Avast WEBforum
Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: radunn on February 26, 2011, 04:19:30 PM
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Avast 6, after installing and rebooting the computer 2 or more times causes my system to lock up. Several Start Up items no longer load along side of the clock; rendering the pc totally useless and I cannot even Shutdown/Restart properly; I have to press Reset. This problem began after upgrading to six via the the Program Update; so I decided to download/install the full version (same problems).
I did Google research discovering SF.BIN to be an issue. I checked TaskMgr amd (sure enough) 2 entries of SF.BIN were listed; both consuming identical resources. It takes about 2/3 reboots for this problem to occur. I unistalled v6 with removal tool in Safe Mode; reinstalling v5.1.864; there are no issues whatsoever.
Any ideas as to what's going on? In advance thanks
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Need a little more information. What OS and version (Free or?) of Avast! 6 are you using? What is your firewall? What other security software are/were you using before Avast! 5 and how did you uninstall it? The SF.bin is the code emulation part of the avast and is downloaded or updated on virus definitions updates . You may need to exclude Avast! from being monitored by your firewall or other security software because it keeps being recreated, but this may also indicate residue of previous security software has not been completely removed.
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Need a little more information. What OS and version (Free or?) of Avast! 6 are you using? What is your firewall? What other security software are/were you using before Avast! 5 and how did you uninstall it? The SF.bin is the code emulation part of the avast and is downloaded or updated on virus definitions updates . You may need to exclude Avast! from being monitored by your firewall or other security software because it keeps being recreated, but this may also indicate residue of previous security software has not been completely removed.
OS: Windows XP sp3
AV version (Avast Free)
Firewall: Zone Alarm Pro v8.0
Other security software (ran manually - currently installed); SuperAntiSpyware, MalwareBytes. I uninstalled Avast 5 with Revo Uninstaller
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Was there another AV, perhaps preinstalled, prior to Avast! 5? There have been some reports of problems with some versions of Zone Alarm, but one of the ZAP users will need to address that.
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Was there another AV, perhaps preinstalled, prior to Avast! 5? There have been some reports of problems with some versions of Zone Alarm, but one of the ZAP users will need to address that.
Prior to Avast! 5, AVG free 2010 was installed (worked fine). Tried going to recent AVG 2011. It was a disaster; it will not fully install; causes randoms system reboots before it's installed. I just removed SpyBot
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I also have issues with avast 6 install , After installing version 6 my computer was completely locked up and the only program that would run was avast , zonealarm quit running , ctrl alt delete would not even work. uninstalled avast 6 and everything went back to normal , windows xp service pack 3
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Prior to Avast! 5, AVG free 2010 was installed (worked fine). Tried going to recent AVG 2011. It was a disaster; it will not fully install; causes randoms system reboots before it's installed.
You should really make sure AVG is fully uninstalled. Lots of uninstaller tools here:
http://uninstallers.blogspot.com/
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Was there another AV, perhaps preinstalled, prior to Avast! 5? There have been some reports of problems with some versions of Zone Alarm, but one of the ZAP users will need to address that.
Prior to Avast! 5, AVG free 2010 was installed (worked fine). Tried going to recent AVG 2011. It was a disaster; it will not fully install; causes randoms system reboots before it's installed. I just removed SpyBot
Here is avg's removal tool http://www.avg.com/us-en/download-tools.
Avg may have damaged avast so you might need to do a clean install of avast if a repair doesn't work.
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I also have issues with avast 6 install , After installing version 6 my computer was completely locked up and the only program that would run was avast , zonealarm quit running , ctrl alt delete would not even work. uninstalled avast 6 and everything went back to normal , windows xp service pack 3
I believe there have been several problems with avast and zone alarm, try private firewall or online armor or outpost for better firewalls.
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I'm seeing the same issue on an XP SP3 system and it has ZoneAlarm 9.2.102.000 on it. I also have two systems running Windows 7 SP1 (one 32 bit and one 64 bit) also running ZoneAlarm 9.2.102.000 with no problems. I have uninstalled avast! 6 on the XP machine and reinstalled 5 and all is back to normal.
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I'm seeing the same issue on an XP SP3 system and it has ZoneAlarm 9.2.102.000 on it. I also have two systems running Windows 7 SP1 (one 32 bit and one 64 bit) also running ZoneAlarm 9.2.102.000 with no problems. I have uninstalled avast! 6 on the XP machine and reinstalled 5 and all is back to normal.
Interesting.. so all of your startup items don't load and system hangs/freezes, forcing a restart by pressing Reset?
I'm continuing this post stating that I ran the AVG removal tool. Avast! 5 is currently installed and I'm looking at Online Armor FW (free), as ZA might be the source of problem. Should I remove Avast 5; retry 6?
