Just updated free Avast Antivirus and now SW Updater no longer works. It shows programs need updates but nothing happens when I select the update button. It worked fine on the older version last night.
This is on a Windows 7 64-bit system. No error messages or anything.
What exact version of avast do you have?
What is your operating system?
Avast 2014.9.0.2007
I’d suggest this.
Avast>Settings>Tools>Software Updater>Customize>[click]Database Reset(troubleshooting)>Reset Database now
Already tried that but made no difference.
Ok, time for something else…
Use avastclear to remove the current installation.
When done, run CCleaner
Remove all temporarily files that it finds.
Keep running the registry check and fix things till nothing is found anymore.
Reboot and do a clean install of avast 2014.9.0.2007
And ofcourse let us know if this solved the problem or not 
I notice in Task Manager that the User Notification service keeps running under CPU utilization but there are no notifications on the screen. I wonder if that is the problem. Avast is not updating because it is waiting on the UAC permission.
I just updated Adobe Reader using Software Updater and it worked fine…
I’d follow Eddy’s advice.
I tried the program repair from control panel but it made no difference. I had to get the computer back to the user so I left it with the SW Updater broke. I just did an update on an XP machine and it went well.