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Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: rnuis on December 23, 2013, 10:53:09 PM

Title: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: rnuis on December 23, 2013, 10:53:09 PM
I am running on the latest Avast Internet Security 9.0.2011  and since that time i have i high memory use of the Avast service , it uses about 80 and 110 MB all the time. I didn't have this problem with the 9.0.2008 version. I hope the problem will be solved soon.

Greats,

rnuis
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: miguelgrado on December 23, 2013, 11:49:33 PM
I am running on the latest Avast Internet Security 9.0.2011  and since that time i have i high memory use of the Avast service , it uses about 80 and 110 MB all the time. I didn't have this problem with the 9.0.2008 version. I hope the problem will be solved soon.

Greats,

rnuis

idem...+1  it seems to be a problem with the new web shield
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: propheticus on December 24, 2013, 01:00:42 AM
Strange, while surfing and torrenting the service only uses 19MB here... (I don't have firewall, mail and spam shield though. Only web and filesystem shield.)

Might be worth trying a repair install or better yet a clean install. See this post (http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=142936.0) for avastclear.exe to uninstall completely and download/install AIS anew. If that doesn't fix anything my money is on the firewall...
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: Alikhan on December 24, 2013, 01:11:14 AM
Could you guys send the process dump?

Also, increase in memory usage by avastSvc.exe. Someone said that it is by design, but it has reached even 89 MB in my system.

I honestly think it's a memory leak...

That's what I thought too, since  the memory usage apparently keeps increasing.

could you send us process dump?
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: iroc9555 on December 24, 2013, 01:14:52 AM
That's right Alikhan. Thanks. lukas.hasik is asking for avastSvc.exe process dump to be sent to avast!.

Code: [Select]
ftp://ftp.avast.com/incoming
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=142936.msg1038224#msg1038224

I sent mine before yesterday. Please send yours. The more dumps they have the fastest they can fix the issue.

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=142936.msg1038380#msg1038380
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: miguelgrado on December 24, 2013, 01:48:45 AM
That's right Alikhan. Thanks. lukas.hasik is asking for avastSvc.exe process dump to be sent to avast!.

Code: [Select]
ftp://ftp.avast.com/incoming
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=142936.msg1038224#msg1038224

I sent mine before yesterday. Please send yours. The more dumps they have the fastest they can fix the issue.

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=142936.msg1038380#msg1038380

do as I upload the file from dump to avast?

Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: rnuis on December 24, 2013, 01:43:07 PM
How do i make a memory dump??
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: miguelgrado on December 24, 2013, 01:46:51 PM
How do i make a memory dump??

(http://support.kaspersky.com/sp/images/support_new_choosecreatedump_vista(en)53-193689.gif)
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: rnuis on December 24, 2013, 01:50:13 PM
How do i make a memory dump??

(http://support.kaspersky.com/sp/images/support_new_choosecreatedump_vista(en)53-193689.gif)

And how and where do i upload it
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: miguelgrado on December 24, 2013, 01:56:52 PM
How do i make a memory dump??

(http://support.kaspersky.com/sp/images/support_new_choosecreatedump_vista(en)53-193689.gif)

And how and where do i upload it


You can also send it; Start > Run and copy and paste this command:
Code: [Select]
explorer ftp://ftp.avast.com/incoming
moves and releases the file in the window.
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: rnuis on December 24, 2013, 02:06:21 PM
How do i make a memory dump??

(http://support.kaspersky.com/sp/images/support_new_choosecreatedump_vista(en)53-193689.gif)

And how and where do i upload it


You can also send it; Start > Run and copy and paste this command:
Code: [Select]
explorer ftp://ftp.avast.com/incoming
moves and releases the file in the window.

Ok i am uploading it right now.
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: rnuis on December 24, 2013, 02:18:02 PM
Here is a screenshot of the memory use it is getting higher and it is high all the time.
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: lord ami on December 24, 2013, 02:21:18 PM
For me, it went over 500MB during the extracting of a game from .zip
It almost finished, but stuck at 99% for quite some time and then I saw that avastsvc.exe uses ~650MB of memory at peak...

