Log viewer appears empty, is it normal?

[avlula]

Hi,

After installing avast home, I wanted to test it.
So, I installed the test virus of eicar (http://www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm).
It was not detected by the permanet shield, of which I adapted the settings to scan opened files, then it detected the test virus immediately. OK


Then I started a full scan manually, and the test virus was detected again, but this stopped the process:
1) question, how do I just get a report or automatically quarantine the contaminated file without stoppong the scan?

After the scan, I tried to view the log (log viewer), and it appeared empty, although the "setup and update" part is plenty of messages
2) question, is it  normal that the log viewer "program run" is empty in the home edition?

I also found a HUGE log "simple user interface.txt" at the place I configured it to be, but this one is too big.
3) question, how to filter and only record files with problems to that log? I used a perl script to remove the OK and skipped because settings, and got 11k instead of 240 MEGA :-(
see joined script

I noticed that some files could not be scanned, because of a permission denied, do I have to run the scan as administrator?

5) question how to schedule the scanning every night?

As soon as at least question 1 is answered, I can schedule the scanning in windows task scheduler (what when it promps at the end?),.
Then I will recommend avast as a good home antivirus solution.

avlula (teacher computer courses)

[Lisandro]

Hi, After installing avast home, I wanted to test it. So, I installed the test virus of eicar (http://www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm). It was not detected by the permanet shield, of which I adapted the settings to scan opened files, then it detected the test virus immediately. OK

There is no other way, I suppose, to detect the file as the eicar test file must be opened for detection. This is how the test works...

Then I started a full scan manually, and the test virus was detected again, but this stopped the process:
1) question, how do I just get a report or automatically quarantine the contaminated file without stoppong the scan?

I think you can only do it manually at the Home version. Pro version allow the automatic procedure.

After the scan, I tried to view the log (log viewer), and it appeared empty, although the "setup and update" part is plenty of messages

Do not mess 'log' with 'report'. Log are for internal information (setup, load, installation, running erros and so on). Reports are for virus scanning operations and to inform the state of the files scanned.

2) question, is it  normal that the log viewer "program run" is empty in the home edition?

Yes it could be. If your installation in good and avast is running smoothly in your system, you can stay a lot of time without any log for error!  

I also found a HUGE log "simple user interface.txt" at the place I configured it to be, but this one is too big.

Again, you are talking about the report file of Simple User Interface.

3) question, how to filter and only record files with problems to that log? I used a perl script to remove the OK and skipped because settings, and got 11k instead of 240 MEGA :-(

You can configure this at Settings > Reports > uncheck 'ok' files, for instance.

I noticed that some files could not be scanned, because of a permission denied, do I have to run the scan as administrator?

Depends. The majority of the cases you need to scan as administrator. But not all access trouble are related to this. Maybe some password protected files for instance. At administrator, no file will be with denied access.

5) question how to schedule the scanning every night?

Another feature of the Pro version.


Ufff...    how many questions...  

[avlula]

  RTFM! ok I found the options to choose what to log and to disable confirmations in the settings.

Still not able to use warnings, when testing I get an "unknown error"  

regards

[igor]

To a limited extent, you can do the scheduling of the scan using the Window Scheduler (and ashQuick.exe program).
 

Some files (swap, registry) cannot be accessed when the operating system is running - no matter if you're administrator or not. It's normal behavior - nothing to worry about.

Can you post a few examples of files (I mean their filenames) that give you "unknown error"?

[MikeBCda]

Can I add a comment, about the "huge" report files?

Somewhere in the setup options relating to reporting -- and one of you can probably steer avlula to it faster than I can -- there's an option tick-box to over-write previous reports.  I'm guessing that if that's not ticked, then new reporting is simply appended to the existing reports(s) rather than replacing it/them.

And of course if that's the case, the report files would just keep getting bigger and bigger.

There are times, of course, that you'd want the older info too, to compare with current results.  But it's probably simpler to just rename the old file and compare the files side-by-side, rather than let them grow into a single "monster".

Hey, there's a thought for future versions (Home, that is, maybe it's already in Pro) -- how about an option to rename/backup/whatever the old report file before starting a new one?  That way you would have them as separate files, if you need to compare them.

Best,
Mike

[Lisandro]

Can I add a comment, about the "huge" report files?

Somewhere in the setup options relating to reporting -- and one of you can probably steer avlula to it faster than I can -- there's an option tick-box to over-write previous reports.  I'm guessing that if that's not ticked, then new reporting is simply appended to the existing reports(s) rather than replacing it/them.

And of course if that's the case, the report files would just keep getting bigger and bigger.

Great Mike, I did not think in this suggestion. You got your k@rma...  
Avlula, could you answer Igor's questions? It will be very helpfull for us to know which files are doing this error ('unknown error').