Log Viewer won't display

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I recently bought a new Dell XPS 630. It has Windows XP Service Pack 2 installed as the OS. I installed Avast right away, and I’ve noticed that I can’t use the Log Viewer function with Avast. When I try, the first time around, the little Windows hour class icon comes up for a few seconds then disappears and the log doesn’t appear. If I retry the Log Viewer function or scroll through the different options, a blue bar like “AVS Update” gets stuck on my screen until I reboot. I’ve reinstalled Avast and tried to manually execute the Log Viewer executable file, and it still doesn’t work. Any ideas as to what is going on?

When I installed a bunch of software on my new computer, there was one disk in which the executable setup file would do something similar to what the Avast Log Viewer would do. It would just show the Windows hour glass icon, then nothing would happen, so I couldn’t install that software. I tried the disk on my laptop with Windows XP SP2, and it worked fine, so I know it’s not the disk.

I’m getting a bit concerned that something might be wrong here if two programs are acting strange.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

2

Also, another bit of information.

When I attempt to start the Log Viewer, ashLogV.exe does appear under the “processes” when I look at Windows Task Manager.

Also, I am using Windows XP Pro SP2.

I believe my other computers were Windows XP Home SP2.

3

richteratmosphere,

Dell computers are usually supplied with a Security suite (the recent new ones I have seen have come with McAfee). What did yours come with, and did you uninstall any Antivrus software before your installed Avast.

If it was McAffee, then it generally doesn’t uninstall easily. This link to a post from Tech may help.
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=36813.msg309714#msg309714

You should note that you may need to uninstall Avast before uninstalling the old antivirus.

4

I also brought this up a few months ago, it happened just like you said and I had to close some programs and wait a while before it appeared on screen even though it was visible under processes

5

Thank you guys for the replies so far. It did come installed with McAfee. I installed Avast before uninstalling McAfee. I’ll look into that further and report back.

6

OK, so here’s a summary of what I’ve done so far.

Right after I set up my new Dell, I installed Avast and Zone Alarm.

Then, I removed McAfee through the add/remove programs options on Windows XP.

I couldn’t see the Avast Log Viewer, so I asked for help here.

I removed Avast.

I tried some of the McAfee removal programs that were referenced in this link.

I reinstalled Avast, and the Log Viewer still wouldn’t work.

I removed Avast.

I reinstalled McAfee Suite with the disk that came with my Dell.

McAfee prompted me to remove Zone Alarm, so I removed Zone Alarm.

I used the McAfee removal program that was linked in this thread.

I downloaded one of the registry clean up tools referenced in a link on this thread called Wise Registry Cleaner.

I reinstalled Avast, and the Log Viewer still doesn’t work, no matter how long I wait for it to appear on my screen.

Any other suggestions? I am obsessed with this problem.

???

Thank you for your help.

7

If you try to direct run ashLogV.exe from avast folder, will it open?
Are all other avast functions working?

Can you try to repair your installation?
Go to Control Panel > Add/Remove programs > avast! antivirus > Remove. Then choose Repair function in the popup window (Repair).

8

If I try to directly run ashLogV.exe, it doesn’t open.

As far as I know, the other avast functions are working.

I did try to repair the installation multiple times, and the problem persists.

The plot has thickened, as a friend of mine described a solution to fix a similar problem that I was having with an Adobe software. When I clicked on the setup executable file for the Adobe disk, the Windows XP hour glass icon would come on and the installation would not occur, similar to the problem with the Avast log not coming up.

It was suggested that I create a new Windows XP account and try installing the Adobe program under the new account as there might be some kind of registry corruption / user account problem with the primary account.

When I did try to install the Adobe program under the new account, the disk was recognized and the installation was successful.

So under the new account, I had Avast running and I tried to open the Log Viewer and it worked!

However, something strange is still happening, because if I reboot Windows and log in to the second account and try to view the Avast Log Viewer, it will not show. If I log off of that second account and go back to my first account, I can view the log.

Also, if I reboot and log in as my first account and try to view the log, it won’t show. If I log off and login under the second account, I can view the log.

So, it appears that I cannot view the log under whichever account I login to at the reboot and only when I logoff and switch to the other account.

This seems very strange to me. I am not really familiar with registries and multiple user accounts, so I am now totally confused.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I might be able to solve this problem?

Once again, I am very appreciate of all of the help I’ve been receiving here.

Thanks for your time!

:slight_smile:

9

Hmmm… maybe a registry corruption…
Can’t you try to stay just with the new account you’ve just created?
Maybe you can move to it the Favorites, your documents, email accounts…
I know… quite a lot of work, but I can’t imagine which registry key is bringing this problem…

10

That didn’t seem to solve the problem, because when I boot with the new account, the log doesn’t show. It only shows if I logoff and login to the other account.

