New beta version 22.6.6017

[petr.kolacek]

Hi everyone,

there is a new beta version ready - 22.6.6017 (build 22.6.7306).

What was fixed

• Fixed deadlock where licensing and setup were waiting for each other
• Other internal fixes

Known issues

• Scheduled scan does not run at specified time in some cases

Download links
Avast Free: https://bits.avcdn.net/productfamily_ANTIVIRUS/insttype_FREE/platform_WIN/installertype_ONLINE/build_BETA
Avast Premium: https://bits.avcdn.net/productfamily_ANTIVIRUS/insttype_APR/platform_WIN/installertype_ONLINE/build_BETA
Avast Clear: https://s-beta9x.avcdn.net/beta9x/avastclear.exe

Enjoy this beta!
We are looking forward to your feedback.

AVAST Team

[Asyn]

Thanks Petr, already up and running.

[Asyn]

For the interested ones, there's a new feature/setting in WebShield.

[NON]

Thanks for the new beta

[tk6]

No problems with this version other than COM port device enumeration at boot is still broken (and has been for 2 years!).  The ports get opened (DTR asserted), but it appears that proper configuration is blocked so Windows can't use PnP to see what's out there.  Switching Avast to passive mode or removing Avast completely is all that will allow device discovery at boot to work correctly.  Once the system is up, manually running a "check for new devices" works and correctly finds what's attached.

Fortunately, there's a workaround -- schedule a task for 15 seconds after startup to run "devcon.exe rescan", but Avast shouldn't be breaking this stuff at boot time.

It's interesting that this is exactly the same problem I had with a new USB mouse until a couple of versions ago (22.1?).  The mouse was dead until after the rescan.  Now it's alive immediately.

[Asyn]

For the interested ones - new settings in GA.

[ccm582]

Since version 22.6.6016 Beta for both Avast Free and Avast One, one of my startup programs won't start up with Windows. I think it has something to do with 'Improved driver blocking in ELAM driver (Early Launch AntiMalware)", whatever that is. Avast should not interfere with startup programs. I even put the program folder for that program as a File Shield Exception but to no avail.

Ransomware Shield doesn't work at all. I put Editpad program as Blocked App and it doesn't block to protected folder. In the past it worked. In Strict Mode, it doesn't work at all. Tried repairing the app but nothing changed.

When I delete a firewall rule in Avast Free, the UI doesn't refresh. When I then tried to open Avast, it hangs because it takes a long time for UI to load again. It seems the UI need a long time to reload after a firewall rule deletion or change.

[Asyn]

When I delete a firewall rule in Avast Free, the UI doesn't refresh. When I then tried to open Avast, it hangs because it takes a long time for UI to load again. It seems the UI need a long time to reload after a firewall rule deletion or change.

Hi, not sure if it helps, but you could try turning this GA setting (screenshot) on/off.

[ccm582]

TQ Asyn. I tried hardware acceleration when it first came out but it doesn't do anything for the UI.

I uninstalled Avast Free because of the bugs I mentioned esp. Ransomware Shield not working. I will reinstall when a beta fixes all three problems.

[Asyn]

No problem - the devs will be back on Monday.
If you can provide details/logs, please do so...

[petr.kolacek]

Since version 22.6.6016 Beta for both Avast Free and Avast One, one of my startup programs won't start up with Windows. I think it has something to do with 'Improved driver blocking in ELAM driver (Early Launch AntiMalware)", whatever that is. Avast should not interfere with startup programs. I even put the program folder for that program as a File Shield Exception but to no avail.

Ransomware Shield doesn't work at all. I put Editpad program as Blocked App and it doesn't block to protected folder. In the past it worked. In Strict Mode, it doesn't work at all. Tried repairing the app but nothing changed.

When I delete a firewall rule in Avast Free, the UI doesn't refresh. When I then tried to open Avast, it hangs because it takes a long time for UI to load again. It seems the UI need a long time to reload after a firewall rule deletion or change.

