I have been having intermittent Vista crashes and blue screens over the last few months. They always happen when my computer is left on over-night and idle (no active user programs or downloads running), or immediately upon boot up. I finally had some time to make sure Vista and Avast were up to date before doing any testing and debugging to try to isolate the cause. During diagnosis of the problem today using the Vista Driver Verifier Manager I was able to narrow the cause down to the aswsp.sys driver provided by Avast. I have also isolated a sequence of events that will initiate an immediate crash and blue screen in Vista. The steps I take to reproduce the crash on a freshly booted system (logged on as a user with administrative privileges) are listed below.
Open a command window and run “verifier /query” to confirm that verifier is not currently monitoring any drivers. Exit from the command window.
From the start menu, run “verifier” to start the Driver Verifier Manager.
At the “Select a Task” window, select the bottom option “Display information about the currently verified drivers”, then select the Next button.
The “Current Settings and Verified Drivers (run time information)” window will be displayed. In the right hand side of this window, no drivers should be displayed as loaded. This confirms the results from Item #1 above.
Below the right side window, select “Add…” to add the aswSP.sys driver. It will then be the only driver displayed as loaded in the right side window.
When the driver is loaded, the left side window will be updated to reflect the Settings (driver tests) that will be verified. The following tests will be listed as Enabled:
Special pool
Pool tracking
Force IRQL checking
I/O verification
Enhanced I/O verification
Deadlock detection
DMA checking
Security checks
Miscellaneous checks
Select the “Change…” button below the left side window to display a small window allowing you to change the tests that are enabled.
Select the check box next to “IRP Logging” to enable this test in addition to the other tests already shown as enabled. Then select “OK”.
Immediately after selecting OK the screen will flicker black and then change to a Windows blue screen. It will stay at the blue screen for a few seconds, long enough to see that it references the aswsp.sys driver, then the computer reboots.
I can provide numerous minidump files from my initiated crashes today, or various random crashes over the last several months, or both. I am looking for a solution that will prevent the blue screens from re-occurring. Thanks.
System Information:
Vista Ultimate (32-bit), Service Pack 2 installed, version 6.0 (Build 6002: Service Pack2)
Avast Pro Antivirus, Program version 6.0.1203
Dell OptiPlex 755
Intel Quad Core CPU Q9550 at 2.83 GHz
4.00 GB RAM
the problem is not periodic. Watching it a few months. A month is 5-9 times.
updated OS Windows XP SP3 - nothing helped!
updated hardware drivers - nothing helped!
I tested my steps listed above to verify that I can still reproduce the BSOD, and have emailed a compressed file containing several minidumps as requested. Thanks for your interest in this problem.
I hope you find a solution. I’m also running Vista and I’ve had the same BSOD problem with aswsp.sys, ntkrpamp.exe, and ntfs.sys. My blue screens were almost daily. Often my computer would re-start overnight.
Everytime I researched it, it said the problem was due to either bad RAM or an Avast! conflict. I ran Memtest for 3 hours and my memory tested OK. I uninstalled Avast and reinstalled it, but the problem persisted. I finally uninstalled it again two weeks ago and installed a competing free antivirus, and I haven’t had a blue screen since.
I would like to go back to Avast! if they would only fix this; it has caught viruses that other antivirus programs have missed. I have noticed other people posting this problem, including all their memory dumps, but I haven’t seen any solutions offered yet. There are only wishful posts that the next upgrade will solve the problem, but it never seems to happen.
No solution yet. But I have a little more anecdotal information that may help. Following the theory that the vast majority of BSOD’s are caused by poorly written third party software drivers, I reviewed my installed software and removed a couple of programs that I have only used for special occasions and didn’t see a need to keep them installed all the time. I uninstalled a few programs and my frequency of BSOD has decreased. I still have Avast installed and my BSOD has gone from a few times a week recently, to once in the last two weeks. Now this is by no means pointing directly to a solution, because there have been times during the last year where it would be 2 months between BSOD. But it may provide another perspective to look for the cause. The programs I uninstalled included UTorrent and CDCheckSetup (used once to recover files from a damaged CD). There may have been another program removed also, but I don’t recall. At the same time I also updated the BOINC software. So it may be possible that Avast is running into some conflicts with these other programs and being identified as the culprit. But I am no programmer so this theory may not hold any water.
It’s hard for the Avast team to fix the AswSP.sys BSoD…
EDIT: I think I misunderstand vlk when he said
Well, "no effort"... it's just that I don't see a way to completely resolve this (relatively rare) issue without a major rewrite of one of the components, and that won't happen over night...
Very helpful and your proof of this ‘refusal’ to fix the BSOD ?
One of the developers, pk asked for minidumps to be sent to him a just over a week ago and to date I haven’t seen anyone say that they have sent those minidumps to him.
