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Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: cedric_fr on February 05, 2007, 04:56:24 PM

Title: Last build (942) of Avast! freezes computer
Post by: cedric_fr on February 05, 2007, 04:56:24 PM: Hi,

A few days ago I noticed that my two computers experienced some freezes from times to times; simply opening the explorer or viewing a large (2 MB) text file in Notepad may trigger the freeze.

When I check the CPU usage with process explorer, it appears that the avast! standard shield (ashServ) takes 90 to 100% CPU at that moments.
When I stop or suspend the standard shield no freeze occur.

I completely uninstalled/reinstalled avast! home v4.7.942, nothing changed.

It seems related to the last build of avast! , until two weeks ago I was using a previous version and no freeze had occured.

My computers specs are : first : a desktop with dual core 4 GHz, 2 GB Ram ; 2nd : a laptop with Pentium Mobile, 1.6 GHz, 512 MB RAM.

Both are running WinXP + SP2, no software firewall, no anti-spyware application.

Any idea is welcome so that I can use my computers like one month ago, smoothly !

Tia,

Cedric
Title: Re: Last build (942) of Avast! freezes computer
Post by: igor on February 05, 2007, 07:40:38 PM: Opening a big file in Notepad??
Any big file, or just a particular one?

What are your Standard Shield settings?
Title: Re: Last build (942) of Avast! freezes computer
Post by: cedric_fr on February 06, 2007, 09:25:19 AM: Well, any big file, in Notepad++ more precisely.
My standard shield configuration is set to sensitivity = "normal".

The computer also slows down when filling in this form in Firefox (which accesses the spell checker dictionaries).
Title: Re: Last build (942) of Avast! freezes computer
Post by: igor on February 06, 2007, 04:49:02 PM: You said that it happens only sometimes... so, if you start Notepad++ 10 times (for example), how many times approximatelly does it freeze?

When the freeze occurs - does avast! tray icon spin? If yes - if you leftclick on avast! tray icon to bring the On-access scanner console, click "Details >>" if not already expanded, select Standard Shield provider and watch the "Last scanned" item when you start Notepad++ - is the field changing frequently? Can you say what is being scanned there?
Title: Re: Last build (942) of Avast! freezes computer
Post by: cedric_fr on February 08, 2007, 09:17:03 AM: Well, I can not answer to the question about the icon spin, since I usually disable this feature.

Moreover, I don't know why, but the freezes no longer occur since yesterday.
So if the problem comes back I will notify you.

Thanks,

Cedric
Title: Re: Last build (942) of Avast! freezes computer
Post by: yoavtz on July 07, 2007, 06:40:58 PM: Hi,
The same problem happens to me as well, and has been happening for a very long time (I just didn't know which program causes it).
Clicking "About...", I see I also have build 942.
I reckon that the problem happens a short while after connecting to the internet (or sometimes only after starting explorer/firefox).
The freeze continues for several minutes (between one minute and 15 - very annoying!), during which already running programs usually work (explorer sometimes takes a while but others like firefox work well), but no new processes can be started, including the task manager (pressing Alt+Ctrl+Delete does show the Lock / Log Off / ... / Task Manager menu, but clicking the Task Manager does not start it).
The start menu and the whole task bar does not work.
After the freeze ends, all programs are started (so processes run are "queued" during the freeze, so when it ends they just happen all together).

My computer specs:
Intel dual-core CPU
6600 @ 2.40GHz
0/98 GB of RAM
Win XP with SP2

Hopefully someone would be able to help me soon...:(
Yoav
Title: Re: Last build (942) of Avast! freezes computer
Post by: DavidR on July 07, 2007, 07:07:56 PM: The latest version is 4.7.1001 so you should do a manual update, this has been out for some time now so you may have disabled the auto update checks.

Personally it might be better to do a clean reinstall of the latest version since you are experiencing problems; uninstall, reboot, run the Uninstall Utility (see below), reboot, install (latest version), reboot.

Download the latest version of avast http://www.avast.com/eng/programs.html (http://www.avast.com/eng/programs.html) and save it to your HDD, somewhere you can find it again. Use that when you reinstall. Register for the Home version avast! 4 Home Registration (http://www.avast.com/eng/home-registration.php) form and you will receive an email from register @ avast.com (without the spaces) with your registration key.

Download the avast! Uninstall Utility, find it here (http://www.avast.com/eng/avast-uninstall-utility.html) and save it to your HDD.
Title: Re: Last build (942) of Avast! freezes computer
Post by: yoavtz on July 07, 2007, 07:15:15 PM: Thanks a lot, I will try it.
After having done so, however, I will have no deterministic way of telling if it had worked...
will just have to use the computer for long enough and see if it repeats.

P.S. I do not remember disabling auto-updates, so maybe the problem is with the auto-updating procedure itself? after all it does happen exactly when connecting, a good time to try updating...

Thanks again,
Yoav
Title: Re: Last build (942) of Avast! freezes computer
Post by: DavidR on July 07, 2007, 09:06:19 PM: No problem, glad I could help.

Let us know how you get on.

Welcome to the forums.