I’m running AVAST 4.6.623 on a WinXP/SP2 system.
During the Virus Update process there is a lot of logging that is written to files C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\Setup\setup.log and to
C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA\log\setup.log
Most of the logging, if not all the logging, in both logs is the same during the update process. Is it possible to reduce the amount, or eliminate completely this logging ?
I run with logging set to Notice.
Do you have a conflict with other software that you dont want a verbose logging to setup.log fies ?
New update is checked for every 4 hours - and it means: max 50-100 lines in the log file.
pk, isn’t the log file size a configuration available for avast?
Does it work for all log files?
I think you can do it in Common section of avast4.ini (http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=1647.0 - look up Log* keys), but I’d like to know why he complains about logging :-*.
Can you tell us at which level will this loggin disapear? Error, Critical error?
Setup log is not governed by those settings.
I’m afraid it’s not possible to do what you’re asking for. However, you can always delete the file if you feel you don’t want it. It should only grow a couple of MB’s a year.
If you invoke betas, manual updates, etc… I think it could grow more… Can’t be a limit for it (date and size limits)?
I hope that I may be forgiven for stepping into this thread. I have spoken with AndyP outside the forums and with a few other Avast users who share a common concern.
The concern is not with the space occuppied by Avast log files but with the suspected negative effects on their systems of logging activity. These users have all experienced a system hang during a VPS update.
Some commonalities of these users appear to be:
Systems that are certainly not cutting edge, mostly around 4 years old but all on Win XP Home SP2 and none has less than 512Mb memory. I believe most, if not all, of these users are running their disk drives at ATA-66 (all are using NTFS).
All access the internet via dial up.
When these users elect to install VPS updates manually (ie not automatically) and ensure that their systems are quiesent before updates occur then updates are successful. However you will not be surprised that none of these users consider manual update to be ideal.
Each of these users has attempted to run Avast logging at the debug level. With that setting each has encountered a system hang during normal Avast running or during an on demand file scan.
I have wondered why my system has not encountered similar problems to the others. My system is rather similar to these users but is a little older (almost 5 years old) with Win XP Pro SP2 and 512Mb. I access the internet via cable modem. The major difference for me is that my internal hard drives are less than six months old and are running on an ATA-133 controller.
For a recent VPS update I monitered on my system the disk writes of Avast files. I have attached the file write information of that update.
I have to wonder why the setup logging information must be duplicated and incur 286 file writes in one second in the first pass of the update and 208 file writes per second in the second pass, and all this to 2 files. Similary, 41 file writes of the setup.ini file in one second in one pass and 37 file writes of the same setup.ini file in a second in the second pass … all resulting in very little overall change to the setup.ini file.
I do not doubt that the Alwil team knows best, but perhaps a little more economy on logging disk writes might make it easier for those with … shall we say a little older hardware … to keep up with and enjoy the benefit of Avast’s protection.
Should I assume that the Avast team has no comments?
about the logs…is it safe to delete the logs from your hardrive?
If you delete just the logs, it’s safe.