Virus Definitions Update popup for past week

For the past week now I keep getting a popup message telling me that my “virus definitions are out of date - you should update them now”, even though the definitions are not out of date.

I’ve even checked and they are not out of date.

I’ve even gone ahead and tried to do the update and get a message that my virus definitions are current.

So why now for the past week every time I connect to the Internet as well as other times throughout the day while I browse the Internet do I get this “your virus definitions are out of date” message and telling me to update?

Popup example is attached.

Repair Avast:

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

I have been getting this same message to update my virus definitions too. I have only noticed it for a few days now though. I have tried the suggestion to Repair and Reboot but, still get the same pop-up message. Something funny is going on here and it seems strange that this just started after the big cyber attacks we had in the last few weeks.

I have always liked Avast but, now i am not sure if i need to switch to another anti-virus or if i want to take the time to do a complete reinstall of Avast and try my luck with it again. Any other suggestions?

A successful repair did not help, I still get the same popup and as posted above this behavior started about a week ago. It would be nice if we could turn this popup message off, but apparently there is no setting for this. I’ve tried setting the display “duration” to “0” but that is not allowed. I’ve got all messages (except “Alerts” which is supposed to be for “malware” problems) set to duration “1” (1 second) but the popup remains displayed longer.

Any other ideas?

I might try setting “Alerts” to “1” as well to see if this reduces the display time (but I’d rather not do this even if it works since I would want to see this popup).

You could try downloading the full virus definitions file and running that, if there is something wrong in the current virus definitions hopefully it would clear/resolve that.

https://www.avast.com/download-update
Ensure you download the correct one for your version.

So far it appears that the full download of the virus definitions file may have solved the problem. I would have usually gotten a popup by now. If you don’t hear back from me then this is the answer to this issue.

Thanks DavidR!
http://i.psyche.me/thumbs_up.gif
(at least so far ;))

Addendum: btw, I waited until I got another popup before doing this because it seems that whenever I get the popup is about the time that a virus definition update occurs so I thought it best to make sure I have the most current download file at the time I update the full virus definitions file. Possibly the fact that the popup seems to coincide with an automatic Avast virus definition update is a possible clue as to the cause of the problem in the first place (just something to consider). Oh and one other thing, I found that the popup duration time is assigned to the “Alert Popups” so this is the “Alert” that controls the “duration” for this specific popup.

The message is back even though definitions are current. The idea to download the full virus definitions worked for 8 days (no messages) until today 5-29-17.

So does this mean that user who get this issue of a popup message that virus definitions need to be updated have to do this full virus definition download to avoid the message for a number of days and then keep doing it again every 8 days or so?

What’s with Avast?

It seems as if when the definitions are getting updated this popup occurs about that same time. Why the message “virus definitions are out of date - you should update them now” about the same time the virus definitions are getting updated?

Any more ideas?

Do you have the updates set to automatic ?

Clock of your machine is correctly set? Before I saw a machine that has year 2032…

Yes “Automatic Update” is enabled. The Updates always do get done and when I go check even while the popup is still visible I find the update current as of the actual date and time that the popup is displayed.

It’s as if the update popup telling me I need to update occurs when the update takes place automatically.

My computer clock is set to current time-date-year.

I did what DavidR suggested which was to manually download and install the full virus definitions file — and this fixed the problem for 8 days. Now I’m back to seeing the popup again many times a day while I’m on the computer.

I guess I can fix the popup issue for another period of time by doing the same thing, but that’s kind of a nuisance to have to do that all the time.

rrudolph68
had the same problem (see post above), I’m wondering if this is still and issue with that user…