I keep getting windows saying that Avast has encountered an error in updating, unfortunately it gives me nothing helpful as far as an error message goes (just an update time of something in seconds).
Is there anything that can be done about this, as I am guessing I am getting very rare updates as I have only seen it actually be successful once now. I also am getting rather sick of coming home to find multiple windows to click “don’t send” on as it encountered an error at some point.
I have version 4.6 by the way, Windows XP Home edition SP2, and can give any other pertinent info needed.
Right now my best guess would be to uninstall the program and reinstall it, but I would rather try and fix the error before doing that, as I sure don’t want to have to be reinstalling this program every month (which is about as long as I have had avast so far)
Have you had a look to see if all Avast services are running Start/Control Panel/Admin Tools/Services
Please see attached image of running services
Yes you I would attemp a repair first to do this you must be On Line
Start/Control Panel/Add remove Programs/…Select Avast Anti-virus/Change/Remove… scroll down and select Repair. When repair is finished doing it’s thing Reboot.
Hope this solves the problem
Well, I just got in from work and it hasn’t happened again yet, likely will if I give it long enough.
Checked the administrative tools, everything was there, one was manual and I set it to automatic as pictured.
Checked my windows firewall settings, as that is my only firewall, and while I had no problems til this past week, I made sure Avast was set as an exception.
Once it comes up again, I will grab a screen shot and get it onto one of my hosting accounts somehow.
And if it doesn’t come up again, will post again.
But as far as describing the error goes, basically I get a window like when it does do an update successfully, but it is red instead and says an error occured, click here for more details. I click on it, and all it says is something about a time in seconds. They have ranged anywhere between 5 seconds and 131 seconds, and it says nothing else at all besides the time, or else I likely would have figured it out by now.
I recommend you get a full firewall, XP simply doesn’t cut it, there is no outbound checking so I’m unsure if that was the problem. I think you would be hard pressed to make an exception for avast.setup as this file doesn’t get created until avast checks for updates.
Based on your expansion of the error, check the servers.def file, it may be corrupt and or 0KB in size which is incorrect. Delete the servers.def file if it is 0KB and try a repair of avast. Add Remove programs, select ‘avast! Anti-Virus,’ click the Change/Remove button and scroll down to Repair, click next and follow. You need to be on-line to do this.
Once you have done this try a manual update and see what happens.
Actually, I never have problems with a manual update without doing anything further, it updated just fine, and that is how I am even getting updates, but I know too well how forgetful I can be and will eventually forget for a month on end!
Servers.def is 8kb in size and contains over 50 servers, did a repair anyhow, but it likely will be a few more hours until I know if it did any good or not. But I didn’t delete the file, as you said only if its 0kb
I was able to grab a screen shot, but MS paint seems to have magically disappeared since last night when I did a massive removal of unneeded programs (as I went into windows components to get rid of windows messenger). Once I get that back on I can get a screen shot of the two windows that I get when I have a problem with an auto update
Here are the screen shots from earlier today, hope its somewhat visible, I was able to read it and I use a pretty large dimension on my own screen. Excuse the extra white space, I am not all that great with paint, and had to use MS word as a placeholder for the images while I reinstalled paint.
Oh, forgot to mention, top part is the first error that comes up, bottom part is when I click for more info, which I have to do to get rid of the error.
When did you get them, just after booting?
How do you connect the Internet (dial-up or permanently connected)?
If you manual start an update, will it work now?
Which firewall do you use? Is avast.setup application allowed to connect?
Actually, I did a reboot yesterday after I got up and did not get anything for hours. Yesterday during the time I was at my computer I got the error in total maybe 3 or 4 times only thing I can say all instances have in common was that the browser was open and so was winamp, but those program are always on for me
I have a permanent connection, and its wired to my computer
Unless something has changed since last night and today it would, had a manual update work great last night
I only use MS XP firewall and it has avast set as an exception (can only select them by program, from a list of stuff installed)
Hello,
Maybe you should try to repair avast! you can do this by going to add or remove, click avast then click change/remove, when the Windows pops up look for repair (you may need to scroll down). Also make sure you have internet connection that is needed to do an avast! repair.
I seem to be having the same problem
build 4.6.763
win 98
Athalon 1900+
I am using ZoneAlarm.
I have never had problems updating until yesterday.
It would notify me that an update was available
Now I cannot connect to server.
Well… while saving the logs and screenshots to post here, I noticed Avast was using IE settings so I decided to check.
Under Internet Options, Connections, Lan settings, Use proxy server was checked but no server address was entered.
I un-checked, problem fixed.
For some reason it did not affect my browsing. ???
Not sure how it could relate, as I was able to connect if I did a manual, and I don’t really know where the issue lies, as it just says its an error with nothing further. Mine was only on automatically detect settings, but I unchecked that even.
But you did bring up an interesting point with avast using IE settings, as I do have one somewhat odd thing with my IE settings, I disabled all flash and activex except for trusted sites.
Should I perhaps put the avast servers in my trusted sites then?
Well, avast update does not use ActiveX and even less Flash content to update
Did you delay the automatic update through avast4.ini file? Why not?
avast checks if there is an available connection each 40 seconds.
If there isn’t, wait more 40 seconds to check. Checking does not take more than one second and, of course, does not use the Internet band.
If there is a connection, check for an update. If there is not any new file to download, wait 4 hours to start checking again. If there is an available update, start it and install it. Again, wait 4 hours to check the next time.
Some of this settings could be configurated different, I posted the default values of the avast4.ini file.
Oddly enough, it seems the problem somehow corrected itself as I did not see the error at all yesterday during my day off, and I sure was at my computer most of the day watching anime on it, so I would have definitely saw something.
Have no idea how it did it, as I wasn’t able to figure out what Tech was wanting me to do (had no clue where the default avast4.ini file was posted), and now it went away.
I admit, I am baffled, only thing I really did these past few days was play around a bit more with my firewall settings trying to get my p2p programs to work properly so I can get my dose of fansubbed anime
But thought I would give an update, even if it took a bit, but wanted to make sure it truly wasn’t coming back before saying anything, cause I know how Murphy’s Laws work, and that is the way my luck runs
