17.1.2286 UI Failed to load. AV Service is not responding

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Updating via GUI to new Avast Free Antivirus 17.1.2286 on Windows Vista Home Premium SP2, after computer restart, Avast Free Antivirus is unable to run.

Black screen with the error "UI Failed to load. This is really embarrasing. AV service is not responding."

Before updating to 17.1.2286 Avast Free Antivirus was perfectly running on teh same computer, same environment.

Any idea?

[Eddy]

Did you reboot a few times ?
If so, perform a clean installation of the latest version and see if that solves the problem.

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Same problem here on Vista Home Basic.  Reboot again, no help.

Attempt to start Avast service manually resulted in error message:  "Windows could not start the Avast Antivirus service on Local Computer.  Error 5: Access is denied."

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Same problem. Old computer (old hardware) with windows 10.

[Charyb-0]

I ran a repair and am now able to open the GUI.


Image shows before the repair.

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Same problem here.  I have an old PC running Vista Home Premium Service pack 2.  Everything was running fine until the program of my Free Avast was updated.  Tried rebooting several times.  Did not help.  I am "unprotected".  What do I do now?

[Eddy]

Perform a repair of avast.
If that doesn't solve it, perform a clean installation of avast.

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I'm having the exact same problem.  Avast was working fine until it practically forced me at gunpoint to upgrade.  UI fails to load.  Attempting to start service manually results in "Error 5: Access is denied".  Repair did NOT work.  Same problem following restart after repair.

This is getting tiresome.  I don't know how much longer I can continue to pretend I still trust Avast.

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I don't know what a "repair of Avast" is.  Is there a link to a procedure that I can follow?

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On Vista I did Control Panel - Programs and Features, select Avast and hit 'Change'.  That took me to an Avast screen that had a 'repair' option.  It didn't work for me.  Service still fails to start.

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Thanks bmbguy.  I was unaware of that procedure.  It didn't solve the problem, but it's a step in the right direction.  I'm going to keep trying.  If I come up with a solution, I'll post it.  I hope you and others do the same.  By the way, since the Avast update caused the problem, it would be nice if Avast provided a solution.

[Eddy]

Perform a clean installation of the latest avast version and see if it solves things.

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A new download of Avast followed by a re-installation, does not work anyway.

What does "clean installation" mean? Could someone provide detailed procedure?

Because it seems a general problem for windows Vista users, I think Avast should stop deploying this new version and provide as soon as possible a temporary fix for the affected users.

Could a bypass be to reinstall the previous version? Does someone knows where to find the installer for the previous version?

Thanks a lot!

[Eddy]

Clean installation means removing everything from avast and then installing it again.

- Remove all files/folders/registry entries from avast
- Reboot
- Install avast as it never ever was installed before

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Downloaded Avast cleanup tool and offline install package for new version 17 (free version).

Install went ok (Vista Home Basic) and service appears to be running.  Tray icon says 'protected' when hovered over. 

After install, UI attempted to start and could not -- blank white box on screen, window never looks like it was created successfully.  Same results after reboot and right-click on tray icon to 'Open Avast UI'.  I CAN get to a UI if I click on 'About' instead.

Process explorer from Sysinternals showed Avast UI process existed, but was not taking CPU and could NOT be killed  -- access denied.  CTRL-ALT_DEL would not bring up the Windows process manager.

So, it seems like Avast is running, but there are still big problems getting the UI to work.