VRDB Questions

[hybiepoo]

Firstly - how long should the initial creation of the VRDB take?
Secondly - is the avast! Antivirus service supposed to stop while this is happening?

My machine seems to be taking almost a day (and still going) to create the initial database. The service is also stopping while the VRDB generator does its thing.

I installed avast! to another machine, and its database was created within a minute.

My machine has a second hard drive with an ext2 partition, and a windows driver so that windows can see the ext2 partition.
Thats about the only thing odd about my PC compared to any other.

Should I just let the VRDB generator keep going, or should I just disable it completely?

[hybiepoo]

I guess I just answered one of my own questions:

Event Type:   Error
Event Source:   Service Control Manager
Event Category:   None
Event ID:   7034
Date:      27/02/2006
Time:      5:38:37 PM
User:      N/A
Computer:   BEAST
Description:
The avast! Antivirus service terminated unexpectedly.  It has done this 1 time(s).

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

I guess this brings another question... why is this happening?



Edit:
Further info...

If I attempt to restart the service while VRDB is generating, it dies again immediately.
If I stop the VRDB generation, the "I" logo keeps spinning until I restart the avast service.
The avast service stays running from there on.

The VRDB generation does not take any CPU, so I can only guess that its not actually doing anything the whole time.

[Lisandro]

Firstly - how long should the initial creation of the VRDB take?

Depends on how many executables you have in your computer, the creation method of VRDB, computer performance, etc.
I won't worry that much...

Secondly - is the avast! Antivirus service supposed to stop while this is happening?

For sure not. VRDB runs at the same time as the antivirus protection.

The service is also stopping while the VRDB generator does its thing.

If the service stop, are you sure that VRDB is being generated? I think it's not possible...

My machine has a second hard drive with an ext2 partition, and a windows driver so that windows can see the ext2 partition.
Thats about the only thing odd about my PC compared to any other.

The ext2 partition shouldn't bring any problem here.

[hybiepoo]

If the service stop, are you sure that VRDB is being generated? I think it's not possible...

As I said in my previous post, it looks like its not doing anything other than turning the icon.
I uninstalled avast, deleted avast from the Program Files directory, searched the registry for keys and deleted them, then reinstalled.
I tried to create the VRDB again and it started to work for a while (using around 30% cpu and alot of HDD activity), but after around an hour the service died again and I was back to where I was before.

Turning on debug logging doesnt seem to tell me anything.

Any suggestions? Any idea why this service is crashing?

[igor]

Please check the file <avast4>\Data\avast4.ini (after the service has crashed). In the [VRDB] section, there should be a key called LastFile. Is it there? If yes, what is the value?
I find it rather unlikely, but maybe VRDB has problems with some file... and the "LastFile" value is likely to be rather close to the "bad" one (probably the one before that).

Additionally, are there any recent unpXXXXXXXX.tmp files (where X are some numbers) or *.mdmp files in <avast>\Data\Log directory?

[hybiepoo]

LastFile=D:\home\piggie\pipeband\html\admin\\language

D drive is my ext2 partition

There are no .tmp files or .mdmp files in my log directory.

I will try backing up and temporarily deleting that folder and see if it fixes the problem

Edit:
When I try to move the folder, explorer.exe crashes... might have found the culprit!

[igor]

What if you just copy the folder somewhere else?

[hybiepoo]

I have tar'd up the folder and deleted the original.
At the moment I'm updating my Linux system, but when I boot back to windows I will try again and see what happens.
It was very weird - in windows when I tried to zip up the folder, winzip was giving errors saying "cant add  LastFile=D:\home\piggie\pipeband\html\admin\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" filename too long, and other errors similar.
It appears that the ext2 driver for windows might have some problems,w hich in turn caused problems with Avast.
I will post back here with what I find anyway for future reference.

[hybiepoo]

I can confirm that this was the problem.
The database was created relatively quickly after I got rid of this directory.
Obviously VRDB was getting into some kind of directory level loop because windows was not reading the EXT2 drive properly.

Thanks for your help.

[CharleyO]

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Welcome to the forums, hybiepoo.   

We a glad your problem is resolved.

Please come back often, learn more, and maybe help others.   


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