Author Topic: Avast Slow to Start  (Read 12278 times)

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amarand

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Avast Slow to Start
« on: March 18, 2014, 04:48:30 AM »
Brand new laptop computer (HP 17t-j000) with a clean build of Windows 8.1 Pro (purchased from Microsoft), installed on a relatively fast (Samsung 840 EVO) SSD, running under pretty hard-core specs:

  • Operating system - Windows 8.1 64 Pro
  • Memory - 16GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
  • Hard drive - Samsung 840 EVO 250GB
  • Graphics card - NVIDIA GeForce GT 740M Graphics with 2048MB of dedicated video memory
  • Processor - 4th generation Intel Core. i7-4702MQ Processor (2.2GHz, 6MB L3 Cache)

The original build came with McAfee, which we unloaded in safe mode using the cleaner tool mentioned in the forums.  We then rebooted the laptop and installed the latest build of Avast from the executable mentioned in the sticky topic: Avast! Premier 2014.9.0.2013.

What's the problem?  It takes Avast about five minutes to start up all of its services after signing into the machine.  If Avast starts up first, it makes all other services immediately after login hang until it's completed.  If we tick off the "Load avast! services only after loading other system services" then everything else starts up swimmingly, and avast eventually gets around to starting up.  This seems wrong. Something's not right.  Five minutes to start up anti-virus?  Consistently?  After every single reboot?

We've spent days (since Thursday 3/13) and late evenings, reading through the forums here, Googling "Avast Startup/slow down/login" you name it.  So much reading, so much time wasted trying to troubleshoot this very simple problem.

We contacted Avast technical support, which unfortunately, tried to run a scanning application that gave a bunch of red flags (on a clean-built machine!) and wasn't so conclusive.  (Pro-tip: I have 37 years of working with computers under my belt.  Dealing with this Avast tech support engineer on the phone was maddening - truly maddening.)

We've gone through all of the Settings/Troubleshooting, Settings/Update, tweaking this, fiddling with that.  Right now, what we see is Avast takes five minutes to start-up after logging in, and that's just not right.  Is there anyone who can tell us anything aside from "Do a clean install!" We've done a clean install.  Several times. About six or seven times, by my very tired count.  We've used safe mode (a pain in 8.1, but we do what we do), we've used the cleaning utilities, we've downloaded and reformatted, recloned, and restored from image.  C'mon, seriously, this is a brand new laptop, with a current O/S build, running off a super-fast SSD (five second boot time) and I'm very good at cleaning out all the cruft.

Please help?

amarand

  • Guest
Re: Avast Slow to Start
« Reply #1 on: March 18, 2014, 05:43:38 AM »
A quick follow-up: we can pretty much turn the five-minute-delay on and off like a light switch with that "Load avast! services only after loading other system services" option.  We have 100% reproducibility.

The laptop is currently running on Wi-Fi, as there's no practical way to access the network cable until tomorrow.  We will then test a direct connection to the router, to see if it's a Wi-Fi versus LAN issue, and report back.

Please let me know if you guys need any further details or troubleshooting information.

Thanks!

Offline essexboy

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Re: Avast Slow to Start
« Reply #2 on: March 18, 2014, 03:16:34 PM »
Sounds like the vps update.  Could you set the updates to "I only connect using a modem" and see if that has the same effect


amarand

  • Guest
Re: Avast Slow to Start
« Reply #3 on: March 18, 2014, 07:58:52 PM »
Here are the results from our extensive testing:

Test 1: Load Avast Services Checked - also had the modem check box checked but my testing confirms that checking or unchecking the modem box makes no measurable difference to this testing.

Total time from verifying Avast settings, clicking OK, closing the Avast windows, selecting to restart, logging in typing one handed, and having all system icons come up was a total of 00:01:25.

Test 2: Load Avast Services disabled:

Close Avast, restart, login - still under 00:01:00
Waiting for all tasks to load including Avast took a total time of 00:06:59


Test 3: Load Avast Services disabled and uncheck I only connect to the internet using a dialup modem:

Close Avast, restart, login - still under 00:01:00
Waiting for all tasks to load including Avast took a total time of 00:07:02

Test 4: Load Avast Services enabled and left connect to internet using a dialup modem unchecked:

Close Avast, restart, login and all services loaded total time was 00:01:23.

