This morning when I switched on my computer, I got a nice little pop-up saying that my license key was invalid. It gave a message saying that it was valid till 1-Jan-1970 and the present computer date is 2-Oct-2007.
Fair enough, its expired, but there was no warning, just wham, bam, thank you Sam. Rush for credit card.
The free edition at least gives a warning that it will expire in X days.
What version of avast are you using, Home or Pro ?
I think the message date could be a little scr*wed (sorry about getting technical) as the date January 01 1970 is wrong, I doubt avast were issuing keys in 1969 (license is one year for pro, 14 months for home).
Or if pro, where did you get your registration key as a valid till 1-Jan-1970 seems somewhat strange. We have had this before for I believe the same date when the license key came from a keygen and not avast. Periodically theses keys are detected and the VPS updated to block them.
If Home version, just re-register, complete the avast! 4 Home Registration form and you will receive an email from register @ avast.com (without the spaces) with your registration key.
1.1.1970 is ‘first’ date known to libc time functions. Time is stored as a number of seconds from 1.1.1970. If you see such a date, it’s clear that there is zero in time variable. Why is there, that’s the question. (Unreadable / missing license for example).
Thanks for the explanation kubecj, what is the suggested remedy, avast repair, get a new key, etc. ?
What if this happened with the pro version, it might be a little difficult to get a new key if that were the resolution ?
If you were using demo version, it doesn’t contain updates expiration date, but program expires in 2 months together with updates. Opposing to registered home/pro version that has unlimited program, but expiration is given by updates.
Since updater displays only updates expiration, the date wasn’t displayd correctly.
It’s fixed for next release, now the expiration date will be displayed as program expiration for demo.