W7 32bit, no SP1.
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: miguelgrado on December 24, 2013, 02:25:09 PM
Here is a screenshot of the memory use it is getting higher and it is high all the time.

idem... :o
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: iroc9555 on December 24, 2013, 02:40:52 PM
@rnuis

The dump file is for avastSvc.exe and give it a unique name. Do not forget to give the names of the dumps sent here in the topic so that avast! tweam member know what they are looking for.

@miguelgrado.

Same for you. What is the name of the dump file you sent ?

@lukas.hasik

Any news ? This is happening to Xp and 7 alike, but not all. So it must be a program or driver. Even some hardware or setting we have in common.
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: miguelgrado on December 24, 2013, 02:48:12 PM
@rnuis

The dump file is for avastSvc.exe and give it a unique name. Do not forget to give the names of the dumps sent here in the topic so that avast! tweam member know what they are looking for.

@miguelgrado.

Same for you. What is the name of the dump file you sent ?

@lukas.hasik

Any news ? This is happening to Xp and 7 alike, but not all. So it must be a program or driver. Even some hardware or setting we have in common.


miguelgrado_windows 7_avastsvc.DMP or similar
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: miguelgrado on December 24, 2013, 05:32:45 PM
my avastsvc.exe in this moment
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: rnuis on December 26, 2013, 11:56:59 AM
Why doesn't anyone of Avast reply here for this problem?
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: irongod on December 26, 2013, 01:43:43 PM
... maybe cause it's Xmas holiday!!  :P

I had the same problem in XP with 9.0.2011 mem consumption was in average from 50 to 120MB... then I returned to v8 (again) until new release is out!
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: rnuis on December 26, 2013, 04:40:26 PM
@rnuis

The dump file is for avastSvc.exe and give it a unique name. Do not forget to give the names of the dumps sent here in the topic so that avast! tweam member know what they are looking for.

@miguelgrado.

Same for you. What is the name of the dump file you sent ?

@lukas.hasik

Any news ? This is happening to Xp and 7 alike, but not all. So it must be a program or driver. Even some hardware or setting we have in common.

This is the name of my dumpfile     AvastSvc.DMP
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: rnuis on December 27, 2013, 03:21:30 PM
Hello someone from Avast , can u help us with this please? Or give us a anwser back from Avast?
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: propheticus on December 27, 2013, 03:53:45 PM
1. If you really need urgent help from someone at Avast you're better of opening a support ticket (https://support.avast.com/Tickets/Submit) than posting here. The forums are primarily for users helping users and the Avast crew is not too active here (apart from announcements). 
2. It's the Christmas holiday season.


3. Have you tried an installation repair and/or a removal+ clean install?
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: NoelC on December 27, 2013, 05:23:18 PM
As with many threads, a user asks about a particular symptom, and someone else chimes in and says yeah, me too, but there's really no indication of what we SHOULD be seeing on a perfectly working system - i.e. whether it's a problem at all.  It may be designed to work that way.

How it's observed to work on other (presumably normal) systems is certainly something other users could be providing on a user-user forum (as propheticus has done).

Personally I have a big system that I virtually never reboot, and I don't normally give an application that uses a mere few hundred megabytes of RAM a second glance - that's not that much RAM in this day and age.  My AvastSvc actually at the moment it is using 361 MB.  I noticed it increased from 141 MB a few minutes after a scan completed.  I assume it needs more or less RAM for various normal operations, as most applications do.

Is it just using RAM that no one else needs?  Should it be expected to increase over time to some extent then top out.  I wouldn't think an ever-increasing RAM usage would be normal, but it wouldn't be the first application ever programmed that expects reboots from time to time - though that's quite unacceptable in this day and age of stable systems that don't normally need rebooting.