Interesting:

Test 5: Cold Boot (from power off): 50 seconds

Test 6: Warm Boot (Windows reboot): Seven minute delay in services starting.

Test 7: Connect directly to network (not practical for use, but okay for testing), always starts up within a minute.

So, to summarize:

  • When connected directly to the wired LAN, it's always fast.
  • When using Wi-Fi, there's a seven minute reboot delay. Cold boot is fast (a minute)
  • Changing Avast start-up order doesn't reduce delay of Avast starting up, but it does allow other tasks to complete first
  • Setting the "dial up modem" setting has little to no effect in this case

Next step?

amarand

  • Guest
Re: Avast Slow to Start
« Reply #4 on: March 20, 2014, 03:46:18 PM »
Although we shouldn't have to do this, we bypassed the wireless issue by purchasing a Netgear Ethernet-to-Wi-Fi adapter, which completely mitigated the start-up slow-down, as long as the network is coming through via the LAN cable. It's a kludgy fix, but it apparently works.

My next question is this: is there someone at Avast who could help diagnose the underlying problem (with Avast)?

The reason why I say "with Avast" is because all other network-related programs and start-up items work just fine, it's only Avast that delays.

If Avast is first in the start-up order, it causes everything else to delay by five minutes.  If it's last, it still delays, it just doesn't cause everything else to hang up.

So, yes, ticking off the "Load avast! services only after loading other system services" fixes the delay issue, we still don't know why it's hanging for five minutes, holding everything up.  Can we send you logs?  Is there any way to trace this on your end?  We'd like to be able to run Avast the way it was intended to be run.  Ticking off the services troubleshooting option displays a big red warning stating that it leaves your computer unprotected during the startup phase.  How can that be a good thing?

Please let us know what the next step is.  Thanks!

Dom1234

  • Guest
Re: Avast Slow to Start
« Reply #5 on: March 21, 2014, 07:41:18 AM »
I'm so glad to have found this thread, as I've also been experiencing an Avast related 5-7 minute boot delay with a new moderately high end PC I've recently built.

I'm running Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit (a direct 8.1 install from Dreamspark student, not upgraded from 8.0) with Avast! Internet Security and find that upon rebooting, a few of the startup programs will load, and then Windows' taskbar will freeze up for right at 5-7 full minutes every time.  After a number of minutes with little to no hard drive light activity, the spirit seemingly re-enters the computer as the Windows log-in chime sounds and everything loads up perfectly fine and quickly. Performing a cold boot often bypasses the problem, but then it seems to spontaneously reappear given one or more reboots.  Once it happens during a reboot it's like clockwork that I can reproduce it every time in subsequent reboots.

Just as amarand has pointed out, I've also now found that the "Load avast! services only after loading other system services" option seems to completely bypass the issue, but is obviously not a viable "fix" for the problem for security reasons.

Also, the suggestion to choose "connect with modem" had no effect.  As far as hardware goes, I'm running an AMD/ATI build with a Seagate Hybrid SSD hard drive, quite different from yours other than the Windows 8.1 Pro.  I'm wired directly into my router (without any option for trying a wireless connection for comparison).  Booting with my network adapter disabled doesn't seem to affect the slow boot.

If there's anything else I can add to help get the problem solved, then by all means please don't hesitate to ask!!

Also amarand, there are a few quirks and observations I've noticed that maybe you can replicate in the hopes of pinpointing where the issue lies.  Before typing your user password and logging into Windows, are you able to induce any odd behavior by clicking on the Network Connections icon? On mine, doing this causes the connections pane to appear on the right with a No Connections prompt followed by the 5-7 minute lockup.  After the lockup, my ethernet connection appears in the list, and I'm then able to log into Windows without any sort of a further delay.  Another issue I noticed is disabling the "fast startup" option in the power options seemed to make the problem appear even after a cold boot, which otherwise seemed to bypass the issue.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2014, 07:51:29 AM by Dom1234 »

fanyuvo

  • Guest
Re: Avast Slow to Start
« Reply #6 on: March 22, 2014, 05:26:19 PM »
I have the same issue :(
I didn't know the slow boot happened because of Avast. It takes a long time to figure out what is the problem. Because i didn't want to make a clean Windows 8.1 Pro install.

