VRDB "i" icon and generation unreliable

[JohnnyBob]

The Avast "i" icon and VRDB generation operation doesn't work properly. Maybe something is conflicting such as my Zone Alarm firewall or my application(s), I don't know.

The VRDB generation and "i" icon becomes unresponsive to changes in commands. It may continue to run VRDB generation constantly even if an option is checked for it to run only when idle, or only when a screen saver is running. In one instance the "i" icon disappeared completely when I clicked it. It wasn't merged with "a", it had disappeared completely.

To the temporary rescue comes "avast! External Control.exe v1.6". When I apply the avast! Tweaker ("Change hidden settings") operation with the following boxes checked, it puts two new icons in systray: Show tray icon, Use animated tray icon, Display avast! icon in Explorer Extension, Show virus tab on virus detection. This also restarts the avast! antivirus. The old icon(s) in systray disappear after running this operation then hovering the mouse pointer over systray.

The new icons behave correctly, for awhile. Then the "i" icon tends to become unresponsive again, very slow to respond when I change the operational command. It may respond eventually, or it may run continuously despite the command.

It made the first VRDB successfully on Dec. 17, now it has started to run another generation which is taking several days (so far). That seems too long.
JB

[redman]

To the temporary rescue comes "avast! External Control.exe v1.6

What is this and what is it used for? I haven't seen it on the Avast Web site? Is it an official Avast tool?

[Lisandro]

Maybe the better will be a repair of your avast installation and then a manual generation of the VRDB...

Go to Control Panel > Add/Remove programs > avast! antivirus > Remove
Then choose Repair function in the popup window (Repair).
You must be connected to the internet while repairing.

After that, can you run VRDB until it finishes?

Did you install many programs since December 17th?

[Spyros]

To the temporary rescue comes "avast! External Control.exe v1.6

What is this and what is it used for? I haven't seen it on the Avast Web site? Is it an official Avast tool?

It is a tool created by RejzoR. Go here: http://www.excessive-software.tk/

[RejZoR]

If you need disable/enable/restart avast!,then you should check avast! Main Control function in my tool Tweaker is meant for other things

[JohnnyBob]

Maybe the better will be a repair of your avast installation and then a manual generation of the VRDB...

Go to Control Panel > Add/Remove programs > avast! antivirus > Remove
Then choose Repair function in the popup window (Repair).
You must be connected to the internet while repairing.

After that, can you run VRDB until it finishes?

Did you install many programs since December 17th?

Thanks very much! Repair while online seems to have worked. I would never have thought of doing it online, but no problem. It looks like proper responsiveness & functionality of the "i" icon has been restored (so far).  I'm now generating the VRDB and will report back if it doesn't finish properly.

I installed my op system on a new hard drive on Dec. 16th. Immediately thereafter I installed my firewall (ZoneAlarm) and antivirus (avast), the very first thing! Then I installed all of my application software and data. I have two active hard drives, a master & slave, each with two partitions. I just did a complete & thorough scan with avast including archives and there are over a 1/2 million files occupying about 80GB total of hard drive space. It's not clear to me how avast could backup so much stuff for later recovery-it must be magic!? 
JB

[Lisandro]

It's not clear to me how avast could backup so much stuff for later recovery-it must be magic!? 

Please, note that VRDB is not a backup.
avast just stores some information about the file (the one which viruses change and infect) to be restored aftewards.
Can you, please, check the entry for VRDB into FAQ in my signature and try to learn more about it?
Cheers. 

[JohnnyBob]

It's not clear to me how avast could backup so much stuff for later recovery-it must be magic!? 

Please, note that VRDB is not a backup.
avast just stores some information about the file (the one which viruses change and infect) to be restored aftewards.
Can you, please, check the entry for VRDB into FAQ in my signature and try to learn more about it?
Cheers. 

I've read what is available, and believe I understand. The idea is that you probably make a fingerprint of important files (such as a MD5 checksum), so you can tell which ones have been changed, and then you save the parts which are most likely to be changed by viruses, so they can be restored later. You can call that "storage", but I'm more inclined to call it an "intelligent backup".

VRDB generation on my box took another 12 hours, about 4-5 days total. That's too long. It's obviously very slow with my applications running. I do NOT have any significant idle time on this computer which runs with 90%+ memory usage and 99% processor usage, almost 365 days a year. So I'm going to set the VRDB generator to run every 3 months rather than 3 weeks, so I won't have to worry about it so often. I don't know if that's an effective interval, maybe too long, but I get too nervous watching that little "i" ball spinning in systray and activating my hard drive everytime it gets a chance. It would stand a better chance if you would change the icon to a dancing hula girl, or some such...

[Fract504]

Hi,

A while ago I asked here how the VRDB is used to reconstruct an infected file, but a deep technical answer is still not available. I don't think that MD5 alone would help to get the file to its original state. What I could imagine and what makes sense is the following:

Maybe the VRDB stores some bytes from the beginning and the end of the file in its database, so that it can decide where to strip of the virus correctly. But just an assumption. Does anybody here know exactly how it works?

[RejZoR]

Idle time for VRDB means not moving mouse/pressing keyboard buttons and not actual CPU idle time.

[redman]

To the temporary rescue comes "avast! External Control.exe v1.6

What is this and what is it used for? I haven't seen it on the Avast Web site? Is it an official Avast tool?

It is a tool created by RejzoR. Go here: http://www.excessive-software.tk/

I've had a quick look at it but unfortunately it doesn't allow me to tweak the things I would like to tweak, especially which attachment types Avast considers to be suspicious. I'll just have to hope that the developers provide some further options like this in the e-mail scanner (bounced messages from my anti-spam filter [ChoiceMail One from www.digiportal.com] are also being flagged up by Avast as being suspicious, presumably because they are using an e-mail address for replies which is not my own [I think it is donotreply@choicemail.com or something similar]).

[JohnnyBob]

Idle time for VRDB means not moving mouse/pressing keyboard buttons and not actual CPU idle time.

Is this the correct line in avast4.ini to set the idle time before VRDB starts generating (with that option selected of course)? Is the 8 in seconds? And can I set it to something longer (maybe 60 seconds)? Maybe that's fairly obvious but I'd like to be sure. Thanks.

[VRDB]
IdleMeansSeconds=8 

[Lisandro]

Is this the correct line in avast4.ini to set the idle time before VRDB starts generating (with that option selected of course)? Is the 8 in seconds? And can I set it to something longer (maybe 60 seconds)? Maybe that's fairly obvious but I'd like to be sure. Thanks.
[VRDB]
IdleMeansSeconds=8 

Most problaby... I don't have this entry documented in avast4.ini file thread  :'(
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=1647

[RejZoR]

Those 8 seconds mean VRDB will start generating when mouse is not moved(and keyboard not pressed) for 8 seconds. If you give any input to your PC within these 8 sec VRDB will NOT start generating.

[Lisandro]

Those 8 seconds mean VRDB will start generating when mouse is not moved(and keyboard not pressed) for 8 seconds. If you give any input to your PC within these 8 sec VRDB will NOT start generating.

Thanks for the info... I'll update the avast4.ini file thread later...