Avast 2014 online registration failure...solved

[thetao]

I skimmed a few other posts before starting a new thread.  Apologies if this is an FAQ somewhere...

I recently recovered my WinXP SP3 installation after some registry corruption, and used the occasion to install Avast 2014.  Installation went perfectly, but attempting to do an online registration always failed.  The "Loading" window with the spinning animation appeared for several seconds, but then...nothing.  After puzzling over this for a couple weeks, I decided to troubleshoot, and can report that one of two things (or both) fixed the problem.

1) Windows Update may still be broken, and with my previous registry trouble, I manually updated Windows' internal list of root certificates (stored in the registry), through a download like http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=41084 for WinXP.

2) After noting references to the server ssl.google-analytics.com in Avast's HtmlRemoteContent.log, I un-blocked access to this tracking site in my HOSTS file (YMMV).

Then the "Register you avast! Free Antivirus" window suddenly sprang to life.  After a few experiments, I noticed that the online registration window may sometimes fail to launch even under optimal conditions, so do try the Upgrade button 2 or 3 times before declaring it still broken.

I hope this was helpful to somebody, and that Avast will allow future releases to fail more gracefully.

[REDACTED]

A big thank you, got the same issue and solved by temporarily renaming the modified host table;
i also suspect that the installation of unthreat failed because of this too, i'll try on another pc.

I wonder, if one day google or someone else (ex. the us defence) turn off or block the google farms, will internet stop? That's why i'm trying to not relay on google tools when i can.