I'll change my virus protection because of this...

amarand

  • Guest
Re: Avast Slow to Start
« Reply #7 on: March 22, 2014, 08:46:30 PM »
See, my thought is: go ahead and check for updates, all the time, I don't care. But don't stop system and/or virus processing to check for updates, download updates, verify the validity of downloaded updates...none of these items should cause a system slowdown.  I'm guessing the "check for updates" simply consists of a quick phone home.  Downloading is just a file download, no big deal.  And checking the validity should simply be a signature check, or a CRC.  I'm not sure why any of this update business might be causing a seven minute delay in processing.

Also, my anti-virus and system should -always- continue to work, except for that split second where it's cutting over to the new definitions.  Nothing else should cause my anti-virus to slow down or hang.  Period.

In my mind, a five to seven minute delay is not acceptable, and someone should look into why this is happening, rather than simply saying "here are a few switches to click that might solve your problem."  While useful in the sense that at least of of these switches is a valid work-around (allowing the system to continue to run properly while Avast has issues in the background), it's still not an analysis of the situation or a repair of the root cause.

It's kinda sad.  And I'm clearly not the only person experiencing this issue.

Will Avast offer any resources to try and figure this out?  I've paid, my friend has paid, and clearly a few folks on here have paid as well.

Addyhash

  • Guest
Re: Avast Slow to Start
« Reply #8 on: March 22, 2014, 10:54:12 PM »
yes yes YES!!...  here I was ready to throw my new lappy at the salesman at Hardly Normal as it was taking longer to start up than the the Old Faithful it's replacing.
My Asus has pretty much the same specs as amarand's and thought it was a little weird to take so long.
That is probabky why i also get a 'solve pc issue alert' saying "avast isn't running " lol
Is there a better fix than ticking the 'load other apps first box' ?

fanyuvo

  • Guest
Re: Avast Slow to Start
« Reply #9 on: March 23, 2014, 12:01:31 PM »
I forget, here is my specs:

Windows 8.1 Pro
avast! Internet Security 2014.9.0.2016
Intel i7-2600K
16 GB RAM
Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3
Gigabyte HD 6850
Samsung 840 EVO 120GB

similar to your specs




« Last Edit: March 23, 2014, 12:23:02 PM by fanyuvo »

Phil_12345

  • Guest
Re: Avast Slow to Start
« Reply #10 on: March 24, 2014, 04:58:49 AM »
Hi,

Is there a solution for this slow start up issue yet because I have the same program with BOTH my main PC and laptop.

-----------
Main PC
-----------
Avast Free version 2014.9.0.2016 (latest)
AMD Phenom II x4 (3.8 Ghz)
Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit)
8 Gb memory
Samsung SSD 840 Pro 128 Gb (80Gb free)
 

Take roughly 27-30 seconds cold boot into Windows (Main PC)

->  Issue, can not open any program until Avast tray icon appear in notification area after 80 seconds later.    Task manager shows AvastUI.exe is running with zero CPU usage.
This is defeat the whole purpose of having an SSD drive.


Tried:

 - All possible suggestion from internet and this forum tried to speed Avast up but still no go (load Avast service after system services; disable auto-update;....)

 - Uninstalled (normal unistall AND using Avast clean application) and reinstall Avast 3 times but still no go.
        - By the way, without Avast, everything open soooooo fast the way it suppose to be.

 - Uninstall Avast and tried AVG Free --> awsome speed --> but too many  false positive.

Any suggestion?



 








Dom1234

  • Guest
Re: Avast Slow to Start
« Reply #11 on: March 28, 2014, 05:29:42 AM »
I'm hoping that this glitch isn't being perceived as merely a drop in boot performance between program versions considering it's such a substantially long amount of time for the program to be locking up (7 minutes!  :'( ).  I worry that the thread title doesn't do the issue justice to get the attention it needs and I'm really hoping that the issue can be looked into by the team.

Phil_12345

  • Guest
Re: Avast Slow to Start
« Reply #12 on: April 18, 2014, 04:09:06 AM »

Head up:

New update 2014.9.0.2018 fixed this issue for both my main PC and laptop.

Look like Avast KNEW about this but DECIDED to keep QUIET (but some how it magicially fixed).
Hope they don't f-up in sub sequence updates.


« Last Edit: April 18, 2014, 04:12:09 AM by Phil_12345 »

fanyuvo

  • Guest
Re: Avast Slow to Start
« Reply #13 on: April 22, 2014, 07:54:22 PM »
Thank you! It works!