Unexpected Scan Running. What is it, please?

Hi. My laptop system suddenly started running a scan I’ve never seen before. It’s associated with Avast via the popup message box that accompanied it. Message: (four question marks appear here, but I can only reproduce two – sorry) ?? has finished. No issues found. Despite the message box’s declaration, the scan is apparently still running, based on the the usual Avast task bar icon, which in this case shows that the scan is halfway completed. I’ve opened the Avast UI and several of its tabs, but that research provided no answers. Fortunately, I was able to catch a photo of the message box (however inaccurate its notification apparently is), and collected another photo of the Avast task bar icon. I’ll attach the clips to this inquiry.

Thanks very much. I appreciate whatever help can be provided.

–jjb

HP Compaq Presario laptop
64-bit
Chrome browser
Avast 18.6.2349 build 18.6.3983.0

Repair Avast:

  1. Control Panel → Add/Remove programs → Avast
  2. Click on ‘Repair’.
  3. Follow instructions.
  4. Reboot.

Asyn:

Hi. Thanks very much for your advice. The unknown (“??”+ two ?s) scan stopped running shortly after my initial post here. However, there was no record of it in my Avast Scan History, and no notifications of it reported in the Notifications section. Seeing this, I then tried running a Smart Scan, but that got stuck at 82%, so I canceled it there, and instead ran the Repair program you suggested (and I just now noticed in your reply here). The Repair program claimed success, but didn’t identify any viruses or bugs as being among my system’s weaknesses, which were mainly performance-related or registry flaws. Unsure what that indicated, I completely deleted Avast from my system (via my Windows 10 control panel, and also using Avast’s clear.exe program), and reinstalled it. I then ran another Smart Scan using the reinstalled Avast version. This time, Smart Scan reached the 83% mark, paused a while there, but then stopped, and announced it had completed its work, and that it hadn’t found anything worth noting. Strangely to me, like the “???” scan, there was no record of Smart Scan activity in my Scan History. Is that as expected? Well, either way, I’ve set Avast for an a.m. Quick Scan tomorrow, and I’ll see how/if it runs then, before deciding what to do next. Any ideas?

Whatever, I appreciate your helpfulness. Thanks again. Very much.

–jjb

  1. Yes.
  2. OK, report back tomorrow.

Thanks, Asyn. Happy night, etc. to you.

–jjb

NP, same to you. :slight_smile:

Thanks, Asyn.

My scheduled Quick Scan ran without problem this a.m. However, after its run, I found my entire desktop frozen – no response at all from desktop, menu, and icon tray shortcuts. Fortunately, I seemed to have fixed this otherwise serious impairment (at least so far) by simply rebooting my laptop. I had noticed significant response time sluggishness and frequent freezing, with both my PC and internet activity, right after Avast’s latest update, but today everything seems a lot speedier. Whatever. Good enough.

Thanks again to you, Asyn. Happy day, night, week, etc.

–jjb
P.S. I still don’t know what that four-question-mark scan was (it apparently didn’t know its name either), and why it suddenly started touring my system, but so far it hasn’t returned. Oh well. yay. Thanks. --j

You’re welcome.