Can someone please say what we should EXPECT to be seeing with version 2014.9.0.2011, and whether using several hundred MB is actually a real problem?

FYI, I use neither the web shield or firewall components.

-Noel
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: Braver on December 27, 2013, 05:44:52 PM
I, myself have been having some weird problems regarding this since updating to Version 9.0.2011, with version 2010 Avastsvc.exe was using around 30-40MB on startup but shortly diminished to around 3-8MB average. After computer got through most of the lengthy processes (Windows Defender scans,etc) Avast would scan or read its dat/txt files and would go up to around 30-40MB again and drop just the same, while browsing the internet or watching videos, with each page refresh it'd jump to about 20MB and drop once again. Note that this is the Working Memory (KB) that I'm referring to, not the Commit (KB) that I find by using Window 7's Resource Monitor.

Ever since updating to the current version though Avastsvc uses 50-60MB Working (KB) from the get-go and around 75-80 Commit (KB), after the usual lengthy processes (see above) it dropped to around 60MB to 8, but then starts increasing over time, after browsing the internet for about an hour it rose to around 50MB once again and did not even attempt to drop or showed no signs of dropping. It only increases, while on version 2010 it constantly rose and dropped just as quickly, but theres no sign of this whatsoever now, it only rises and shows no signs that the shields are even working, even though they are. The increases/decreases in memory are generally the way of showing the shields are doing something I thought.

/sigh not sure whats going on but this is rather annoying, I'm rather OCD about the amount of memory my processes use and this drastic a change kind of bugs me. (maybe not a massive change in memory use but still it doesn't release the memory it seems and over time that can become a problem as I can leave my computer on for extended periods of time.)

I hope this gets fixed or some kind of explanation is given as to why it now is more RAM extensive.
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: NoelC on December 27, 2013, 11:59:20 PM
at the moment it is using 361 MB
And now it's down to 96 MB.

Doesn't seem like a long-term leak to me.

-Noel
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: Braver on December 28, 2013, 12:08:06 AM
I've been looking around some and it seems every time I turn off the Mail Shield and back on the amount of memory used drops down to the minimum again, but still slowly rises over time once again.

I'm really not sure what to do, I loved Avast! and my computer was fine and stable yesterday (yesterday was when Avast told me the update was available) but now the amount of memory being used by it has grown about x5 and it makes me not want to leave my computer on for a long period of time. Not sure how to roll back down to my previous version either (I had 9.0.2010). I would rather take it back to a point where it worked but I'm not completely computer savvy about these kinds of things. :/
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: Alikhan on December 28, 2013, 12:20:37 AM
There is a definite issue and hopefully, it will be fixed next build. I wouldn't advise downgrading to 9.0.2009 (9.0.2010 was a BETA release) since 9.0.2011 ironed out plenty of issues.

If you have the issue, send your memory dump...

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=143372.msg1040156#msg1040156
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: NoelC on December 28, 2013, 12:29:00 AM
Quote
There is a definite issue...

You've heard an official word on this?

-Noel
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: Braver on December 28, 2013, 03:01:51 AM
There is a definite issue and hopefully, it will be fixed next build. I wouldn't advise downgrading to 9.0.2009 (9.0.2010 was a BETA release) since 9.0.2011 ironed out plenty of issues.

If you have the issue, send your memory dump...

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=143372.msg1040156#msg1040156

Dunno what to do then, I get a feeling if i leave my computer like this something will happen... it seems pretty unstable and the amount of memory being used by Avast! Service is increasing every minute or so, sometimes it even spikes up to around 10MB more.

Strange thing is... I did some testing to see which module of the antivirus was causing these spikes, by turning certain components off, turning off the service and restarting etc.

Memory went back to normal upon disabling the service and restarting, turning off the file and web shield did nothing to change anything... but when I turn off the Mail Shield and restarted it in the menu (during same PC session), the memory goes back down to a minimal amount (3~9MB) but then repeats itself by constantly rising over time. (Even when I'm not doing anything, not even browsing or anything, it just rises.)

