I have been using avast quiet successfully over the past several months. I started with a demo version of avast, and then entered a free serial number i obtained from avast. Around this time i started to experience problems with the plugin to outlook, namely errors are displayed during outlook startup, and avast nolonger scans my e-mails. I’ve had a bit of a poke around the avast and outlook settings, and i noticed that avast is supposted to uses the ip address 127.0.0.1 to route e-mails through. I have also recently installed apache web server to my machine, which also uses this ip address…could this be the source of my problems? Can i change the ip address that avast uses?
Setup:
WinXP Pro SP1, plus some updates (may not be very recent…been busy lately)
Outlook2002 SP2
Apache Web serever also working on 127.0.0.1
Error Messages:
“The proceedure entry point ?log@clog@@…etc could not be located in the dynamic link library aswCmnB.dll”
“Avast: Unable to connect to the avast engine. Asats mail protection cannot be started”
“The addin “AshOutXt.dll” could not be installed or loaded. This problem may be resolved by using detect and repair on the help menu. Unable to load “AshOutXt.dll” You may be out of memory, out of system resources, or missing a .dll file.”
I have done detect and repair of both outlook and avast, done a uninstall/reboot/remove avast dir/reinstall of avast. and still get the same error. Even after and uninstall of avast, i can still see the avast plugin in the plugin manager of outlook.
I to have encountered the same error as nathanhaigh with regards to this outlook error;
Error Messages:
“The proceedure entry point ?log@clog@@…etc could not be located in the dynamic link library aswCmnB.dll”
“Avast: Unable to connect to the avast engine. Asats mail protection cannot be started”
“The addin “AshOutXt.dll” could not be installed or loaded. This problem may be resolved by using detect and repair on the help menu. Unable to load “AshOutXt.dll” You may be out of memory, out of system resources, or missing a .dll file.”
I have deleted the ‘extend.dat’ file that you suggested, but to no avail. I also noticed that if I search again after restarting my machine it appears again with the current date in the ‘Created On’ section?
Any help would be appreciated as I am eager to protect my mail.
Can you check the version of the file aswCmnB.dll (located in the avast folder). Right-click it in explorer, choose Properties and move to the Version tab. Does it show 4.1.334?
I have attached a screenshot as requested for the main error that appears first.
I do get a second message saying ‘Avast unable to connect to Avast engine. Avast mail protection cannot be started’
Followed by a third error message saying 'The add-in “C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashOutXt.dll” could not be installed or loaded. This problem may be resolved by using Detect and Repair on the Help menu. Unable to load “C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\a…”. You may be out of memory, out of system resources, or missing a .dll file.
I have also checked the ‘aswCmnB.dll’ file and it says that it is version number 4.1.304.0? - Although I have downloaded the latest version and this is confirmed if I try and download again?
One more thing - please do a search of all local disks for the file (aswCmnB.dll).
If there are multiple copies of the file, it’s not good. The only one that you should have is the one in the avast folder.
I have also tried a clean install and I also found a duplicate ‘aswCmnB.dll’ file in the Windows\Systems folder, which I have deleted and now the first error: ‘The procedure error point ?log@CLog@@QAAKHKGPADQAEKZZ could not be located…’ has disappeared, but I still have the error: “Avast: Unable to connect to the avast engine. Asats mail protection cannot be started” followed by error message saying 'The add-in “C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashOutXt.dll” could not be installed or loaded. ???
I have been busy and unable to contribute since my initial post, but i have just checked back to see that the problem seems to have been solved.
I too found a couple of the files you suggested in the system32 folder, and deleted them…outlook now loads without any warning messages and the splash screen pops up as expected, and virus scanning has resumed! YES!
Thanks for your hard work in tracking down the problem! Was this a bug with avast or is it a problem with something on our systems?
We have absolutely no idea who or what placed the avast DLLs in the system folder.
Anyway, we’ve changed the avast updater so that starting with the next program update, it will explicitly look for these files in Windows system folders and if found, will nuke them immediately. You’re probably not the only ones with the same problem. Maybe some very old version of avast setup/updater had a bug that could cause placing the files to incorrect locations…
Anyway, thanks for helping to track this down,
Vlk