The suggested remedy is to close and re-open avast to "repair the antivirus components", but that isn't working. I saw a couple other topics with this same error, but I need a user-friendly fix, not one that requires mucking about with file name changes and the like. I have no idea when I started getting this error; I just opened the application to run a scan on my USB (which I know has a PC virus on it that I've deleted countless times), and found out. It has been installed on my computer for a few months without issue.