Update fails with message not enough memory to complete

I am a new user and just downloaded and installed Avast 4.8 Home Edition on a Win 98se system (hence why I installed Avast, because of the win98 support) with Intel Pentium III processor and 256 MB Ram and 12 GB disk with 70% free space. At installation and at manual and automatic AVS update (no other applications running) I always get a message in the red box that says the transaction could not complete because not enough memory. Can somebody help me with this, else I will have to uninstall, and try to find another virus scanner.
Rogier

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=45048.msg377244#msg377244

Seems that avast is becoming, step by step, not fully compatible with old/limited computer hardware.

Well, did exactly as the referenced forum post suggested, and downloaded the latest update (Build 8.5.2009 version 090508-0), ran the update from the downloaded file and got the answer that the latest version of the virus db was already installed. The system inf. however still shows me a 19.3.2009 date and 090319-0 virus db version. So my question is now, what is actually installed and am i protected or not ? can i check somewhere what is actually running ?
Rogier

Please, post the last 300-350 lines of avast log: C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA\log\Setup.log

OK, I cannot get that many lines in the post, but I hope these last entries can help

09.05.2009 15:05:09.000 1241874309 package DldPackage: C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\Setup\vps-9050200-9050100.vpu, returned 0x00000000
09.05.2009 15:05:09.000 1241874309 package PerformDiff: Ok
09.05.2009 15:05:10.000 1241874310 internet Used server: http://download694.avast.com/iavs4x
09.05.2009 15:05:10.000 1241874310 file GetFileWithRetry: vps-9050300-9050200.vpu downloaded and verified
09.05.2009 15:05:10.000 1241874310 package DldPackage: C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\Setup\vps-9050300-9050200.vpu, returned 0x00000000
09.05.2009 15:05:10.000 1241874310 package PerformDiff: Ok
09.05.2009 15:05:11.000 1241874311 internet Used server: http://download694.avast.com/iavs4x
09.05.2009 15:05:11.000 1241874311 file GetFileWithRetry: vps-9050400-9050300.vpu downloaded and verified
09.05.2009 15:05:11.000 1241874311 package DldPackage: C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\Setup\vps-9050400-9050300.vpu, returned 0x00000000
09.05.2009 15:05:11.000 1241874311 package PerformDiff: Ok
09.05.2009 15:05:12.000 1241874312 internet Used server: http://download694.avast.com/iavs4x
09.05.2009 15:05:12.000 1241874312 file GetFileWithRetry: vps-9050500-9050400.vpu downloaded and verified
09.05.2009 15:05:12.000 1241874312 package DldPackage: C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\Setup\vps-9050500-9050400.vpu, returned 0x00000000
09.05.2009 15:05:12.000 1241874312 package ERROR PerformPkgDiff: pPkgDiffStorage->m_pbtBufNew == NULL
09.05.2009 15:05:12.000 1241874312 package PerformDiff: vps-9050500-9050400.vpu Bad, error code 0x00000008
09.05.2009 15:05:12.000 1241874312 package Vpu: C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\Setup\vps-9050500-9050400.vpu, size: 109984. md5: 49A6E070BAB721532048C005AE0870FC, computemd5 returned 0x00000000, sig: 08046E0C1727194070A6A21D2E9C86B08A55C7FC05B3FD57E739722C340030B695BDEC56CA2CD5A3 returned 0x00000000
09.05.2009 15:05:12.000 1241874312 package PerformDiff( vps, 9050400, 9050500 ) failed 0x00000008
09.05.2009 15:05:12.000 1241874312 general Err:Not enough storage is available to process this command.
09.05.2009 15:05:52.000 1241874352 package Transferred: files 49, bytes 2922255, time 33656 ms
09.05.2009 15:05:52.000 1241874352 package Retries: total 0, files 0, servers 2
09.05.2009 15:05:52.000 1241874352 internet Sending stats ‘http://download694.avast.com/cgi-bin/iavs4stats.cgi’: 00000000 204
09.05.2009 15:05:52.000 1241874352 file NeedReboot=false
09.05.2009 15:05:52.000 1241874352 general Return code: 0x00000008 [Not enough storage is available to process this command.]

