Slowdown with SUMo

[jvidal]

In my case, Avast slows down SUMo only under XP64. Under win7-64 works fine.

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In my case, Avast slows down SUMo only under XP64. Under win7-64 works fine.

Maybe some XP-specific implementation in AVAST ?

[DavidR]

But SUMo alone without AVAST runs fine, right ?

Yes, the culprit is "Scan programs when executing" of Avast's "File System Shield".

Which should be the same as under avast 2014, weird.

In my case, Avast slows down SUMo only under XP64. Under win7-64 works fine.

Maybe some XP-specific implementation in AVAST ?

Not being a SUMo user - but I'm not sure if that is the case. The reason I think this is that in avast 2015 there are new avast functionality that isn't used in XP - so essentially it should be reacting in the same way as the previous avast 2014 version.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to why this would be seen in SUMo, XP, system combinations - its activity of pulling in software updates would certainly generate avast scanning activity, but that would have been the same in avast 2014.

A possibility being the DeepScreen and Hardened Mode features, which would have been updated - I know that Hardened Mode isn't enabled by default, but the DeepScreen may be enabled by default. This may well generate more avast activity on the file system shield - you could try disabling these two if you have them enabled and see if that makes a difference and then turn them back one one at a time.

Another thought older XP systems may suffer more than later OSes, in that they haven't got the same resources available in newer systems.

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I'm at a bit of a loss as to why this would be seen in SUMo, XP, system combinations - its activity of pulling in software updates would certainly generate avast scanning activity, but that would have been the same in avast 2014.

As far as I know, SUMo does not "pull software updates". It checks versions during the scan and reports installed and available version#. That should not cause these enormous delays.
Deep Screen job might be it under the one hand doesn't know what the other is doing theory.

I'd be curious if someone on 32-bit XP with the current Avast could do a careful, repeatable, multiple, timing comparison of just opening Properties on any .exe file - with and without active Avast shield. I suspect it'll be rough to time, being short, but perhaps it will shed some light on the reported slow scans.

Another thing to look at during SUMo scan might be Avast logs - are the files SUMo checks listed in any Avast log? If 'scan on execution' is to blame, there might be something in the logs.

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I'm at a bit of a loss as to why this would be seen in SUMo, XP, system combinations - its activity of pulling in software updates would certainly generate avast scanning activity, but that would have been the same in avast 2014.

As far as I know, SUMo does not "pull software updates". It checks versions during the scan and reports installed and available version#. That should not cause these enormous delays.
Deep Screen job might be it under the one hand doesn't know what the other is doing theory.

I'd be curious if someone on 32-bit XP with the current Avast could do a careful, repeatable, multiple, timing comparison of just opening Properties on any .exe file - with and without active Avast shield. I suspect it'll be rough to time, being short, but perhaps it will shed some light on the reported slow scans.

Another thing to look at during SUMo scan might be Avast logs - are the files SUMo checks listed in any Avast log? If 'scan on execution' is to blame, there might be something in the logs.

You're right, that's exactly what SUMo does : massively opening exe file properties in read only

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A possibility being the DeepScreen and Hardened Mode features, which would have been updated - I know that Hardened Mode isn't enabled by default, but the DeepScreen may be enabled by default. This may well generate more avast activity on the file system shield - you could try disabling these two if you have them enabled and see if that makes a difference and then turn them back one one at a time.

I had Hardened Mode mode disabled. I tried disabling DeepScreen, but the problem persists.

Another thought older XP systems may suffer more than later OSes, in that they haven't got the same resources available in newer systems.

Not sure if you mean software or hardware resources. It's not a hardware problem because in the same physical PC I have Win XP and Win 10, and on XP I have this problem but I don't on Win 10.

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I'd be curious if someone on 32-bit XP with the current Avast could do a careful, repeatable, multiple, timing comparison of just opening Properties on any .exe file - with and without active Avast shield. I suspect it'll be rough to time, being short, but perhaps it will shed some light on the reported slow scans.

I have tried opening Properties (from explorer). And when the shield is disabled it seems a bit faster, but maybe I'm just imagining it.

Is there a proper way to time it properly? A PowerShell command or something?

Another thing to look at during SUMo scan might be Avast logs - are the files SUMo checks listed in any Avast log? If 'scan on execution' is to blame, there might be something in the logs.

Where are those logs?

[DavidR]

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Another thought older XP systems may suffer more than later OSes, in that they haven't got the same resources available in newer systems.

Not sure if you mean software or hardware resources. It's not a hardware problem because in the same physical PC I have Win XP and Win 10, and on XP I have this problem but I don't on Win 10.

I meant hardware resources mainly RAM and CPU - I found that 1GB of RAM or less (and many of that era did have less) on XP systems had XP swapping out to the pagefile.sys - I found 2GB really made a difference in performance and with RAM so inexpensive I moved to 4GB.

[Lisandro]

Another issue with SUMO: https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=164072

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Thanx folks for the intense discussion of my problem. I think its clear now that the reason is the combination of XP and avast 10.x.
For me the waiting time for a fix (or even a reaction of the avast developers) was too long, so I changed - not the antivirus, but the OS to Win7.
And voila: SUMo runs smooth again.

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Where are those logs?

On XP logs should be under
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Avast

[bob3160]

Where are those logs?

On XP logs should be under
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Avast

It's easy to create a shortcut so reaching reports and logs are always only one click away.
Instructions here:
http://youtu.be/ntW8zGicUfk

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On XP logs should be under
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Avast

I tried looking there but didn't know exactly which was the File System Shield log.

Searching with Windows Grep, the only match for "SUMo" in "%AllUsersProfile%\Application Data\AVAST Software\" is the file "%AllUsersProfile%\Application Data\AVAST Software\Persistent Data\Avast\Logs\Update.log", which contains the text "%ProgramFiles%\AVAST Software\Avast\ffmpegsumo.dll".

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On XP logs should be under
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Avast

I tried looking there but didn't know exactly which was the File System Shield log.

Searching with Windows Grep, the only math for "SUMo" in "%AllUsersProfile%\Application Data\AVAST Software\" is the file "%AllUsersProfile%\Application Data\AVAST Software\Persistent Data\Avast\Logs\Update.log", which contains the text "%ProgramFiles%\AVAST Software\Avast\ffmpegsumo.dll".

This doesn't help much :-(

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If it is anything like v9 of Avast on XP, the log might* be in your docs and settings under All Users and
...\Application data\Avast software\Avast\log
I think that the real-time scan log name might* be usntr.log
(might*=from looking in my backups, I have no AV at this point)

Here's what I would do: first, run something you don't use often. Look at the usntr.log - is what you just ran there? If you cache Avast results, it might not be, so keep trying since the only reason for it is to see if this or any other log is of any use.

Then run SUMo, and recheck the log . The SUMo entry should be there (unless you're cacheing). But the important stuff is after that to see if the files SUMo looks at are being logged which implies avast scans them (IMO).

SUMo writes a log. Are there large latencies? Perhaps some firewall setting is interfering.
After you do Scan and Check, click Help > Open log file and review the timings. Mine are around 125ms per application.