a last resort, you can uninstall avast from menubar (all important parts would be wiped by this step), and then install it again from the dmg. This would solve any glitches, possibly introduced by the backup-software.

Regards,
pc

3

I had restored some things from a time machine backup which may be when this all started. A few days ago Avast brought up a message saying it needed to repair itself. asked for my password and so far I haven’t seen the internal error message. I’m going to give it a few days before marking this as solved because it was periodic.

4

well, I ended up uninstalling and reinstalling Avast and rebooting and left my computer long enough for the screen to sleep and when I woke it it had the internal error message so I ran the command in the terminal.

Louiss-iMac-2:~ Louis$ ps -lax | grep avast
    0    63     1     4004   0  31  0  2481596   2732 -      Ss                  0 ??         0:12.87 /Library/Application Support/Avast/proxy/com.avast.proxy -n -c /Library/Application Support/Avast/config/com.avast.proxy.conf
    0    65     1     4004   0  33  0  2516772   3192 -      Ss                  0 ??         0:01.92 /Library/Application Support/Avast/fileshield/com.avast.fileshield
  502   332   284     4004   0  49  0 19538652  33732 -      S                   0 ??         0:01.99 /Library/Application Support/Avast/com.avast.helper.app/Contents/MacOS/com.avast.helper
    0  5638     1     4000   0  31  0   618004   4404 -      Ss                  0 ??         0:00.93 /Library/Application Support/Avast/files/vps/com.avast.MacAvast.MAD -u /Library/Application Support/Avast/master -os -od -oa -ou0 -om0666 -u /Library/Application Support/Avast/socket.file -oa -ou0 -om0600 -u /Library/Application Support/Avast/socket.web -oa -ou0 -om0600 -u /Library/Application Support/Avast/socket.mail -oa -ou0 -om0600 -d /Library/Application Support/Avast/files/vps -w /tmp -l /Library/Application Support/Avast/config/license.dat -m 0x00000002 -s /var/log/avastdaemon.log -e3600 -al/tmp/avastdownload.log -hs10000 -hf/Library/Application Support/Avast/config/.avast_history -bk -n -v -ad360 -ar/Library/Application Support/Avast/com.avast.registration.app/Contents/MacOS/com.avast.registration
    0  5639  5638        0   0  31  0   808612  49836 -      S                   0 ??         0:01.15 /Library/Application Support/Avast/files/vps/com.avast.MacAvast.MAD -u /Library/Application Support/Avast/master -os -od -oa -ou0 -om0666 -u /Library/Application Support/Avast/socket.file -oa -ou0 -om0600 -u /Library/Application Support/Avast/socket.web -oa -ou0 -om0600 -u /Library/Application Support/Avast/socket.mail -oa -ou0 -om0600 -d /Library/Application Support/Avast/files/vps -w /tmp -l /Library/Application Support/Avast/config/license.dat -m 0x00000002 -s /var/log/avastdaemon.log -e3600 -al/tmp/avastdownload.log -hs10000 -hf/Library/Application Support/Avast/config/.avast_history -bk -n -v -ad360 -ar/Library/Application Support/Avast/com.avast.registration.app/Contents/MacOS/com.avast.registration
  502  5679  5672     4006   0  31  0  2439184   2140 -      S+                  0 ttys000    0:00.01 grep avast
Louiss-iMac-2:~ Louis$
5

Well, it seems that all the processes are properly up and running. So i suspect the wake-after-sleep mechanism to just take too much time to get scanning process back into life, and some client, maybe proxy, reported this as an “internal delay” - I assume that at the moment when this log was acquired, everything was functional and you were able to scan. So, when this hypothesis is correct (please, confirm), we should probably increase the timeout in the client.

regards,
pc

6

I actually don’t scan anything. the error happens when it updates the definitions. I think it may be caused by VirtualBox because the only time I really notice it is when I run Linux guests in VirtualBox which are using bridged networking. It is very periodic so it’s hard to tell but I think VB may be the cause.

7

Updating definitions means that the new definitions must be verified/validated first - and this takes some cpu cycles for few seconds. But, new definitions aren’t accepted until this task finishes, so there’s no “waiting window” that might be the cause of this internal error even under high load - but still, could you post a top utility output, taken when your VB session runs?

regards,
pc

8

what I meant was, first I get the normal dialog notification that the definitions have been updated, right after that I get the internal error notification. I don’t know what you mean by “a top utility output”. if you could clarify? thanks.

9

Hallo, it’s standard unix utility, just open terminal and enter “top”. Also, relevant part of /var/log/system.log might clarify what’s happening when VB runs.

regards,
pc

10

here’s the Top output

Last login: Sat Jan 5 07:05:02 on ttys000
Louiss-iMac-2:~ Louis$ top

Processes: 115 total, 5 running, 3 stuck, 107 sleeping, 594 threads 07:11:34
Load Avg: 0.67, 0.78, 0.65 CPU usage: 0.68% user, 2.97% sys, 96.33% idle
SharedLibs: 256K resident, 0B data, 0B linkedit.
MemRegions: 61580 total, 2677M resident, 0B private, 509M shared.
PhysMem: 2758M wired, 1182M active, 1984M inactive, 5923M used, 6360M free.
VM: 306G vsize, 1025M framework vsize, 1407273(0) pageins, 929824(0) pageouts.
Networks: packets: 11721570/18G in, 4081465/3622M out.
Disks: 522885/26G read, 701516/46G written.

PID COMMAND %CPU TIME #TH #WQ #PORT #MREG RPRVT RSHRD RSIZE
25295 top 8.3 00:00.82 1/1 0 24 177 1880K+ 9192K 4476K+
25292 bash 0.0 00:00.00 1 0 21 137 760K 4092K 2980K
25291 login 0.0 00:00.07 2 1 33 579 9880K 75M 19M
25287 mdworker 0.0 00:00.05 3 1 55 613 10M 82M 21M
25284 mdworker 0.0 00:00.08 3 1 55 618 11M 88M 22M
25222 plugin-conta 0.2 00:00.62 9 1 215 1082 25M 171M 51M
25216 firefox 0.1 00:16.65 29 3 203 2847 269M 185M 390M
25206 mdworker 0.0 00:00.29 5 2 58 633 17M 82M 30M
25200 Terminal 0.8 00:03.46 8 4 145 930 22M 129M 52M
25174 cfprefsd 0.0 00:00.01 2 2 29 176 1300K 8388K 3896K
25173 distnoted 0.0 00:00.01 2 1 38 185 1536K 9496K 4980K
25169 launchd 0.0 00:00.01 2 0 49 154 740K 4112K 2524K
25148 helpd 0.0 00:00.02 2 1 42 421 4368K 42M 10M
25147 VirtualBoxVM 12.0 03:40.17 24/1 1 272 1912 1623M 114M 1683M

I don’t know what the relevant log info would be. When I looked before the only thing I found was in the error log for Avast and all it said was the peer was reset or timed out.

11

whatever is causing this which seems to be related to VirtualBox, the error stops when I open Avast and close it again. it happens so rarely if it’s not fixed it’s not a big deal.

12

I just got the internal error message without VirtualBox running so I suppose it’s not VirtualBox after all. It’s been days since I had the error and nothing has changed on my system.