I just downloadedAvast today and initially it had a blue swirling ball in the system tray. Now it’s not moving and there’s a small red circle with a red diagonal through it. That seems to say to me it’s not enabled. Is that the case and if so, how do I enable it?
What’s the version of Windows you have ? Some info would help us all… help us to help you 
Also, what version of avast! ? Home or Pro ?
I’ve got XP Home version and Avast 4.6 Home. According to Zone Alarm, I have no anti virus running! That’s probably whey the red circle with diagonal is there. Can’t figure how to activate/enable it. I right click on the icon, hit start Avast but, nothing happens…still have same circle and diagonal with no protection.
have you tried to restart your system after you noticed that red circle or your system is still on since that circle appeared over avast! icon ?
Also, tell me what it says under [COMMON] section inside your avast4.ini file ? It should be line stating this:
Database=XML or Database=ODBC
Which one is in your avast4.ini file ? You can find that file in your default avast! installation folder which is (if you haven’t changed anything during the installation) located in here: C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA\avast4.ini
Open that file with your NOTEPAD.
Cheers !
I did find this…
Q: There´s a red circle on avast! a-ball icon in system tray and when I click on it, the error message appears saying “the AAVM subsystem detected a RPC error”. How to fix this?
A: First, use Windows Update to be sure that the RPC service is up to date. Then restart your computer and check if the problem persists. If it persists, follow these instructions:
- Right-click the icon MY COMPUTER and select MANAGE.
- In left column unroll SERVICES AND APPLICATIONS.
- Click on SERVICES.
- In the right column, look at the state of services avast! Antivirus and Remote Procedure Call (RPC).
- If any of these services isn´t set to start automatically, set it that way (right-click it and select PROPERTIES and the STARTUP TYPE set to AUTOMATIC).
- Restart the computer.
This solution works on Windows NT, 2000, XP and 2003 only.
I followed those instruction but when I clicked on Services, there was nothing there! So much for that.
I did try rebooting but to no avail. I did however open that file you suggested and it did have Database=ODBC
Well here we are… I’ll post a message in few minutes… stay tunned…
If you know how, you have to edit your avast4.ini file. Default location (as I mentioned in my previous post) of that file is:
C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA\avast4.ini
Opet that file with your NOTEPAD, and change this line under [COMMON] section:
Database=ODBC
to this:
Database=XML
I hope you see the difference now… you have to replace ODBC with XML
NOTE: SAVE YOUR new INI FILE AND YOU MUST RESTART YOUR SYSTEM AFTER YOU SAVED YOUR NEW VERSION OF AVAST4.INI FILE ! DO NOT FORGET TO DO THAT ! Otherwise, nothing will work properly…
That should do the trick… let me know does that solves your problem…
Cheers !
i AIN’T GOING NOWHERE!! Just nervous about being on cable with no virus protection. ???
You mean make that change in notepad?
Yes of course, after all it’s a normal text file, isn’t it ? There are no other information inside that file except text lines…just extension says INI
Just do as I suggested and reboot your system after you save that INI file…
Well, sZc, that didn’t work?? I saved and rebooted as recommended and the icon came back up with that red circle again.
Just a quick note…when I let the mouse hover over the icon it reads… avast! On Access Server:0 provider(s) total, 0 running. Not sure if that tells you anything or not.
Are you 100% sure you updated your INI file as I suggested. Check that file again and see what does it say under Database= line. I’m not saying you are not right, but I just want to be sure 100%
If that didin’t work, you may wanna try to completely uninstall avast! Use this utility:
http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_uninstall_util.html
When you completely uninstall avast! reboot your system, and perform clean installation of avast! from the scratch. I could advise you to do just a repair of avast!, but I won’t… it’s much better to completely uninstall it and reinstall it from the scratch, especially since you are new user and you don’t have any complicated configuration files saved… so this way you won’t lose anything avast! related anyway…
Just do that and let’s see what happens… if that doesn’t help, then we’ll have to wait untill someone from Alwil Software responds to this thread…
Cheers !
OK, let’s try something else before you uninstall it… I’ll be back in a second…
Click on avast! icon with your left mouse button. When window opens, If it’s not already open, click at DETAILS…>> button to open left side panel with those icons that represents your providers.
Now, when you are able to see those icons, start those providers that you want to use… for the beginning, let’s start with STANDARD SHIELD and mail provider. Now read carefully… if you are using Outlook Express or any other mail provider you will need to start INTERNET MAIL provider. If you use MS OUTLOOK (Huge difference between those two) then you don’t need INTERNET MAIL provider, but you need to start OUTLOOK/EXCHANGE provider…
See what happens now…
Well-believe it or not I have it fixed before I saw your last recommendation. went into services and applications>services and every one that showed up with avast was disabled??Don’t know how that happened but I changed it to automatic, rebooted and it’s back without the red circle!! Now here’s another kicker. By doing this, and I don’t think it has anything to do with what i did, I lost BoClean and Winpatrol in the System tray. Don’t know where they went. Sometimes I’d just like to take my hog leg and blast this thing!!
You see ? And you said you couldn’t find those services over there… after you changed database value to XML, they appeared there… so it helped I would say.
No need to blast your PC… just calm down… unfortunatelly I don’t use Winpatrol nor BoClean, so I can not give you any advice regarding those two… but, you can always try to reset your computer few times and you’ll see if they come back… sometimes it just works…
If you didn’t touch their services, there shouldn’t be anything else to block those two from starting. Are you sure that your HIDE INACTIVE ICONS option is not enabled ? Right click START button in WINDOWS and click on PROPERTIES… Now chose TASKBAR tab, and see at the bottom what it says…
I know some people in these forums using WinPatrol without any problems along with avast!.. they have no problems at all…
Hmmmm…everytime I reboot I have to loggin again. Anyway. hide inactive icons is not checked so that’s ok.
One thing did arise after I rebooted. There was a prompt from Avast about Zone Alarm I use…something about incompatiable software detected about ZA’s privacy settings. Can’t recall all it said. They asked me something about whether I wanted to disable the webshield transparent proxy mode…can’t recall the rest. Don’t know what that was all about.
At any rate, I do have virus protection again!! This is the first time in three years I’ve used anything but NIS and it feels strange. I almost feel like I’ve cheated on my wife!! ;D
Thanks for the help… sure wouldn’t have gotten there otherwise. :-*
No problem… and regarding that ZoneAlarm message… actually that’s the avast! alarming you about incompatibility issues between ZoneAlarm Professional (note it’s not regarding Freeware version) and avast! WEB SHIELD provider. Alwil guys already alarmed ZoneLabs about that problem, and they are working on it… How ZoneLabs are fast, we’ll see…
If you are using ZA freeware edition, you don’t have to worry at all… just click NO and that’s it… otherwise you will disable WEB SHIELD feature in avast! or you would have to set your web shield work through proxies…
Cheers !