Cannot do a reinstall on my Mac mini

[D-Wolf]

Hi guys,

Could use some help.

Running a Mac Mini (late 2014) with macOS Catalina, version 10.15.7.  Time Machine (incremental backup) is running in the background.

Had to do an uninstall to find out what was wrong (printing software issue) using the uninstaller, now unable to do a reinstall.  Uninstaller reported successful remove.  Installer is "seeing" something that makes it think Avast is still installed.

So, 1. What is the installer looking at that makes it think Avast is already installed?
2. Which files, and registry (for lack of a better term) entries need to be manually erased / removed? 
3. Or am I hosed enough that a reinstall of the OS is required?

Thanks in advance for the help!

D-Wolf

[jakub.bednar]

Hello D-Wolf,

installer is looking at 2 things:
1. kextstat | grep com.avast - to see whether there are any Avast drivers
2. /Library/Application Support/Avast - usually holds some configuration and status data

If you want to perform manual uninstall. Please do the following:
1. Check if you have /Applications/Avast.app folder. If you do, you can run in Terminal.app as root "/Applications/Avast.app/Contents/Backend/hub/uninstall.sh" (this should perform complete uninstall, unload drivers and delete all remnants)
2. If /Applications/Avast.app does not exist, you can run in Terminal.app as root rm -rf "/Library/Application Support/Avast"
3. Then you can check in Terminal.app kextstat | grep com.avast. If there is anything listed, the easiest way is to reboot your Mac.

Please let me know in case you still have some issues.

Best regards,

Jakub