AAVM Subsystem detected an RPC error. Operation could not be completed

[carr]

OK. P4 3 GHz Hyperthreading under XP Pro fully patched. Outpost Pro firewall. Ran Avast Pro 4xx with Outpost for 2 months  without a problem. Liked the prog enough to purchase it...had a purchase problem (earlier thread) which got resolved in the meantime I uninstalled  Avast. Went back and did a find/find next for both Avast and Alwil in the registry and cleaned everything as is my wont.  Finally got the license key and reinstalled the program. Booting is extremely slow, sometimes nearly 10 minutes before i have a working desktop.  When we get there  I have the red zero on the  blue a ball in the taskbar and when I click that  the result is in the subject line of this post. I did earlier a forum search  using this as the  search string and pretty much insured that RPC was running as it should be. Additionally using first the add.remove program  in control panel and after that the removal program and after the reboot a registry edit and then another reboot , I reinstalled the program after downloading a fresh copy. Same results.  Then I attempted a repair from add/remove and rebooted. Still the RPC error. Still the slow booting.  Mail scanning seems to work fine. Requested scans of the HD s  and removable storage work fine. Just the slllloooowwww boot times and error message about RPC.

The only difference between the version that I had under the 60 day trial and this version other than the daily updates is the presence of a license key.  Incidentally each time I reinstalled the program first thing I ran was an update.  Any help would be deeply appreciated
Carr

[Lisandro]

Went back and did a find/find next for both Avast and Alwil in the registry and cleaned everything as is my wont.

Are you sure you did not remove any other Windows Registry key?
avast does not require to be manually removed. Just use Avast Uninstall for complete uninstallation.

Booting is extremely slow, sometimes nearly 10 minutes before i have a working desktop.

If you disable Outpost for a while, will the boot be quick?

Still the RPC error.

Didn't you test any other antivirus meanwhile?

[DavidR]

Outpost Pro, ant-spyware plug-in will really impact on boot duration, it scans hundreds of files and because of that avast will scan the files it want to open for scanning. The Outpost anti-spyware plug-in is based on the AdAware program and if you have other anti-spyware programs installed then you are well catered for without the OP plug-in.

The sensitivity setting of the Standard Shield can also impact on boot duration, Normal (the default) provides a good balance between protection and performance.

Have (or did) you another AV installed in this system, if so what was it and how did you get rid of it ?
What other security based software do you have that might have an impact on boot, e.g. SpySweeper, Spyware Doctor, PrevX, WinPatrol, etc. ?

[Spiritsongs]

   Hi Carr :

     Sometimes an "RPC Error" can be "corrected" by "disabling" the "DCOM",
     most easily done by use of the Good & FREE "DCOMbobulator" from
     www.grc.com/freeware/dcom.htm  .

[carr]

David R and Tech
Many thanks for your interest in my situation.  Normally when I uninstall a program I will go in and cleanup after the uninstaller  and almost all of the time find leftover remains particularly in the registry. It might interest you to note that I found  in addition to  a few registry keys under both Alwil and Avast, an entry  in Control Panel/Administrative tools/Event Viewer for Avast AV that was not removed by either the add remove under control panel or by the removal tool available from Alwil I say none of this as critcism  of the program only  this is the way that I administer my systems.  As far as deleting imporper registry keys I used the Find and Find Next  and although Im familiar with operation of regedit it is certainly possible that I made an error.

Disabling outpost seems to make no difference in the boot time. With Avast its much  longer.  I will try changing settings  but when I had the trial version of Pro 4xx installed the machine was not discernably slower than without it.

During the time between the expiration of the 60 day trial on Pro and my purchase of the  key I did not install any other antivirus.  I have on demand scanners I use --Ad Aware free, Hijack This, and Spybot S&D but I have other than Avast and Outpost Pro nothing else that runs in the background.

It is obviously something that I have done to the system  either on the uninstall of the trial or on the edit of the registry and I rather think it was on the edit of the registry  that I created the problem. Let me state  that I used the Avast for 2 months and liked it enough to purchase it. Great program and great support here and thanks for helping me get over my own idiocy.  Additionally Spiritsongs while I was composing this  you posed your reply. Many  thanks I will look at Steve Gibsons site and the tool.

Carr

[Lisandro]

During the time between the expiration of the 60 day trial on Pro and my purchase of the  key I did not install any other antivirus.

And before that?

