I have Avast Free Antivirus installed on my Windows 10 computer (1909 build 18363). I think the Avast is version 20.8.2432 (that’s what it shows in Control Panel).
While Avast Free Antivirus seems to run fine, I can’t open the user interface. Whether I click on a notification from Avast, or right-click on the icon in the notification area and then click on Open Avast user interface, or click on the icon in the Start menu, nothing happens.
I tried repairing Avast Free Antivirus. I tried uninstalling it (completely) and reinstalling it. At best, I could open the user interface for a day or two before it stopped opening again.
I would appreciate any suggestions about how to fix this problem. Thank you.
Avast is the only antivirus I’ve run since I bought this computer 18 months ago. Dell had installed a “free” trial of Norton/McAfee/whatever they call themselves, but I uninstalled it as soon as I booted up the machine and replaced it with Avast, which is what I’ve run on my previous computers.
I run Adguard (not antivirus, but security). I ran Malwarebytes two or three times about two months ago when my computer was behaving oddly and I suspected a virus, but it turned out to be the latest Windows update that was causing the problem. I use the firewall that’s built into Windows.
In the Services console, Avast was already set to Automatic, but I switched it to Manual, then switched it back to Automatic, clicked on Apply, and rebooted the computer. Now I can access the user interface. I’ve bookmarked that article in case the problem ever comes back.