I have had the problem for some time now that opening documents, especially large XLS documents (10-30 Mb) is extremely slow, as is saving them. This is adversely impacting the work that I do daily. This is clearly related to avast! since when I turn off the “standard shield” the documents open almost in an instant. The problem is especially acute if I open documents that are on a network drive as opposed to my own HD (all documents should be on the network drives since they are tape-back-upped).
Other software do not seem to be this bad. I had to get avast! since at the time it was the only antiviral software that supported 64bit win XP.
Is there anything I can do? Is avast! going to do something about this?
I find this really quite intolerable because the computer can also completely freeze while the file is being opened. The time can be a from 1 minute to a couple of minutes and the avast! does not seem to be using CPU time much at all which suggests that it is an i/o problem.
Excel will say “not responding”.
While this is happening there is a huge amount of network traffic. The “task manager” says 87% or even more and the maximum network speed is shown as 100 Mbps. The computer hang could actually be due to network traffic reaching 100%…
You can decrease your protection level, although it will be safe in some kind, unchecking the option to scan open/create/modified files into Standard Shield provider settings. Let the first tab checked and only uncheck the second.
By the way, I use that protection level.
Funnily enough the solution you suggested does not help.
I inactivated the scan files on open/created/modified but it did not help. So maybe it is a bug/property of the software itself and it is actually downloading and scanning something else from the network drive than just my file… You have to press “terminate” for the whole “standard shield” thing to avoid this problem.
A solution was suggested by the tech support which looks good but I don’t quite understand it… First of all I don’t have avast! Server Edition. I also only have rights to my own computer, not the file server (the computer that is running the network drive itself).
"Slow opening of a file from a network share
Symptoms
When I want to open a file from a network share, when avast! Server Edition is installed on the File Server, the opening of the same file takes 3 minutes and without avast 4 seconds. During the opening of the file the CPU load on the server is +/- 35%.
If the file is stored locally on the pc (where avast netclient is installed) it doesn’t slow load the file, only when it is loaded from the network share. All Clients are Windows XP SP2.
I just started having this exact issue on 1/8, which just coincidentally was when the last Vista maintenance was applied. My worst cases are .xls files in the 5 -20 Mb range, but other large files are affected to a much smaller degree. Problem goes away if i disable standard shield. Problem also goes away if i open or close files out of a compressed library. problem is worse on close than open, and it looks partly because it is taking forever to enumerate the directory listing. Processor usage goes high during the save, with the primary offender being the System task.
TIA for any help that can be given. Can’t tolerate this too long.
I don’t have open/created/modified files scanned. But, look, 30Mb sheet will take a little to open even in a strong processor. I have sheets as big (or more), it’s an intensive CPU task.
The 5 - 20 Mb files close in 30 - 240 seonds with standard shield on, 0 - 2 seconds with it off. In some cases, the PC is not usable during that time. Unlike the OP, these are all local files, and there is virtually no network traffic during the close.
Can you please check if the CPU usage (while the problem is simulated, i.e. while you wait for the document to load or save) is high? And if it is, which process is using it?
Yes. During the save, there are two different cases that I can detect. One is that the processor is not high - Task Manager runs very consistently at 5% - 7%; ashServ, System, and lsass run 0% - 2%. Excel shows ‘Not Responding’ and goes gray, but all other tasks are minimally impacted. The second is that during the inital part of the save, the same thing happens, but after a while, the System task jumps to around 24% - 34%, and Avast! taking only about 2% - 4%. At this point, more seems to be going on, as it takes 30 - 60 seconds to even change windows, and it is virtually impossible to get anything else done.
During opens, the situation is different. Processor does not go high, Avast! runs 3% - 6%. It appears that Excel does not show the spreadsheet for as much as 15 - 30 seconds after the file read actually finishes.
OK, i have done some more testing. The first case of the save turns out to be when saving into a compressed file (7z). The second case is a direct save of the file to an OS directory. It does appear that while these saves always run long, they can be somewhat variable.
Ken, you’re being avast lawyer
It’s difficult to say but seems Excel is guilty in anyway…
Do you have other programs running in background while trying to open that sheets?
Nothing in background during these last few tests. Did a few more, but the only thing that i have picked up is that the file is showing as updated in the directory after just a few seconds, and the excel window actually ‘flashes’ at roughly that time. Then both the read and write directories show green bar moving excruciatingly and increasingly slowly for minutes while the excel window show ‘not responding’. once both of those bars finish (the write directory takes longer than the read directory by about 1/3) about 20 seconds more go by before the excel window shows ready.
I have also established that notepad and notepad+ are affected just as badly, Word files not quite so much, .pdf files just a bit (~ 4 secs vs. 1 sec on relatively large file). all of it goes away when i turn off the standard shield. oh yes, and if the write directory is encrypted (efs or truecrypt), the results get even worse.
I use TrueCrypt and never experienced delayed responses… It’s the same as saving/opening the file in a non-encrypted volume. Although, if you’re saving in a TrueCrypt file, maybe, some delay will be taken to read/manage both big files: the truecrypt one and the file inside of it.
I think is should be pretty clear that this is an avast! problem, since this is fixed when “standard shield” is taken off-line. I have exactly the same problems as described above. Vere slow when avast! standard shield running, fast otherwise.
Also it did not use to be like this with earlier versions, although I cannot exactly say when it started.
However I would like to ask what is the impact of disabling the “standard shield”? There are still 7 other services running. It is not enough to just disable the file scanning to some extent (as suggested above) the who service needs to be “terminated”.
Just to think: interaction between programs requires at least two. avast could be one which one is the other? Can’t be a problem in the second one? Firewall, security program, bad uninstalled antivirus…?
Disabling Standard Shield is killing the antivirus core…
You can disable open/modified/created files scanning, reducing protection and improving performance in some extent.
I was having this problem as well. I did a bit of troubleshooting and found the problem and solution for my situation, it may work for you as well.
My server that I was trying to save the 15MB file to was running Symantec Corporate Antivirus v8. Disabling the real time protection allowed the file to save much more quickly. This is a reported issue that Microsoft has addressed in a KB article you can read about here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/329309.
I am going to attempt to upgrade the server to a newer antivirus program and see if that makes a difference or not.