Can you use BootVis to see what's going on with your booting process?
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=664

[carr]

OK. Installed Decombobulator and rebooted. No difference in system performance including continuation of the AAVM subsystem  RPC error. Additionally there exist the following error messages in the Eventlog under the AV tab.

Error in aswChestC:chestopenlisterror 1753
aswChestInterface-ProgramError Description:CChestListView:LoadFIles()chestOPenList()failed:2147422219
aswChestInterface-ProgramErrorDescription:CChestListView:OnCreate()!m_strErrorWnd.lsEmpty()

These were from install last night.
Additionally on boot after I log on and my settings are loaded I get  nothing but a taskbar with only part of the icons loaded there and no icons on he desk top....after only about 4 minutes...it seems longer..... then the desktop incons appear.

Additional error messages from Event Viewer/System are on boot,

The AvastAntivirus service hung on start
The following boot start or system start drivers failed to load kl1
The AvastAntivirus terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time.

this sequence happens on every boot. I dont know whether kl1 is one of the Avast drivers or if Avast is failing because of kl1 s not being there. I have never seen that driver on this system before.

Tech you posted while I was in compose I will download bootvis and try to see what happens but what I have posted here from the event viewer may help as well.

Carr

[Lisandro]

But what I have posted here from the event viewer may help as well.

No... I can't guess what's wrong...
With Bootvis you'll get a graphic of which program or driver is dropping the boot speed.
If you need help to use it, let me know.

[DavidR]

You can try this registry key value addition that was previously suggested.


Create a text file avast-fast-start.reg using a text editor (or use the attached file, remove the .txt as that was used only to upload the file), paste the following into it and save it. Running it will add the Group value to the existing avast! Antivirus key.

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\avast! Antivirus]
"Group"="ShellSvcGroup"

This certainly got my avast started quicker for me and I didn't have any problem with any delay. It certainly won't hurt to try (export your existing key as a back-up), you can always delete the registry value 'Group' or use the exported key to restore the original key.

[carr]

Ok.Still having the error messages as posted above in Event Log. That driver not being loaded worries me. Have rebooted a couple times using BootVis and other than there being a couple of dumpreports.exes  at about 70 seconds the majority of the stuff happens within the first 45 seconds or so with the exception of wuauclt.exe at around 80 seconds....but even with this  bootvis is showing its results long before the desktop is to a normal state. Im playing with time settings on the program right now and am going to reboot a few more times

[carr]

Attached is a shot of the process creates out to 300 seconds...just after things here are to normal. On inspection one can see the tardiness of bootvis, imapi and rundll32. Question is why. I have no idea. I did a Google on kl1 and found nothing. Anyone know if this is an Avast dll??

Carr

[Lisandro]

wuauclt.exe at around 80 seconds

This is Windows Update.

[carr]

Changed part of the boot options with msconfig.exe and  now the system boots without a problem. Additionally the Avast realtime protection starts. No more RPC errors.

So I have other system problems here.  One of the things that I have found is that my WIN.INI file  contains nothing. The file is there but empty.   

I would like to comment on the great help from  everyone here on the forum. This has been a very positive experience for me with not only the program but also the fine people here.  My past AV was partof the Zonealarm Suite.  After 8 monts with constant reinstalls and no support from ZA  I finally ditched it. I installed Avast and I am glad that I did.


Thanks to all of you for the interest and being here for a newbie.

Carr

[Lisandro]

So I have other system problems here.  One of the things that I have found is that my WIN.INI file  contains nothing. The file is there but empty.

Are you using Windows XP?
Do you use any DOS program?
The file Win.ini, as far I know, if for 16-bit applications (DOS) support.
Maybe it should be empty. I don't know. Mine is not empty but I use 16-bit applications (yet).

[DavidR]

Changed part of the boot options with msconfig.exe and  now the system boots without a problem. Additionally the Avast realtime protection starts. No more RPC errors.

So I have other system problems here.  One of the things that I have found is that my WIN.INI file  contains nothing. The file is there but empty.   

What did you change ?

My win.ini has a stack of stuff in there, but it seems specific to my system and programs to be of use. Aside from the 16 applications Tech mentioned there is also and entry for avast.
[InstaMallEncrypto]
SearchDir=D:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA\chest\
I have avast in a different location, but I doubt that this has any impact at boot.

I would like to comment on the great help from  everyone here on the forum. This has been a very positive experience for me with not only the program but also the fine people here. 
<snip>
Thanks to all of you for the interest and being here for a newbie.

Glad to help if we can, that is what the avast family and forums are about, helping other avast users.