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I first installed 6 by doing a program update. When my system rebooted I saw my desktop and icons but only the hardware removal and volume control icons in the systray. The system just sat there and would do nothing (i.e. clicking on the start button did nothing and doing Alt-Ctrl-Del would not bring up the task manager). I forced a power down and after seeing the problem a second time brought the system up in Safe Mode to uninstall avast! 6. The system came back normally (without anti-virus of course). I thought something may have gone wrong in the update to 6 so I downloaded the full install of 6 and when the system restarted I was in the same situation. I again uninstalled 6 in safe mode and reinstalled 5 and have been running fine since.
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I'm seeing the same issue on an XP SP3 system and it has ZoneAlarm 9.2.102.000 on it. I also have two systems running Windows 7 SP1 (one 32 bit and one 64 bit) also running ZoneAlarm 9.2.102.000 with no problems. I have uninstalled avast! 6 on the XP machine and reinstalled 5 and all is back to normal.
Interesting.. so all of your startup items don't load and system hangs/freezes, forcing a restart by pressing Reset?
I'm continuing this post stating that I ran the AVG removal tool. Avast! 5 is currently installed and I'm looking at Online Armor FW (free), as ZA might be the source of problem. Should I remove Avast 5; retry 6?
Give up on ZoneAlarm and go for avast! V6.0.1000
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=71639.0
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I'm seeing the same issue on an XP SP3 system and it has ZoneAlarm 9.2.102.000 on it. I also have two systems running Windows 7 SP1 (one 32 bit and one 64 bit) also running ZoneAlarm 9.2.102.000 with no problems. I have uninstalled avast! 6 on the XP machine and reinstalled 5 and all is back to normal.
Interesting.. so all of your startup items don't load and system hangs/freezes, forcing a restart by pressing Reset?
I'm continuing this post stating that I ran the AVG removal tool. Avast! 5 is currently installed and I'm looking at Online Armor FW (free), as ZA might be the source of problem. Should I remove Avast 5; retry 6?
Give up on ZoneAlarm and go for avast! V6.0.1000
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=71639.0
What firewall is recommended?
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What firewall is recommended?
In my personal opinion:
Comodo (http://www.filehippo.com/download_comodo/)
Online Armour (http://www.tallemu.com/free-firewall-protection-software.html)
Outpost Firewall Free (http://www.filehippo.com/download_outpost_firewall/)
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A full memory dump captured at the moment of the freeze (e.g. via the Ctrl+ScrollLock key combination, as described here: http://support.avast.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=71) would be very helpful to resolve this issue.
Thanks
Vlk
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What firewall is recommended?
In my personal opinion:
Comodo (http://www.filehippo.com/download_comodo/)
Online Armour (http://www.tallemu.com/free-firewall-protection-software.html)
Outpost Firewall Free (http://www.filehippo.com/download_outpost_firewall/)
Thank you. I notice these are all free but apparently cooperate with Avast! ?.... good! The replies seemed to have focused away from the topic of the firewall being the possible culprit. Again thanks
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A full memory dump captured at the moment of the freeze (e.g. via the Ctrl+ScrollLock key combination, as described here: http://support.avast.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=71) would be very helpful to resolve this issue.
Thanks
Vlk
Thanks for refocusing back to the origin. I will print out this information, reinstall v6 and follow through as instructed. Do you recommend changing firewalls at this time?
How do I upload the file? I accessed the ftp but do not see where to upload it from.
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A full memory dump captured at the moment of the freeze (e.g. via the Ctrl+ScrollLock key combination, as described here: http://support.avast.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=71) would be very helpful to resolve this issue.
Thanks
Vlk
How do I upload file to ftp server? Thanks
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I joined to mention that I'm also having serious lockup issues with the new Avast 6. It downloaded automatically yesterday, and when I rebooted my computer it froze up at the startup: nothing loaded, no firewall, no AV, no Spybot, my three essential startups. I could open Firefox, or anything; I would get a message after a few seconds that I might not have administrative privileges to do this asction--but I AM THE ADMINISTRATOR! So I uninstalled Avast 6, reinstalled it again, didn't need to reboot apparently--this time, no problems (I guess since I didn't have to reboot, for whatever reason). The day went by just fine. But then this morning, I turned on my computer, and the SAME THING HAPPENED. I've had to uninstall the damn thing AGAIN in order for anything to get working, and I had to do it by going into Safe Mode. Also, the Task Manager wouldn't open for me; apparently I didn't have "Administrative Privileges", again. I really hope this gets taken care of very, very soon, cuz I've been using Avast for years, literally, and I don't want to have to turn elsewhere for my AV needs.
