Why does avast not comply with my settings?

Something I have read in other recent posts where our faithful avast adherents assume it was their mistake …

As part of testing an issue in another thread I just restored a Win XP SP2 sysem back a couple of weeks (avast 4.8.1169). The system was disconnected from the network since I did not want automatic updates to run.

No surprise I got the red popup tellig me it could not update.

I changed the avast setting for VPS from automatic to manual.

I restarted the system. avast.setup ran (and read 74Mb of data) and then gave me a red popup telling me it could not update (could not connect to …). I checked my settings … VPS update is set to manual.

I restarted the system. avast.setup ran (and read 74Mb of data) and then gave me a red popup telling me it could not update (could not connect to …). I checked my settings … VPS update is set to manual.

You get the picture …

So … dear avast team … where is my mistake?

Are Program Updates set to ‘Manual’ or ‘Ask’ (which is the default)?
If they’re on Ask, avast.setup will still run to find out if there’s anything new…

Thanks
Vlk

Most definitely “manual”.

OK, we’ll test it and let you know.

BTW: what exactly do you mean by “read 74Mb of data”?

That’s how much data the Windows task manager showed avast.setup reading (in about 12,000 I/O operations as I recall) on each startup of the system that I monitored with the setting at “manual”.

So this is data read from disk, not downloaded? In this case it’s possible, because avast.setup reads all *.vpu files to check its integrity.
If you run test from proxy settings dialog, does it report success or error?

Edit avast4\setup\setup.ini and add this section:
[BufferLog]
Enable=1

Still with both Program and Database set to manual, restart Windows, and when the red popup displays, send me file SetupDbg.log.

After doing this, you can set the value to Enable=0 (logs will be written to setup.log again)

I was setting up this system to test manual updates and I restored it from an image backup taken a couple of weeks ago (to provide a number of days of days of VPS update to monitor).

The system was initially set (as on all my systems) for automatic update so I had (physically) disconnected this system from the network. After getting the expected pop-up failure notice I went to Program Settings > Update (Basic) and changed the VPS setting from Automatic to Manual.

I then restarted the system (planning to reconnect the system to the network to perform a manual update). However, on restarting the system I noticed the avast update icon in the system tray and then checked Task Manager and saw avast.setup running and I then got the avast red pop-up notice telling me the name of the server avast could not connect to again. I checked the settings again and it showed as manual.

This was not what I expected so I repeated the shutdown/startup and got exactly the same results and also confirmed again that the VPS update setting was at manual.

To confirm your question - yes this was data read from disk and not downloaded (since the system was physically disconnected from the network) during this period.

I hope you will forgive me but - given the setting was for manual update - why would avast be trying to connect to the network at all?

After several repeated shutdown/startups to confirm the above I waited for a short time, physically connected the network and then performed a manual avast VPS update which proceeded without any errors to download and install the updates (as reported in another thread).

Unfortunately, at the end of this test I restored the system from a backup taken before starting the test - so I cannot provide any further proof right now.

I think it is probably unfair to expect you to look into this any further unless I can recreate the condition and provide more compelling evidence. It is way past bedtime right now - I will endeavor to repeat it later.

If I can recreate later I will apply the settings.

I think that I need trouble you no further and my error my also apply to others who have made my mistake.

I did not say anywhere here that I changed the Program database setting from the default. I simply changed the VPS program update to manual.

Since the default Program database setting is “Ask” I should have realized that avast would still try to “call home” to see if there is a program update to be notified.

I have to assume that both settings must be set to manual to cause avast not to give a red pop-up error.

Sorry for raising this - but now at least I can see why some others may have misunderstood the error pop-up in the past and perhaps in the days to come.

And … more importantly my apologies to Vlk for not reading his question to me earlier in this thread carefully enough. I see now that the answer was there in the question. I did not pay enough attention to “Program”. Sorry.

Thanks for the information.

It was helpful for us, too. I mean, I think it is incorrect behavior to show the red popup if we’re only trying to find out if there’s a new version of avast. I think we should just shut up in such a case. :slight_smile:

We will modify the behaviour of the program accordingly for the next update.

Thanks
Vlk