Scheduled scan doesn't work even though it's set to every Monday @ 7pm

[LadyA]

I have the paid version of Avast Internet Security.  All settings are as they should be, scheduled scans are all set to weekly (Mondays @ 7pm).

The problem is that the scan never happens unless I physically open avast and do a manual scan.

Anyone else having trouble with the scheduled scanning function?  Or does anyone know why mine isn't working?

Thanks!

(P.S. I have had Avast for about 5 months now and this feature has never worked.)

[LadyA]

Oh, I should mention that what I am using to assume the scanning is not taking place as scheduled is the "Scan Log."  When I open Avast and do a manual scan, it shows that the scan did take place.  It just never says that anything took place on the scheduled times and days.

[DavidR]

Whilst I'm not sure it matters, but have you set the Generate report file, see image ?
I'm not sure if that is where the data for the Scan Log display is pulled from.

The scheduled scan works for me on winXP and win7, also ensure that you have 'Wake up the system to start the scan (if in sleep mode)' option enabled. I have mine set for Sunday at 0:5am and that works.

You don't say what your system is, if laptop then there are other options that may or may not need to be enabled.

[LadyA]

Thanks for your reply, David!

Sorry about that, forgot to mention which system.  I'm on a Dell Inspiron 530s desktop PC running Vista (32 bit, service pack 2) right now.  I'm not incredibly computer savvy... if you need more system info, I'd be happy to provide it.

I did have the 'wake up computer' setting enabled already...  but I hadn't turned on 'generate report' yet (wasn't sure I need to before), but I have done so now.  Hoping that will make a difference, thank you for the suggestion.  Do you know which file type is better for a less computer-savvy person?  Plain Text (ANSI), Plain Text (Unicode), or XML? Or does it really matter?  Also, Append or Overwrite?  Sorry to ask more questions....

Also, not sure if it matters, but there have been a few times when I would schedule it to scan about two minutes from the current time, just to see if it'd work... and it *would*.  But then after returning it to the original schedule (Mondays @ 7pm), it would never scan again on any of the scheduled days/times.  So weird.

[DavidR]

You're welcome.

Don't change anything, just click the Generate report file, it will be a .txt file that takes the name of the scan that you are doing, e.g. FullSystemScan.txt, etc.

Whilst the Scan logs may extract the information the raw file is at C:\ProgramData\AVAST Software\Avast\report\FileSystemShield.txt

[LadyA]

Sounds good, thanks again!

[DavidR]

No problem, glad I could help.

[LadyA]

Just thought I'd follow-up real quick.... The scheduled scans are working now!  I guess turning on 'generate report' was the trick.  Thanks again!!

[DavidR]

Thanks for the update.