We are now experiencing this issue again. My coworkers and I have come up with some hypotheses, but would like to present all of our information here in the hopes that Avast staff can help us resolve this issue.
Our current imaging process:1. We configure Windows and install Avast on a "master" image and activate it, which we then sysprep, and upload to our imaging system.
Note: We have to do it this way, because if we run an Avast installer
after imaging a machine, Avast! SafeZone browser icons and Avast! Chrome extensions are installed. We cannot permit this in our environment, so we have to have Avast installed, but remove these extraneous installations before deploying across our district.
2. Machines then pull down this image (several hundred times a month), are named/added to the domain, and ready for use. Once they boot for the first time after pulling down the image, they pop up in the Avast! Cloud console, and I issue activations.
The issue we are running into now:For the second time, we are now getting what I described in the original post in this thread. The only fix we have found is to manually uninstall and reinstall Avast! (which then also installs SafeZone Browser and Chrome Extensions), and this is not a suitable resolution for us considering how many systems we manage.
Our hypothesis:Is there some sort of "timeout" built into the installer that prevents a system from activating/communicating after a certain length of inactivity? Because all imaged machines are technically the identical install ID (or whatever identifier Avast! uses) to the original "master" image install, are newly imaged machines suddenly unable to communicate because the install on the master image has not communicated back to Avast! servers for too long?
As you can see, the last time we updated our image (specifically to combat the issue that I started this thread for) was almost exactly 1 month ago.
It seems like the timeout is approximately 1 month, as I made this thread almost a full month ago and we are now revisiting the same issue again.
Please contact me with questions, it is of the utmost importance that we resolve this issue as soon as possible.
Thanks,
Dan