The link I’ve posted before, from Igor, seems to give a clue: something is getting fishy on limited resources computers and avast.
If you right click the ‘a’ blue icon, chose About, expand the vps information, which date is shown there?

As you asked, the expansion of the VPS file in About, shows: Compilationdate 19/03/2009, File version 090319-0

09.03.19 (19 of March of 2009)… you’re far from being updated…

Well that is as far as i got with the most recent download of the Avast 4.8 Home edition that i downloaded on may 7th 2009 from the www.avast.com website. If this newest version is not compatible anymore with win98 and the listed system requirements on the Avast website, then it should be removed as a supported platform.
What can i do to bring this to their attention ? Should I remove the program and look for something else (not many, if any, support the good old win98 anymore, but it still does the job for me !!) or do you think they (Avast) will solve the problem or propose a work-around ?
Rogier

I just lost my AVG Free and was freaking out last night after I uninstalled AVG and couldn’t get Avast to work. I just about tore my hair out. What worked for me finally was right clicking on the avast tray icon and selecting “Program Settings” and under “COMMON” UN-check the box that says “Test memory at application start-up”. I was just operating on a hunch that it might be mis-reporting my ram…it worked for me. Good luck.

I tried the suggestion about unchecking the “test memory during application start up” and only got 89% of the download before I got the message “Update fails with message not enough memory to complete”. I’ve got 640 MB ram and 16 GB of free space and am running WIN98 Second edition. Help

Thanks
Bullscout

The problem does not seem to be Windows 98 but the lack of resources (RAM).

Well, avast 4 should be compatible with Windows 98 and keep as it is. The support is meant to be dropped in 2010 anyway.
avast 5 won’t be Windows 9x compatible anymore. I think this is the way it is… there are less than 1% of avast users using Windows 9x.

Your problem seems to be a little different. Seems that the problem is on avast side (or how Windows 98 manages the resources).
640Mb should be enough to run avast with Windows 98. Hope the programmers could drop some light here.

OK, if win9x will not be supported in the next release, I will have to live with that. However I can not understand why a download and update of virus identification files must be a problem with 256MB RAM. I never had a problem with Norton or AVG (unfortunately not supported in win9x anymore), and neither with any other download and install (OpenOffice, etc) that requires much more space and resources. I do not believe the problem is with the limited resources be it 256MB or 2GB of RAM, because with the minimum programs loaded the update always fails at exactly the same spot. It must be with the procedure Avast implemented with the latest updates. So what has changed, and can they put it right again at least until the end of live of the 4.x version ?

In addition i would like to mention that if you select silent mode in the update section of settings you will not get any error message when running virus db update, but your vps files are not updated !! You can only verify by looking at the log file or checking the version date and release. So you may think you are protected but in fact you are not.
Rogier

As I was trying to explain here, nothing has changed in the recent update. It’s just that the virus database grows continuously (as the new virus detections are added), and it seems that some “limit” has been reached just recently.

If anybody can supply the File Monitor log, I think this can be fixed.

OK Igor what file log do you want? Is it the setup.log, error.log or warning.log? Let me know and I can send it in attachement via mail because they are to large to be posted.

From the link he gave in his post the ‘here’ text being the link, I have copied it below.

I downloaded File Monitor and ran it against an avast update with avast mask, but found no way to save the monitor file (Save and save as has no effect) Any suggestion how to get the > 70000 lines in a file ? The clipboard does not accept that size. Appears that the latest version 7.04 does not allow to create a log file. Could someone provide me with a copy of Filemon.exe that saves the log ? Then send it to my Email.
Thanks Rogier

Are you filtering against avast.setup, so as to exclude other files ?

If not that could reduce the returned lines.

So if you set that filter and apply it in filemon before you do a manual update. Well that was a surprise, I did that and it still returned 103374 lines on completion of the update.

However, on completion of the avast update I was able to select File Save As and that was a little over 7MB. So I don’t know why yours isn’t allowing save as, I’m using Filemon v7.04 also…