Another weird thing happening with this module…
Besides the left files on avast temp folder, now I cannot even ‘start’ it.
The screen saver is the same of all the time (Webshots).
What’s up?
The screen stay at zero files scanned and the screen saver never stops >:(
Right now I have there unp folders under avast temporary directory…
All of them from the screen saver module because I do not run any on-demand scanning…
I’ll post the folder contents lists… Maybe someone could ‘discover’ to which archive file their belong and help Alwil to solve the temporary folder issue
You’re not the only one who is having problems with the screensaver. Me too. When I select Avast as screensaver and then in the settings set my Startrek screensaver it is not running at all. When I choose another screensaver to run under Avast, some work and some don’t. When I choose just Avast as screensaver and choose example, it runs fine, but when I then click cancel to go back to the desktop without changes, it keeps running and I have to end it in taskmanager. Looks like the Alwil people really need to check that part.
I have it on system with and without sp2. Just discovered another thing. Here’s what I did:
Choosed Avast as screensaver.
Clicked on example.
Screen saver worked.
Stopped the screensaver by moving the mouse.
Then click cancel in the screen settings.
Everything looked normal.
But the Avast screensaver was still running in taskmanager !
Even when I selected no screensaver and clicked ok, it kept running.
Oh, so it’s not really unp- files in the TEMP folder, but rather folders with ordinary files inside.
According to the content, it looks like installation CABs of Windows, or something like that. I’ll check for exact match when I’m at work (what operating systems installers do you have on your disk?).
Now: this problem appears only with the screen-saver module? The other scanners, running with the same packer/sensitivity settings, scanning the same area, don’t leave the files in TEMP folder?
What do you mean… I have Windows XP SP1+ at the first partition.
A second installation of XP at the third partition of the same HDD.
It seems that only scree-saver module is involved. I’m not running on-demand scans.
Only another possibility will be the on-access module.
Sensitivity is set to ‘Custom’ with some extra extensions added for open/create/modify.
The files never leave the temp folder automatically
I mean - the content seems like a Windows installation CAB file. I was just asking if you don’t have a copy of Windows installation CD somewhere on your disk. Or… maybe Windows installer copies some of the CABs to the WinNT directory…
Sure, but if you run an on-demand scan - do the folders appear as well?
I think the first folder matches the C:\WINDOWS\Driver Cache\i386\driver.cab file.
However, I cannot reproduce the problem The files are successfully cleaned here, both from the usual on-demand scan and from the screen-saver (all packers being scanned).
Is there anything special about the files in the left folder (or about the CAB file)… such that read-only flag set?
Can you please try to scan the file with Simple/Enhanced User Interface and check if the folders appear again?
I don’t think it could depend on the filesystem…
What are your exact settings of the Screen-saver task? Are you logged as an administrator when you run the screensaver?
OK, I think we found the cause… and made a simple workaround, but it’s not very nice.
The reason is the following: the operation of “opening an archive” is rather slow for some of the archives (such as CAB), and cannot be interrupted. Actually, opening the archive means extracting the whole archive to the TEMP folder (if it’s done in a different way, scanning the CAB archives would be terribly slow, just as it was in avast! 4.0). Now - when the screensaver starts opening the archive and right at that moment, the screensaver is interrupted (by moving the mouse or typing something), the process is given a while (10 seconds, to be precise) to terminate and if it doesn’t, it’s “killed”. By killing the process, the temporary files are left there.
For the future version, I changed the behavior a little - such that the scan is never killed this way; if you interrupt the scan when the archive is being opened, the screensaver just disappears, but keeps working on background until it’s done with the operation. So, you interrupt the screensaver by moving your mouse, the screensaver disappears, but avast! still keeps on opening the archive for a while (so, you may see a heavy disk activity for a minute or two). I know it’s not a perfect solution (which would be making the opening operation interruptable - but that would require rather heavy changes to the code).
An additional solution I’d suggest - exclude these big CAB files from the scanning
Thanks Igor, I’ll exclude that big CAB files only from the screen saver (not the global exclusion list). You’re right, pk said the same to me by IM.
The same contents of that folders give you the answer.
Glad you found the problem and, at least, a workaround solution.