???

-= Just a few weeks ago, I posted about a problem with computer freeze ups caused by avast, and now… its back again… I already tried repair function, has no any antivirus before avast, completed a whole system scan with Malwarebytes Antimalware & checked HJT logs… But, why is it back then…? Here are my prigrams, in case something is conflicting with avast…

Adobe Flash Player 10 ActiveX
Adobe Flash Player Plugin
Agnitum Outpost Personal Firewall
ATI Display Driver
CCleaner
CPUID CPU-Z 1.51
DivX Bundle
Format Factory
Foxit Reader
Frostwire
Google Chrome
Hijack This
Intel (R) Pro Network Adapters & Drivers
Inter (R) PROset
Java ™ 6 Update 13
Malwarebytes Antimalware
Microsoft .NET [up to 3.5 SP1]
Microsoft Office Enterprise]
Microsoft Silverlight
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 & 2008 Redistributable
Mozilla Firefox 3.5b4
Nero Suite
Real Player
RealTek AC '97 Audio
RocketDock 1.3.5
RPG Maker VX & RPG Maker VX RTP
Secunia PSI
TuneUp Utilities 2009
VirusTotal Uploader
Windows Internet Explorer 8
Windows Media Player 11
WinRAR archiver
Yahoo! Messenger

-= Hope anyone will find the “culprit”… :wink:

What kind of freeze ups ? BSOD’s ? Describe what you are doing when the problem occurs. And tell us more about your system like which OS you have, service packs, what kind of hardware you are running, is the system overclocked etc.

This could be either hardware or software related that is why we need more info.

Also what made you suspect that it is avast! causing this ?

-= I am running on Windows XP SP3… Not overclocked… Programs are installed in a functional Samsung Local Disk…

-= The freeze ups are pretty random but once started, I will not be able to run any programs anymore right after logging in… Avast’s icon is slashed with a red sign & says some sort of an RPC error… [though I do not have any other AVs & Avast service is set to automatic]

-= I found out that avast is causing this since I’ve tried to hunt down the cause, I’ve uninstall one program, then boot, then check any changes… The freeze up was gone only right after avast uninstalled [in Safe Mode since no programs are displayed in Add/Remove Programs when in normal mode…]

Well that may or may not be the case as freezes are often the result of conflict, not just the result of another AV. Removing one element of any conflict should break any conflict, but what it doesn’t do is confirm exactly what the true cause is.

I get random freezes when I open certain explorer folders (or select files within these folders) using RocketDock, I have shortcuts to my avast4 and screencapture folders and it is within these that the problem occurs.

When this happens the mouse pointer still moves, but clocking or right click functions don’t work. The keyboard function still works, so I give it the three finger salute (Ctrl+Alt+Delete) to bring up task manager and there is zero high CPU usage, something has locked, I tried ending some processes, but by ending explorer.exe and then starting it again breaks the lock.

Now I really don’t know what it is and believe me I have searched the net till I’m blue in the face and I haven’t found the true cause. This never used to happen on my old system same deal XP Pro SP3 avast and other applications, etc. a right royal pain in the rear and no closer to solving it, but the above action resolves it and isn’t that onerous.

-= Um… Rocketdock is not ran on my account & so far, I’ll consider uninstalling it & see what happens…

-= I am using avira right now… hate the ads…

Well I wouldn’t jump to conclusions, as I do use rocket dock and my freeze just so happens to occur when I work in folders opened using rocket dock. So that for me is the only other constant, but that clearly wouldn’t be the same for you if you aren’t using it, then again if you aren’t using it no point in it being installed.

The real point is to show that resolving random freezes isn’t easy, because if is almost certainly conflict related, the problem is finding exactly which applications are in conflict and in your case it appears to be avast and one or more applications as removing avast broke the conflict.

Whilst you have avast uninstalled, you will never find the cause, me I wouldn’t even consider uninstalling avast to see if that is involved in this conflict as it really isn’t a serious issue for me and the task manager trick of ending the process for explorer.exe and restarting it quickly resolves the conflict in seconds.

So I plod on trying to find the conflicting applications, I have removed one application (not on your list) in the last few days and so far no random freeze and this application I wouldn’t have though would have a direct involvement. Not to mention I can’t recall if it was installed when this first started to happen, many months ago.

-= I tried uninstalling Avira, reboot, then run the registry cleaner for avira, & reinstalled avast, still the same, the red slash and the freeze ups… Rocket dock is already uninstalled… This problem happened before & was, all of a sudden, fixed after 3 days… Without using the PC…?

No mention of the Red circle and slash in this topic previously, so slightly different issue.

You might want to try - Program Settings, Troubleshooting, ‘Delay loading of avast! services after other system services.’

-= It worked on the after the first boot… But back after the second, though delay of avast is still enabled… Totally frozen again… Don’t know how to thaw this problem…

If it helps, after you use Add/Remove, you should use Avira Antivir RegistryCleaner as well as the appropiate “Uninstallation Package”, both of which can be found at: http://www.avira.com/en/support/support_downloads.html

Check the folder \data\log
Are there any files called unpXXXX (where XXXX is a random number) or *.mdmp there?
If so, send them to vlk (at) avast.com
They may contain more information about the problem (maybe a link to this thread).

To create the dump, download and run http://public.avast.com/~vlk/hangrep.exe . In the list of processes select it and use the Save button. This generates a file which you can either send to his email address vlk (at) avast.com (if it’s smaller than e.g. 1 MB, ZIPed), or upload to ftp://ftp.avast.com/incoming

The command-line version http://public.avast.com/~vlk/userdump.exe . The syntax is
userdump.exe <program_to_dump>.exe c:<report_name>.dmp
(producing dump file in the root of C:\ drive)
Please note that prior to taking it, you’ll have to temporarily disable avast self defense - otherwise, the program responsible for creation of the dump won’t be able to open the process.

Any interesting errors in windows logs ?

-= So far, no error logs found…

-= And so good, avast is back to business in protecting my PC… The problem seems to be successfully “thawed” & I don’t not know what thawed the problem… Hope it wont come back, ever, again…