Lost System Tray icon

[Culpeper]

Christ, I get sick of this topic.  It's a problem with Windows XP if that is what you are using.


Go to My Network Places and in the left pane choose to hide UPnP devices.  This does not disable the service but is the cause of missing icons in the system tray in almost all cases.

http://www.tech-pro.net/howto_013.html

http://www.michna.com/kb/WxSystray.htm

[alanrf]

At least for one of the users here (and perhaps others) the cause of the missing icon was the deletion of avast's startup program ashdisp.exe and had nothing to do with UPnP devices.

[Culpeper]

Yeah, it just disappears all on it's own.  Like the icon.

[irishgodfather]

As far as View setup log. No idea where to do that.

Clicking the button at the time would have been the easiest option but, you can find it here C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\Setup\setup.log it is a text file and can be opened with a text editor, notepad or wordpad depending on size.

My main concern is will Avast still update?

If avast hasn't installed correctly although it might look like it is OK, the least of your problems is updates, rather security/protection. Your best bet is a probably reinstall - uninstall, reboot, run the uninstall utility, reboot, install using the latest version you downloaded, reboot.

It would probably be best to download the latest version of avast and save it to your HDD, somewhere you can find it again. Use that when you reinstall.
Download the avast! Uninstall Utility, find it here and save it to your HDD also.

That did it.
Thanks David.
Bill

[Culpeper]

Don't you just love a program that requires, "uninstall, reboot, run the uninstall utility, reboot, install using the latest version you downloaded, reboot."  If all else fails we can just reformat the hard drive and reinstall everything.

Just kidding.  Hope your missing icon problem stays missing.  No pun intended.

[darek12]

:'(


I'm without luck...
I tried every suggestion I read here many times.

Nothing.
Nada.

Could someone look into this log?

[alanrf]

darek12,

your log is almost identical to that of buttoni earlier in the thread.  Something in your system is deleting the program ashdisp.exe which is the program called at startup to get avast properly started (and puts the avast icon in your systray).

You have a program running in your system doing this.  For buttoni it was SpywareDoctor.  rv56 believes it was WindowsDefender. 

So, tell us about the other security software you have installed on your system.

[darek12]

Win Defender and Firewall.

I did exactly what rv56 did - "I downloaded another copy of avast...uninstalled avast with the uninstall tool, shut down the real time protection in Windows Defender and shut down my firewall, and reinstalled avast, rebooted and..."
still nothing.
I did even more... I shut kill almost every process from Task Manager...

But, my version shows up as 4.7.879.0.

What's going on?

[alanrf]

The issue is to ensure that that the real time protection in Windows Defender is permanently turned off (at least for now).  Windows Defender real time protection must not be allowed to run at all when the system is restarted.  This is critical.

As to the rest forget all the task manager stuff ... that is not helping at all.

[alanrf]

darek12,

please let me see the avast setup log from your next try.

Thanks.

[darek12]

I turned it off...

I even shut both completely down during re-installation...

[alanrf]

Then may I see the setup log?

[darek12]

OK
I reinstaled it again.

-Safe mode [to be sure...Task Manager attached]
-Uninstall - aswclear [v. 1.0.0.1]
-Reboot.
-Safe Mode again.
-Install - setupeng [v. 4.6.0.0. ]
-Configuration - Typical [31,241KB; avast! 4.7]
-Reboot
-Normal start up [Task Manager attached]
-No way!!!!
avast! v. 4.7.879.0 on board [Setup log attached]
 :'(

[darek12]

.

[alanrf]

Look at the log for yourself ...

Code: [Select]

02.10.2006 23:48:40.000 1159850920 file Installed file:C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashDisp.exe

Code: [Select]

03.10.2006 00:00:20.000 1159851620 general Running setup_av_pro-37c (892)

Code: [Select]

03.10.2006 00:00:21.000 1159851621 general Install check: 'C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashDisp.exe' does NOT exist
Your task manager is clearly showing that you are running Windows Defender on the normal startup and that is the most likely cause of the deletion of ashdisp.exe from the avast folder.   

The only suggestion I have for you right now is to temporarily uninstall Windows Defender.  Once avast is installed correctly then Windows Defender can be installed again and (I am fairly confident) it will not then delete the avast startup.  Clearly there is an issue to be addressed before the next avast update but I think this will get you up and working again.