Murky Downloads by AVAST

[bob3160]

I had that happen on a computer that I had not used for several month.
Update took a long time because of all the VPS downloads.
I don't intend to let the computer sit that long again. 

[Nagan]

All I can think of is that Avast found a problem that required it to download the entire virus data base again

That could be it. I had to reinstall Avast! a couple of day ago and after the reboot Avast! downloaded 90MB virus data base. It looked weird at the time because it has never happened to me before, but it has not done it again and my VPS are normal and I have my defs VPS folder with the regular 100+MB.

You may be true. In my experience I had it in Win 7 x 64 and then WIN XP. If AVAST is compelled to download an entire 90 mb VDB then it is a pretty serious issue  which needs attention on top priority.
 From what you guys confirm , it (massive downloads) seems to be a very general thing which others might have just overlooked. In plain terms it is a joke on us.
 From my side I have totally uninstalled the modules in the middle column , the left column being compulsorily required to see if there is any improvement.
 Whatever , I just hope AVAST gets to the bottom of it soon.

[DavidR]

They are not a general thing but rather an unusual exception.

I have never had avast download the full virus definitions database as it has always been able to download the incremental updates, which are generally measured in KBs not massive MBs.

A corrupt update function could be an issue but this generally presents itself in error messages when trying to update and not downloading the complete database as that to is likely to fail since the update function being corrupt. This would require a manual download of the full database and within that executable file a means of repairing the corruption. But you would know about that as it would require a manual download.

[Nagan]

They are not a general thing but rather an unusual exception.

I have never had avast download the full virus definitions database as it has always been able to download the incremental updates, which are generally measured in KBs not massive MBs.

A corrupt update function could be an issue but this generally presents itself in error messages when trying to update and not downloading the complete database as that to is likely to fail since the update function being corrupt. This would require a manual download of the full database and within that executable file a means of repairing the corruption. But you would know about that as it would require a manual download.

An unusual exception for atleast three persons on this thread! (For humor only 
I do not get this thing about manual download? I never had AVAST inform me that the database needs to be dowloaded again. Also when such things are happening how do I find what AVAST is downloading. Any logs or interactive message? Just to inform that mine was over the top install in the first case for both Win 7 x 64 and XP and both had this issue.
 The second time I had uninstalled AVAST completely in my XP system ran AWS clear and then installed fresh. Despite that the same downloads issue. In my case it seems to be just compelled downloading...