I’ve just installed Avast! Free (current version 101201, automatically updated this morning by the looks of it).
Almost everything works fine, the UI, the auto updating, email scanning.
However, when I try to perform a full computer scan the computer (XP Home, 32) hangs after a minute or so. It doesn’t seem to be on a specific file. This also happened with the version prior to today. Today’s version appeared to continue running until I moved (resized?) the UI window.
The computer “hanging” means the screen doesn’t update properly (shown by the move of the Avast UI window), no programs a runnable, ctrl-alt-del doesn’t work, lights for caps lock/num lock/function key don’t work. Mouse pointer moves with mouse but I can’t do anything with it.
No dump file is produced. Rebooting with the reset button restarts XP. It doesn’t complain that the last session terminated incorrectly. No minidump file is produced.
I have no other antivirus software running. The problem is the same with or without ZoneAlarm.
What else should I look at to try to track the problem down?
How exactly does it freeze? Does it happen always approximately at the same place/folder of the scan?
Do you see a hard disk activity (when it freezes)? Is only the program frozen, or the whole computer (possibly with mouse cursor)?
Additionally, you can go to the program settings and turn on the creation of the report file (with “OK files” to be included as well in the report). This way, you can find out where the scan really stopped (it’s going to be close to the end of the report).
After avast! disappears, check the end of the report file - the “troublesome” file is likely to be close to the end (close in the sense that this particular file will probably not be written in the report, but the previous one will be the last line, so it shouldn’t be hard to guess). We would certainly like to have this file - if it really causes problems to avast! - so that we could fix the problem.
The report file created (if you turned it on in program settings) will be (default location) at \Data\Report\Simple User Interface.txt
Ok, Swarnava, no, it’s not towards the end, it’s towards the beginning, I said “after about a minute or so”, but I think that might be an overestimate. I wonder if it’s “after the first directory”, because that might be the unifying element. It’s not the same file every time. After a(n attempted) scan yesterday XP lost a lot of files (chkdsk has put them in the “found” directories now), which might be why today’s scan finished/hung on a completely different file (a font file in the Windows font directory).
I tried the “repair” idea, thanks for that SafeSurf. Still hangs.
This time I scanned 3800-ish files in one directory at a huge rate, then the rate progressively dropped, the file count didn’t increase, the elapsed time continued to increment. The rest of the XP UI still appeared to function, capslock &tc buttons still causing lights to change, I could highlight icons on the desktop, get the menu bar (which I have “autohiding”) to appear, but none of them would actually do anything. Then, when I re-selected the Avast UI everything, including the Avast dialog screen updates, actually froze up again like before.
I’m about to try again with the log file enabled, but thought I’d post this first.
Also, let’s say clearly: if during an avast! scan,
avast! freezes or crashes, it’s probably avast! problem.
The computer freezes or restarts, it could be e.g. a conflict with some other program, or a hardware problem.
The computer powers down - it’s probably a hardware problem (e.g. overheating). The scan generates a lot of hard disk activity (and is also CPU intensive), which may increase the temperature of your hardware. I suggest to check the coolers in the case.
If you get a blue screen, it could have a bug in avast! drivers (but then, there is not a power down).
I think it’s probably “2”, the computer doesn’t power down (not an overheating issue I’m pretty certain, the fan is a variable speed one acording to temperature, and it doesn’t speed up). I don’t get a blue screen. However, how do I track the problem down?
I’ve just re-run the scan with the reporting enabled, and it hung again.
This time I had another window open at the same time, FireFox displaying this forum thread, but whilst the log shows it scanned the FireFox javastore session files, there are a couple of other files scanned afterwards.
The last file scanned according to the log is a link file to a “most recently used document” of mine, the sixth of ten. Would it be helpful to upload that log file somewhere? If so, where.
The previous scanner was AVG.
I’ve checked process explorer, none of the AVG processes are there. I’ve also deleted the couple of files left after using their “complete uninstall” program.
The last entry in the log is
01/12/2010 11:30:16 Processing file C:\Documents and Settings\Mark\Recent\usntr.log.lnk...
01/12/2010 11:30:16 --> Finished [0] [processing took 0 ms].
If I schedule boot time scanning will I ever get my computer back? I s’pose I’d just have to start in safe mode if it kept crashing…
After 12 hours (ie this morning) the scan still appeared to be running, although the display seemed to be stopped at 84%. It claimed to be scanning a png file but after a minute or two it still hadn’t moved so I pressed “Esc”. This produced a “scanning cancelled” message, but the machine didn’t continue with the boot as suggested. A reset-button reboot caused it to boot up properly.
Whilst it’s a large disk, it’s not huge, 115Gb used of 465Gb total. 12 hours seems a bit excessive, perhaps the scan had stopped much earlier. There were three or four files it complained about after an hour or two. None of them would move to the virus chest or fix, nor are they named in the aswBoot.log logfile. The log file records the options I selected when it asked me what to do, but not the corresponding files. I was expecting it to name the files so I could have removed them manually afterwards, I didn’t write down the names. They were javascript files in an archived copy of the FireFox cache.
I tried another manual scan after this, which went the same way as before, just hung the machine after a couple of minutes.
I’d love to be able to resolve this issue so I can use Avast, so any suggestion for something else to look at would be gratefully received.
Then check your computer for malware with Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware (MBAM).
· Download freehttp://www.malwarebytes.org/ (the blue button) for an on-demand scanner.
· Double Click mbam-setup.exe to install the application.
· After install, click update so you have latest database before scanning.
· Under Settings:
o General: Automatically Save File After Scan Completes is checked off
o Scanner Settings: Check all boxes
o Updater: Download and install update if available is checked off
· Once the program has loaded, select “Perform FULL Scan”, then click Scan.
· The scan may take some time to finish, so please be patient.
· When the disinfection scan is complete, a log will appear in Notepad and you may be prompted to Restart. (See Extra Note).
· Click the “remove selected” button to quarantine anything found. You will find the infection details under the Quarantine tab.
· The log is automatically saved by MBAM and can be viewed by clicking the Logs tab in MBAM.
· Copy & Paste the entire report in your next reply.
If MBAM encounters a file that is difficult to remove, you will be presented with 1 of 2 prompts – Click OK to either and let MBAM proceed with the disinfection process; If asked to restart the computer, please do so immediately.
I’ve got 2Gb of RAM. I took dansorin’s advice too and ran MemTest86+ (v4.10), it showed no errors.
I re-ran (& re-downloaded) the AVG uninstaller.
MBAM looks good. However, it too mostly hangs. Surprisingly, last night it ran right the way through. It reported no malware.
Hoping that that was a good sign this morning I re-ran Avast.
It hung after ten seconds