So I've got Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (no SP 1 yet), boot up with Spybot Search & Destroy, Online Armor firewall. Plenty of RAM, plenty of HD space, plenty of everything.
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I joined to mention that I'm also having serious lockup issues with the new Avast 6. It downloaded automatically yesterday, and when I rebooted my computer it froze up at the startup: nothing loaded, no firewall, no AV, no Spybot, my three essential startups. I could open Firefox, or anything; I would get a message after a few seconds that I might not have administrative privileges to do this asction--but I AM THE ADMINISTRATOR! So I uninstalled Avast 6, reinstalled it again, didn't need to reboot apparently--this time, no problems (I guess since I didn't have to reboot, for whatever reason). The day went by just fine. But then this morning, I turned on my computer, and the SAME THING HAPPENED. I've had to uninstall the damn thing AGAIN in order for anything to get working, and I had to do it by going into Safe Mode. Also, the Task Manager wouldn't open for me; apparently I didn't have "Administrative Privileges", again. I really hope this gets taken care of very, very soon, cuz I've been using Avast for years, literally, and I don't want to have to turn elsewhere for my AV needs.
So I've got Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (no SP 1 yet), boot up with Spybot Search & Destroy, Online Armor firewall. Plenty of RAM, plenty of HD space, plenty of everything.
Did you check to see if all instances of avast were allowed in online armor, you will have to exclude the two programs from each other as well.
Spybot is not a recommended program these day's, especially if your using tea timer which will have to be deactivated to run with avast.
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I joined to mention that I'm also having serious lockup issues with the new Avast 6. It downloaded automatically yesterday, and when I rebooted my computer it froze up at the startup: nothing loaded, no firewall, no AV, no Spybot, my three essential startups. I could open Firefox, or anything; I would get a message after a few seconds that I might not have administrative privileges to do this asction--but I AM THE ADMINISTRATOR! So I uninstalled Avast 6, reinstalled it again, didn't need to reboot apparently--this time, no problems (I guess since I didn't have to reboot, for whatever reason). The day went by just fine. But then this morning, I turned on my computer, and the SAME THING HAPPENED. I've had to uninstall the damn thing AGAIN in order for anything to get working, and I had to do it by going into Safe Mode. Also, the Task Manager wouldn't open for me; apparently I didn't have "Administrative Privileges", again. I really hope this gets taken care of very, very soon, cuz I've been using Avast for years, literally, and I don't want to have to turn elsewhere for my AV needs.
So I've got Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (no SP 1 yet), boot up with Spybot Search & Destroy, Online Armor firewall. Plenty of RAM, plenty of HD space, plenty of everything.
Welcome to the club; stick around! That's exactly what happens... after initial installation (no reboot), it works fine. Rebooting seems to activate the freezes, minimal startup items (system tray) etc. Some replied that Zone Alarm might be the source but I see you use OA-FW and still have the issue with v6.
I started using Avast recently because AVG-2011 refuses to install; randomly reboots my pc before the installation completes. To resolve the Avast issue I was told to acquire a memory dump (i'll post the procedure below) then upload the results via Avast's ftp server. (I'm awaiting instructions on 'how' to upload).
How to invoke memory dump creation?
When asked to create a memory dump (usually because of hanged avast! program), please follow these instructions.
1. Open regedit, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters and add a new DWORD value called "CrashOnCtrlScroll" (no quotation marks). Make its value 1 (one).
2. Go to Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Startup and Recovery settings, and make sure the machine is set to generate COMPLETE memory dump (in the Write Debugging Information section).
3. Reboot the machine.
4. When the computer restarts wait for the problem to occur.
5. When the problem is simulated (i.e. the machine is "dead"), do the following: while holding down the _right_ CTRL key, press the SCROLL-LOCK key twice. This should cause the machine to "blue-screen", and start generating the dump.
6. If the machine doesn't restart on its own (when the dump writing is complete), restart it.
7. ZIP the file \windows\memory.dmp (try to name it uniquely) and upload it to the following ftp site: ftp.avast.com/incoming (note you don't have read access to the site, only write).
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The upload server is ftp.avast.com/incoming. If you don't already have an ftp program, FileZilla is very popular. Just give it a name Avast! can recognize and post the name here. And be patient while it transfers. ;)
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Vlk:
It took two tries but a memory dump file can be found on ftp.avast.com/incoming. Look for DennyM...
I reinstalled 6 using avast 5's update program feature and after getting the hang I uninstalled in safe mode and reinstalled 5.
Thanks,
Denny
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After reading http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=73110.0 (http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=73110.0) I did the upgrade to 6.0.1021 earlier today and my XP system has been running fine so far.
Thanks!
