I purchased Antivirus & Security on my mobile phone and use Avast free antivirus on my laptop but cannot renew it on my laptop. I have uninstalled it and installed it several times and it still comes up saying my licence is about to expire. I requested and received a current licence key from avast but it is more than 18 digits and also does not work if I enter the first 18 digits only. I click on renew now and then click on the free version and tell it I don’t want a trial of the upgrade and I then it takes me back around. I’m going around in circles. It appears at least another user has/is experiencing this same issue on 9 May 2017 - http://www.getavast.net/support/expiration Any ideas for a fix please?
The licensing system is changing, you need to use the license key (file) and not the activation code.
Thanks for your reply Eddy. I did use the license key and followed the following instructions:
To insert your license key, please follow the instructions below:
- Highlight the license key above, then right-click it and select “Copy”.
- Open your Avast Free Antivirus controls and select the “Settings” tab.
- Next, click the “Registration” tab.
- Click the arrow next to “Offline registration” to expand this option.
- Click the “Insert the license key” button.
- Right-click in the empty Registration box and select “Paste”.
- Click “OK” – your license key is now inserted and your Avast antivirus software can now be used free of charge for a further 12 months
I’m ssso stuck! I have tomorrow and Sunday otherwise I will consider choosing another free provider. I don;t really want to.
Wait till the current license expires, then use the key for the new one.
Thanks Eddy. I have been emailed the licence key by AVAST but the user interface asks for an activation code. The licence key does not fit into the AVAST user interface anyway. There are too many digits and letters, >18.
License key and activation code are two different things.
I said to use the license key, not the activation code.
Simply double click on the file and it should work.
Eddy, please check the topic title, we’re talking about the free version here. 
Sorry, still am sleepy :-[
Thanks for your help Eddy and Asyn. Eddy, the pic I provided asks to insert an activation code and refers to ‘when I purchased my avast product’, easy to misinterpret. I haven’t purchased the anti virus so am unsure why Avast seem to think so. When I click through the user interface and I enter the licence key emailed to me by avast I can only enter 18 characters but the licence key emailed by avast is 27 characters. I also now understand that activation code and licence key appear to be the same thing. Has anyone renewed avast free antivirus recently? Have you received 18 characters or 27?
Follow the link in Reply #4.
Thanks Asyn. I’ll wait for the antivirus to do what it needs to do. It makes me anxious risking not having any protection, even if it’s for a second or two because of the time difference of where I am and where Avast is. Also there are others at home that use my laptop who may not realise or check the virus protection so I kinda wanted to update it in advance. I have to trust that it auto renews! I have asked the others at home to be aware but…sometimes it doesn’t happen and if I ban the laptop till this is sorted I’ll never hear the end of it!! I think where I became confused is when I received a 27 character key by email from Avast and I can only enter 18 characters through the user interface.
You’re welcome.
It’s a known issue and the devs are working on it.
→ https://forum.avast.com/index.php?msg=1390802
all that angst, for me! I’ll come back and share my experience once I renew it. I think it should auto renew. I found an 18 character activation code when I clicked on the drop down box in the user interface and entered that via settings and then saw a message saying ‘your products were updated’ but it still currently gives an expiry date of <2days.
I waited till after free AVAST expired and then entered the activation code obtained from the avast user interface and it auto renewed for another year. Here’s an image about inserting the activation code which I hope assists other users (to see the image I think you need to register on this site, here’s a link https://id.avast.com/?target=https%3A%2F%2Fforum.avast.com#register) :
Thanks for the feedback.
You’re welcome Asyn. I appreciate your assistance. 8)
Thanks Bill Bill for your assistance … it seems strange that the old code still works to
re-activate after subscription expires, looks like Avast knows it’s an issue. Will try your
solution when 2 of my machines’ scrips expire in a couple of weeks, will let you know
if re-using my old codes is successful !
Yes,it’s a known bug and we work on fix. Sorry for the troubles