Simply posting or giving anecdotal information can’t be analysed, minidump files or a kernel dump memory.dmp (zipped uploaded to the ftp location as it likely to be too big to email) will help to find the cause. If you only have minidump files (send a few of the most recent ones) then these can be zipped and emailed to pk as they won’t be too large.
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Upload any minidump or memory.dmp files, zipped to reduce size. Give the zip file you are uploading a unique name (e.g. forumusername-mem-dump.zip, etc), so they can identify it. It might not be a bad idea to create a text file (readme.txt) with any relevant information, avast topic URL, user name, etc. etc. in the zip file. Not to mention posting the name of the file you uploaded in the topic acts as another searchable reference.
Memory dump locations, Mini Dump files in, C:\Windows\Minidump\ - Full Kernel dump file, C:\windows\memory.dmp
Using Internet Explorer, Connect to the link and drag the file into the Right pane and drop it, that starts the upload, you don’t have read access to this folder. Or
Upload it using the Run command-line in Windows: Windows Key + R (to get the run box), copy and paste this [nobbc]explorer ftp://ftp.avast.com/incoming[/nobbc] and drag the file into the window, from another explorer window. ####
Excuse if I’m teaching your granny to suck eggs:
First you have to create your zip file with the unique name, containing the dump files and the readme.txt file, before you even consider connection to the ftp location [nobbc]explorer ftp://ftp.avast.com/incoming[/nobbc]. You do not have read permissions on the [nobbc]explorer ftp://ftp.avast.com/incoming[/nobbc] location, so you won’t see it has been uploaded.
Now you make your first windows explorer connection to the ftp link [nobbc]explorer ftp://ftp.avast.com/incoming[/nobbc], now open another explorer window where you locate your unique zip file containing the dump and readme.txt files; drag and drop that file into the other explorer window (right hand side), no need to click enter or any other action.
Thanks for the information DavidR. I will assume you are talking to others in this thread and not me, the original poster. You will note that the fifth posting to this thread I do mention that I emailed PK a compressed file containing several of my minidumps as he requested. I only provided additional anecdotal information in response to Deserthues stating what additional steps I have taken and what interim results that may be occurring from those steps, clarifying it of course that by no means I can conclude that it is a solution, or even a positive step in the right direction.
I would appreciate a response back from PK indicating that he has at least received and reviewed the minidump files provided, and whether there was any helpful information within them to work towards a solution. Since I have also clearly documented a set of steps that can be used to reproduce a BSOD it would be nice if others could follow the steps and confirm whether they can also reproduce the BSOD, as this may help work toward a solution.
I understand Deserthue’s frustration because in searching this forum you can find a large quantity of posting about BSOD’s with follow-ups where people provided minidumps, but only a small number of these postings have solutions describing what others can try to see if it resolves their particular problem. So as I mentioned in my original post, I am just looking for a good diagnostic description of the problem, and a solution.
Essentially it is a gentle prod to those who haven’t sent any (I’m as subtle as a bull in a china shop at times) and information on how to upload these minidumps, etc. after pk’s request for minidump files (lets swamp him in them ;D plenty of data then to analyse).
I don’t have either UTorrent or CDCheckSetup on my computer, so they would not be the ones causing my problem. I did use BOINC for Seti-at-Home years ago, but I never put it back on my computer the last time I did a fresh install of Windows. I do have about three Nvidia-related processes, Soundmax for my onboard sound, a Canon network scan utility, Aol software, and a Google toolbar program running in the background. Sometimes anecdotal information is useful when you work by trial and error, like I do I don’t have the programming knowledge to do otherwise. I can usually find an answer by research, but no luck this time. By the way, I don’t mean to hijack your thread; I’ll stand back now and see how things go for you with the Avast tech. Good luck!
It looks like this thread is dead now, but I wanted to follow-up to say that my BSODs went away completely when I uninstalled Avast! and started using a different anti-virus. It’s been six weeks now since I’ve switched and the BSODs are gone. I realize some problems are difficult to solve, and I hold no grudge against Avast! I believe it to be a fine product, and this isn’t a problem that everyone has. But if you are reading this and you do have this problem, you might consider switching anti-virus programs to see if it goes away. Maybe a fix will come in the future.
It would be better to forward your dumps to the avast ftp so that they can solve the problem and you will be able to keep using avast, just saying that you changed av’s to fix your problem helps no one any everyone should be willing to help avast improve where they can.
Well those reading this on this date with this problem will have the advantage of being able to try the latest beta 6.0.1270, which has fixed for the aswSp.sys bsod. See http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=83583.0 - Stability improvements in aswSP.sys.
So for those that did provide the dump files they contributed to getting a fix and didn’t just jump ship.
I don’t have the programming knowledge to do otherwise. I can usually find an answer by research, but no luck this time. By the way, I don’t mean to hijack your thread; I’ll stand back now and see how things go for you with the Avast tech. Good luck!