So, it doesn’t seem to matter which account I log into first, the log is only viewable if I login to another account.

Hopefully that makes sense.

Any further suggestions?

11

I’m empty… hope the programmers could drop some light here…

12

Okay, so just to be sure, I deleted my original profile and created an entirely new profile. I uninstalled Avast, reinstalled it, moved over all of my documents from my old profile, re-did all of my settings, and under the new profile, the avast log viewer still does not work.

Anyone, programmers or otherwise, please help!

???

13

Does it help if you disable avast! self-defense? (avast! settings / Troubleshooting page)
If not, please try to create a dump of the ashLogV.exe process - with avast! self-defense still disabled. So, start the log viewer in the account where it doesn’t work, make sure the process is visible in the Task Manager, and create the dump - as described e.g. here (just use ashLogV.exe, instead of ashSimpl.exe mentioned there).

14

Igor,

I disabled avast! self defense and the Log Viewer still didn’t work.

I created a dump of the ashLogV.exe with the self defense disabled using the hangrep.exe file.

I did notice that when I ran hangrep.exe, it said that ashLogV.exe was “not responding (no big surprise).”

Thanks for looking into this Igor. It’s been driving me crazy all weekend.

I’ll be eager to check for an update from you when I return from work today.

:slight_smile:

15

Igor,

I uploaded the .dmp file to the FTP site too.

Thanks again!

:slight_smile:

16

Igor,

I also noticed that when I run hangrep.exe, nTuneService.exe also has a status of “Not Responding.” All of the other Image Names have a status of “Ok.” Not sure if that’s relevant to the problem. When I try to save the .dmp file for nTuneService.exe, I get an error code that says, “Failed. Failure Code: 13.” It ends up being a 0 KB .dmp file.

Do you think the non-responsive nTuneService.exe file is also part of the problem?

17

Igor or any other techs / programers,

I noticed that if I change the Avast “appearance” settings to disable “show avast tray icon” and reboot, the avast tray icons are removed from the tray.

If after reboot, I go to the Windows start menu → all programs → avast, on the first click, avast does not open (much like when I try to run the log viewer when avast is set to show icons in the tray).

If I try to start avast the second time, it will open. Then, I can view the log (once again, this is when avast is set so that it is not viewable in the tray). However, having avast set up this way causes options from the windows start menu to “stay stuck” on my screen, like the “Dell Support Center” shows on this cropped JPEG of my screen:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v689/richteratmosphere/avastscreen.jpg

Also, when I run hangrep.exe with avast removed from the tray, ashLogV.exe works, but ashSimpl.exe shows as “Not Responding.”

I keep on getting error messages with Filezilla when I try to upload the ashSimpl.exe.dmp file to ftp://ftp.avast.com/incoming, so I uploaded it via sendspace:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/vzd6l3

I hope this works for you.

Also, did you receive the ashLogV.exe.dmp file that I uploaded to your FTP site earlier this week? I thought that it was a successful upload, but maybe I experienced uploading errors like I did this morning and you didn’t get it.

I’m uploading it now via sendspace:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/8qjrmc

Any help clarifying what the problem is that I’m experiencing and a solution to have avast work properly would be very much appreciated.

18

Well, personally I don’t see anything suspicious in the dumps… but, what you are saying about the menu leftovers, it reminds me of an older problem there was with Kerio firewall.

Please try the following:

  1. Start Notepad and open the file \Data\avast4.ini
  2. Find the section [Common]
  3. Add the following line into that section (at the end, beginning… wherever):
    SunbeltKPFHack=2
  4. Save the changes; avast! self-defense might pop up with a message about avast4.ini being changed, so confirm that

Does it help?

19

Igor,

I added the SunbeltKPFHack=2 line to the ini file, and rebooted…

and now I can view the log and there isn’t that “menu leftover” problem happening either!

:slight_smile:

I’ve never had Kerio firewall on my computer. My computer initially came with McAfee Security Center pre-installed and I have had Zone Alarm on it (currently removed whilst playing around with this log viewer problem).

I really appreciate the help!

:slight_smile:

20

I guess it doesn’t have to be Kerio, some other tools might have a similar problem.

The thing is that something installed system wide hooks, intercepting some windows messages. avast! (or rather a 3rd party library used in avast!) uses similar hooks (but just local, within the avast! process only) to create visually “enhanced” menus.
This other tool (the one with the global hook) interferes with this - and as a result, pieces of the menus are sometimes left on the screen, and some GUI operations seem to be blocked, so that the corresponding application window doesn’t show at all.
That .ini option you added disables the visual enhancement of the menus in avast! completely, which “solves” the problem (but just for avast! - I’m not saying other programs may not still be affected).

I must say I don’t know what program may cause this; in the case of Kerio, I think (but I’m really not sure, it was quite a long time ago) it was its aggressive behavior blocker that caused this behavior.