Windows Live Messenger/Vista64 crashes with On-access scanner

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Strange one here ppl,

Vista64 (at time of writing) is fully patched.
Avast 4.7.986 / 000736-2

Cutting a long story short (all the various combination of tests), I have the following issue and was wondering if anyone else can reproduce it with the above products.

Launching Window Live Messenge r8.1 with the Instant Messenger Resident Scanner enabled causes Vista to come to an instant crawl and stop responding forcing me to push reset. Terminating the IM resident scanner allows WLM to work normally again. ALSO unticking the MSN Messenger option within the configuration of the IM scanner allows it to work.

Can a Mod/Dev ir Vista64 user confirm please ?

2

This is no repro here… :-\

Is the avast tray icon spinning while this happens? Is CPU usage high?

If the icon is spinning, it means the on-access scanner (most likely, the IM Shield provider) is scanning a file. It would be useful to find out WHICH file. To do this, simply click the avast tray icon, select “Details >>”, scroll to IM Shield and check out the “Last Scanned” value.

Thanks
Vlk

3

Thanks for the reply Vlk,

Part of the problem is that the task bar is the 1st thing to freeze up (start button and system tray icons all non responsive) so it’s difficult to tell if the scanning engine is still working in the background.

I can say that WLM experienced no problems with the version 4.7.942 (and from what I can remember ,4.7.981, as I don’t use it much on this PC)

WLM and overall system config hasn’t changed.

Thx.

4

You can open the On-access scanner window FIRST (scroll to the IM provider), and then simulate the problem. :wink:

5

Hey V,

Yep, sorry forgot to mention I’ve already tried opening the on-access scanner prior to lauching WLM but it still hangs.

Just noticed there’s a program update. Will see if that helps.

6

Hardly… :-[
I don’t think there have been any changes in the IM shield in this build.

But of course, upgrading is recommended anyway.

7

I am not sure if this is better in a new thread but I thought you would like to know that I too am having the same problems with MSN Messenger.
When the Avast (Build: May 2007 4.7.1001) Instant Messaging shield provider is running and I try to run MSN Live Messenger version 8.1 (Build 8.1.0178.00) in Windows Vista 32bit Business (all current updates seem to be installed) everything seems to just hang.

I did what you suggested above and did some testing. I ran Windows Live Messenger with the “On Access Scanner” open so I could see the last scanned entry and it stops on this file C:\Users{username_here}.…\d3dcaps.dat while the scanned count stays on 2, Task Name “Resistant protection” but oddly enough the Run time still counts the seconds file when the rest of the system seems unresponsive.

I also had to Task Manager open and although it seemed to update itself irregularly it strangely said that the CPU usage was around 4% and 14% while the system was unresponsive.

Although I am able to start the IM Shield once MSN Live messenger is up and running and the system doesn’t crash.

Anyway I hope that helps in solving the problem.

8

Anyone?

Sorry for the bump

9

Yep, Sorry for the bump again.

I’m still having this problem and the work around suggested by “4fingers” does appear to work…nice1. (tho we shouldn’t have to do it this way agree?)

Vlk, did you contact me directly via email for testing yesterday?

10

Hello zool, I sent you an email to ask you to do some tests, because we’re not able to repro the problem in our lab :(. Do you have any errors related to avast in Event Viewer? Thanks.