Memory consumption with ashserv.exe

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

In recent a strange problem occurred.
When my computer is running for a few hours, my system uses all of the available memory - and as a result the computer becomes practically unusable. It took me 30min just to close the open programs. After doing that my system still used more than 300MB of available memory. The situation came under control when i killed the process ashserv.exe. I have no clue why this started to happen, as I am using avast Pro for a couple of months and had no problems until now. ??? I have WinXP Pro with 512MB of RAM installed.

Thank you for your ideas.
Jernej

2

do you have the latest beta version?
If not I suggest you upgrade and see if the problem is solved.

3

Very interesting indeed.
Jernej, did it have any appearent cause? Is the problem reproducible?

4

One possibility is that he is using all packers for On-Access and he encountered ISO image while he was browsing folders. ISO images just kill avast! if it tries to scan them… (massive disk trashing and enormous memory usage)

5

I think it’s not very likely :slight_smile:

Anyway, RejZoR, we have never been able to reproduce this behavior (and I tried, even with some files linked from the forum). Is it reproducible for you? What exactly does it mean “enormous memory usage” - are you referring to Memory usage column from the Task Manager (which really may get bigger, but I don’t think it should be such a problem), or rather VM Size (that shouldn’t get very big, unless the ISO is handled incorrectly)?

6

Hi, few weeks ago I had the same pb with one pc using Avast!..and Sygate firewall (free) with XP Pro.
Sygate was the pb (wrong install or setup?) and Dr Watson use all the cpu power…
So

When my computer is running for a few hours, my system uses all of the available memory
are you sure ashserve.exe is guilty ?

7

I’m pretty sure it was ashserve.exe - because when I killed the process my computer released approx 150MB of RAM and the computer started to work normally again.
The problem occurred a couple of times in the last days, but I’m not able to reproduce it “anytime”. I usually have more than one application opened at the same time.
I think RejZoR could have a good clue about the problem. I recently (approx 2 weeks ago) installed Virtual DAEMON Manager - which I use for mounting ISO images. Anyway I have an image mounted all the time - but ashserve just occasionally bumps the memory consumption…

thx Jernej

8

Vlk,they both go skyrocket. First Memory and after that VM.
Also memory usage is around 70-80% at that moment.

9

Where exactly do you read the values (70-80%)?
Any specific iso image?