??? I am not sure if this is in the correct place but could not see where else it should be so I apologise in advance.
I had Avast recommended to me after I had been having problems, I have downloaded and done a couple of scans, nothing has been found but in the list at the end of the scan it says “unable to scan” after each entry. It performs the whole thing and says nothing was found but this is confusing me. Does it mean I am not actually scanning or is this the normal thing?
This has been explained many times before on this board.
Please use the search option before asking.
It just means Avast couldn’t scan those files because they are password protected, encrypted or in use at the time of scanning. Nothing to worry about. It is not just Avast, every av has this.
Many programs (usually security based ones) password protect their files for legitimate reasons such as AdAware and Spybot Search & Destroy, there are others.
When you run scans with the above programs and you delete harmful entries that they detect, a copy is kept (in quarantine/restore/backup) in case you need to reverse what you did. These are usually password protected, you should do some housekeeping and delete old backup/recovery/quarantine entries (older than two weeks or so), this will reduce the numbers of files that can’t be scanned.
By examining 1) the reason given by avast! for not being able to scan the files, 2) the location of the files, you can get an idea of what program they relate to.
Files that can’t be scanned are just that, not an indication they are suspicious/infected, just unable to be scanned.