Author Topic: [NOT SOLVED ] Avast free virus definition updates make full my hard drive  (Read 28747 times)

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Offline Asyn

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OK Giulio, no problem. :) Best you wait for Igor then...
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Offline igor

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Honestly, unless the "disappearing" disk space is found [to be occupied by some files], I don't think I have any more ideas... (note: Total Commander is quite good for searching for stuff as well)

Now it's normal that the disk space goes down temporarily after the virus definition update - simply because the old virus definition is removed only after some time. But it certainly shouldn't add up gradually, ten times the same over ten definition updates.

Offline giulio_toffoletti

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OK Giulio, no problem. :) Best you wait for Igor then...

Ty so much Asyn :)

Offline giulio_toffoletti

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Honestly, unless the "disappearing" disk space is found [to be occupied by some files], I don't think I have any more ideas... (note: Total Commander is quite good for searching for stuff as well)

Now it's normal that the disk space goes down temporarily after the virus definition update - simply because the old virus definition is removed only after some time. But it certainly shouldn't add up gradually, ten times the same over ten definition updates.

Thank you Igor for the support.

I can say one thing. as you know there was problem with the sse2 instruction. The other Avast user with the Sempron cpu gave you an idea to fix something abotu the problem with the update. The problem equal to mine for this user began at the same date. 6th Feb. So i think that something is appened on this date. and my problem with the date of the virus update and the lose of the space are began in this occasion. Before i never had messages of " not enough space " on the disk...

I don't not what to think.

What would you do if you were me? Ty for the patience and the help  :(

Offline YeOldeBowler

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A shot in the dark but could it be related to:
https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=224523.30

The increase in disk space used looks similar...
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Offline igor

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Well the SSE2 problem was clear (looking back, of course) - we updated the compiler and it started to include Spectre mitigations in the code... which caused the code to crash on systems without a SSE2 support. The crash happened during the "preparation" phase of the virus definitions which resulted in more and more ("unprepared") virus definition folders to get created on disk - because only the older folders than the one currently used are automatically removed, and here the current was a rather old one (the one before the compiler got updated). So disk space got consumed. (On one hand, it was kinda lucky that the crash occurred during the preparation, and not only later during the actual scanning - because the machine remained protected with the old virus definitions. On the other hand, if the preparation finished successfully and it crashed later during scanning, the program would show as unprotected - and we'd probably notice faster).

However, that problem has been fixed - you can see that the "latest" number in aswdefs.ini get updated and the older virus definition folders are (with some delay) removed; those were the ones that occupied your disk space.
I don't know about other files being created though... sure, during a virus definition update, the relevant installer packages are downloaded (but that has always been the case and that part is program code so it didn't change), they are extracted and their code is called/used. The virus definitions don't create any files automatically... they can create temporary files during archive scanning, but nothing "out of the blue", right after the update.

Let me repeat once again though - when virus definitions are updated, you may "lose" something like 200MB at that moment, that's normal. There are two virus definitions loaded for some time; the old one should be deleted (and the disk space reclaimed) after some time, let's say half an our - depends on what's going on on the machine though, the time may vary. There can even be a bug in some of the code causing the first definitions to keep loaded; in that case, after the next virus definitions, three different definitions will be loaded for some time (and another 200MB disk space is "lost"). However, that shouldn't grow much farther... plus, regarding the virus definitions, if you reboot the system, they are cleaned up and only the last one remains (so the disk space grows).

If you're saying that even after a reboot (when there's only one virus definition folder - not counting those with _stream suffix, they are small) the disk space remains lost... well I'm afraid you'd need to find where it is. You can use Total Commander to search for files not older than X hours and bigger than X megabytes... you can compute the sizes of the folders on the C drive (Alt+Shift+Enter) and you can watch which one did grow (and remained up!) and then go one folder down and do the same etc.

I'm afraid that without knowing where the space is, I really can't say much more.
(There might be ways to lose space that really wouldn't show as files... maybe System Restore points? Don't see why virus definition updates would create them though. Or someone writing huge blocks into NTFS alternate data streams - but that would be even more weird.)

Offline giulio_toffoletti

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Well the SSE2 problem was clear (looking back, of course) - we updated the compiler and it started to include Spectre mitigations in the code... which caused the code to crash on systems without a SSE2 support. The crash happened during the "preparation" phase of the virus definitions which resulted in more and more ("unprepared") virus definition folders to get created on disk - because only the older folders than the one currently used are automatically removed, and here the current was a rather old one (the one before the compiler got updated). So disk space got consumed. (On one hand, it was kinda lucky that the crash occurred during the preparation, and not only later during the actual scanning - because the machine remained protected with the old virus definitions. On the other hand, if the preparation finished successfully and it crashed later during scanning, the program would show as unprotected - and we'd probably notice faster).

However, that problem has been fixed - you can see that the "latest" number in aswdefs.ini get updated and the older virus definition folders are (with some delay) removed; those were the ones that occupied your disk space.
I don't know about other files being created though... sure, during a virus definition update, the relevant installer packages are downloaded (but that has always been the case and that part is program code so it didn't change), they are extracted and their code is called/used. The virus definitions don't create any files automatically... they can create temporary files during archive scanning, but nothing "out of the blue", right after the update.

Let me repeat once again though - when virus definitions are updated, you may "lose" something like 200MB at that moment, that's normal. There are two virus definitions loaded for some time; the old one should be deleted (and the disk space reclaimed) after some time, let's say half an our - depends on what's going on on the machine though, the time may vary. There can even be a bug in some of the code causing the first definitions to keep loaded; in that case, after the next virus definitions, three different definitions will be loaded for some time (and another 200MB disk space is "lost"). However, that shouldn't grow much farther... plus, regarding the virus definitions, if you reboot the system, they are cleaned up and only the last one remains (so the disk space grows).

If you're saying that even after a reboot (when there's only one virus definition folder - not counting those with _stream suffix, they are small) the disk space remains lost... well I'm afraid you'd need to find where it is. You can use Total Commander to search for files not older than X hours and bigger than X megabytes... you can compute the sizes of the folders on the C drive (Alt+Shift+Enter) and you can watch which one did grow (and remained up!) and then go one folder down and do the same etc.

I'm afraid that without knowing where the space is, I really can't say much more.
(There might be ways to lose space that really wouldn't show as files... maybe System Restore points? Don't see why virus definition updates would create them though. Or someone writing huge blocks into NTFS alternate data streams - but that would be even more weird.)

Hi. Sorry for the late reply, thank you and the others so much for the tips and suggestions and explanations. But either due to my limitations, with Total commander, with the space that disappears every time I make a update so I am not free to make test and research, or due to the complication of the problem, I can't solve it. I try every day to think where and what to search but nothing to do. Now I remain practically without an antivirus. I can't update it. Unfortunately that's what happened.  :'( :-\

P.s. @ YeOldeBowler ty, but I've not found files prb*.tmp