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I also have had issues very similar to radunn and DennyM with my computer. Recently, I had changed the settings in Avast to automatically update the program and to shutdown the computer after scanning. This morning, (after Avast had scanned and turned off the computer last night), I started the computer. Similar to other users, my computer was practically useless. I could open the task manager but if I tried to open another program, the computer completely "locked up", "froze" and I had to force a power off.
I entered safe mode and modified the registry to get the memory dump which I will send in shortly. I then deleted Avast (which had updated itself to 6.0.1000) and installed 5.1.864 as radunn had done. I then updated Avast and all is operating as expected.
From what I understand of reading this forum, some of the code in the newer versions of Avast (6.0.1000) is not compatible with the Zonealarm firewall. I have used the Zonealarm firewall for many years and am very happy with it. I haven't updated the Avast program yet beyond 5.1.864 until the problem/incompatibility can be resolved.
I have installed Windows XP SP3, Zonealarm free firewall 7.0.483.000, and Spyware Terminator.
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Ronp:
Since I installed 6.0.1021 on March 8th I've had no further problems and I am running Zonealarm. Subsequent to that 6.0.1035 was made available and has been running fine as well. You can get it at http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=74149.0 (http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=74149.0).
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I am also having problems with v6. I've been using avast for over a year. While doing a routinely update the program suggested that I update to a newer version. After doing so I went to reboot my laptop and I was stuck in a continuous reboot loop. My laptop would not even load XP. I went into safe mode and removed avast. After doing so my computer finally loaded XP. I have XP Professional v.2002. I don't have any of the programs mentioned in this tread. This problem only happens on my laptop, my desktop had no problem with v6. Anyone have any suggestions?
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Avast 6.0.1000 free
I had no problems with v5. and have been with Avast since v4. I know better than to do early updates BUT went from v5 to 6 anyway. My past beliefs about early updates have been confirmed. Wanting to play a game on the computer, Dr. Pills (non-Internet) Avast recommended in the Sandbox mode. I told it regular load. The ‘hourglass’ comes up shortly than goes out. No game. Try to reboot BUT can not shut down normally, can not ctrl-alt-delete and get Task manager. Other WinXP standard games won't start either. After reboot all seems to work until I try to start the game even in ‘sandbox mode', same results. If I disable Avast 6 the game starts and plays normally. When is the next update or what do I do until then? Where do I get a safe copy of the latest v5?
WinXP SP3 Home
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After 48 hours I guess no one knows/cares.
I no longer do either.
A computer is a tool, not a life and life is too short to worry about this silly computer crap and it's issues.
Uninstall, reinstall something else like AVG.
At worst Format C:
Thanks
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@ aspyder,
When is the next update or what do I do until then? Where do I get a safe copy of the latest v5?
There is a pre-release version available now v.6.0.1044, which you can find the download file in the Sticky thread.
You can also find older version download files on filehippo.com, however you will need to use the Avast Uninstaller tool http://files.avast.com/files/eng/aswclear6.exe (http://files.avast.com/files/eng/aswclear6.exe) to uninstall ALL versions and products of Avast prior to doing a clean install.
AVG and reformatting will most likely be a nightmare for you.
Questions (reply in your next post):
1. Have you tried an uninstall and clean install yet?
2. What other security software do you currently have or did you have in the past on this machine including:
- Antivirus (AV)
- Firewall (FW)
- Trial versions of AV, FW and other security programs
- Other security software
- If they were in the past, how did you remove them (the vendor's uninstaller's tool or another way)?
3. What version of Avast did you have in the past and was this an upgrade or a clean install to v. 6.0.1000?
4. Are your MS Updates current?
Thank you and I look forward to your reply. :)
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On two computers I have dumped ZA and installed PC Tools. ZA wouldn't fully install on the Compaq laptop and I had various issues on this computer.
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@ JaceKiwi,
The issue with ZA has been fixed with v.3.0.1044; see this thread http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=74149.0 (http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=74149.0) for the download files if you wish to install it. If however you feel comfortable with PCT FW and everything is working fine for you, then let us know if you need any further assistance. Thank you. :)
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Love the new Avast 6 but seem to have an issue with viewing mail thru Yahoo Messenger. Every time I try to go to my email thru the messenger, I get caught in a loop and it keeps telling me IE 8 has encountered a problem and needs to reload. I didn't have this problem before installing AV 6. Can any one tell me how to fix this? I am pretty much computer illiterate if it requires any kind of programming changes. System info is IE 8, XP Home ver 5.1.2600 SP3. Any and all help would be appreciated.
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DennyM:
Thank you very much for your support! ;) :)
Ronp:
Since I installed 6.0.1021 on March 8th I've had no further problems and I am running Zonealarm. Subsequent to that 6.0.1035 was made available and has been running fine as well. You can get it at http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=74149.0 (http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=74149.0).