Not sure how to get these dumps neither really, I'm generally quite good with computer problems, I generally handle them myself but I've never encountered something like this. :(
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: rnuis on December 29, 2013, 02:51:01 PM
Hello someone from Avast is there sombody out there too help us or just too anwser here?????
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: NoelC on December 29, 2013, 05:14:07 PM
Folks, at this point we have no official indication that I know of that the RAM it's using is anything out of the ordinary.

Perhaps it's meant to use a lot of RAM in order to speed up its function.  I for one would definitely want faster AV operation vs. lower memory use.

-Noel
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: rnuis on December 29, 2013, 10:47:41 PM
After the last Vps update my memory usage of Avast is lower , it is now about 30 to 40 mb at this moment.
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: rnuis on December 30, 2013, 03:00:14 PM
It is growing again , it is now at this moment at 100 MB and still growing , and also there is NO HELP from sombody of AVAST!!!
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: miguelgrado on December 30, 2013, 03:09:26 PM
After the last Vps update my memory usage of Avast is lower , it is now about 30 to 40 mb at this moment.

always after receiving a vps, the used memory is reduced.Then continues to grow until it receives a new vps 
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: Gopher John on December 30, 2013, 03:30:38 PM
After the last Vps update my memory usage of Avast is lower , it is now about 30 to 40 mb at this moment.

always after receiving a vps, the used memory is reduced.Then continues to grow until it receives a new vps

This would seem to indicate that the streaming updates are at least partially retained in memory.  Since the previous streaming updates are incorporated into the new vps (which is optimized), the memory is freed up.  That said, I'm not seeing the large increase in memory usage.
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: thekochs on December 30, 2013, 03:41:35 PM
This would seem to indicate that the streaming updates are at least partially retained in memory.  Since the previous streaming updates are incorporated into the new vps (which is optimized), the memory is freed up.  That said, I'm not seeing the large increase in memory usage.

Perhaps someone whom has this high mem usage can you turn off streaming updates and see if there is an effect ?
They may have to wait until a new VPS to "clear reduce" then see.  However, if they turn of streaming they could manually try a update after few hours and get a new VPS.  If this truly is the issue it would seem the streamed updates would be applied then cleared in memory.
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: Gopher John on December 30, 2013, 03:55:20 PM
In retrospect, the total of streaming updates in terms of kilobytes is quite small.  There has to be more than just the streaming updates causing the memory increase.
Title: Re: High Memory use Avast service 104 MB
Post by: jwoods301 on December 30, 2013, 08:03:36 PM
Considering the change log entries, there are several suspects (posted on Filehorse.com)...



What's new in this version:

- Finally fully rewritten the WebShield so that it now doesn't work as a "transparent proxy" anymore. I.e. no more routing of all HTTP traffic through the AvastSvc.exe process - which should hopefully result in no more conflicts with various firewalls (especially older firewalls that can't handle transparent proxies) and overall improvement in stability and performance. Besides that (and this is really exciting) it allows us to see and detect more threats (the original webshield had some limitations).

- The Firewall component (in IS and Premier) has also changed dramatically. Made it more compatible with other applications, such as Java and various VPN services.

- The installer/updater has been improved to allow more reliable installation in case of infected machines. The installer is now protected by the avast self-defense driver from the very beginning, making it harder for active malware to kill it (if you have problems starting the installer in the first place, it may be a good idea to try to rename the executable to a random name first)

- The changes in the File System Shield's driver should result in faster performance, especially in the copy files and install programs scenarios.

- We have also beefed up the Browser Cleanup tool to be able to rip off even the more stubborn toolbars and other "PUBEs" (Pontentially Unwanted Browser Extensions

- Also fixed a whole bunch of bugs reported in the last couple of months. Especially if you encountered a problem with R1, try this new version, chances are that the problem is resolved there.