Hello ccm582, thank you for all the provided feedback and as Asyn mentioned, if you can send us so called support package, we can look at it. Simply run "c:\Program Files\Avast Software\Avast\SupportTool.exe", follow instructions and let us know the ID of the package. Thank you.

[ccm582]

Thank you for your quick response. However, I can't send you the package for two reasons:

1. I have uninstalled Avast Free and am now using another AV. I would have to uninstall that AV and reinstall Avast, then uninstall Avast and reinstall that AV.

2. Your Support Tool, if I remember correctly, asks for too much info. So I can't send you that for privacy reasons.

However, Avast Beta 22.6.6015 was working fine. I can tell you that one of my programs, Hide Folders 5, will not start up when 22.6.6016 and now 6017 were installed. It can start up when Avast was uninstalled.

I added my folders in my external hard disk as protected folders in Ransomware Shield. I then removed them after I found out that RS doesn't support external drives. But Strict Mode doesn't even work for protected folders in my system drive such as the Desktop. I hope you will make RS support external hard disks as most people put data in them instead of the usual folders introduced in Windows 95 which was 27 years ago. External drives use the same drive letter when plugged in, so it should protect a folder path regardless of the disk it's on.

The UI problem had persisted for a long time. It may be also the reason why it takes two 'Restore from saved settings', with a reboot each time, to restore all my settings. The first time to restore all settings except Firewall Rules and the second time to restore the Firewall Rules.

I hope you can find out what changes made in  22.6.6016 that caused all this.

BTW, File Shield's 'Scan all files' option sometimes cause my PC to hang for several seconds. It shouldn't if it scanned just an opened file which is not too big.

I'm sorry I can't be of much help.

[ccm582]

Correction to above post:

I found out what is the problem with Ransomware Shield. It works on protected folders. But it works only if I add manually the protected folders after installation. But if the protected folders are 'restored from earlier saved settings', it is as if there are no protected folders because RW doesn't work on 'restored' protected folders. So RS works but not if the protected folders are restored from saved settings.

[petr.kolacek]

Hello ccm582, thank you for your continuing support here, really appreciate 

As there are multiple issues reported, let us make some order in it.

1/ Hide Folders 5 won't startup with Windows
We tested it with trial copy of the Hide Folders 5 and also contacted their support to make sure the startup of the Hide Folders is configured well and tested it with our AV BETA version and it works - the FSPro Filter Service 2 as well as the hf5.exe are running after the Windows start just fine.

Could you be more specific and let us know whether the service/program is not running or "just" some e.g. startup window from it is not started in your case?

btw: ELAM driver is Early Launch AntiMalware driver - more info about it can be found for example here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/install/early-launch-antimalware.

2a/ Ransomware shield does not work well
In reply from June 10, 2022, 03:46:53 PM you wrote: Ransomware Shield doesn't work at all. I put Editpad program as Blocked App and it doesn't block to protected folder. In the past it worked. In Strict Mode, it doesn't work at all. Tried repairing the app but nothing changed.

We re-tested this scenario with Editpad and currently available BETA version of Windows AV 22.6 and ransomware shield blocks Editpad when it is in blocked apps in AV and ransomware shield has enabled protecting Documents (so therefore extensions like .txt) in its configuration.

Here we would need log files and configuration of the AV so that we can see what is happening there. However we respect that you uninstalled AV so cannot provide the information. If you eventually give it a try, let us know so we can agree on what data we would need so there is no need to send more (as you stated the Support Tool would share too much ).

2b/ Ransomware shield and external drives
Currently, we support external drive in terms of e.g. hard drive - so if you for example have backup of data on some external drive you plug into the system via usb, you can choose any of the folders there to be protected and it should work well - we retested it and can confirm this.

This does not work for flash drives as those are currently not supported to higher probability the volume ID (and letter) may change and we would not be able to recognize it = thus originaly configured folder to be protected will not be.

However, this opened some internal discussion about this topic and if there is any change we are going to do, we will inform you all here on forum.

2c/ Ransomware shield does not protect folders restored from previous settings
Here we would like to be sure we understand the issue correctly - does it mean that restored Windows AV configuration (from some of the previous backup) is not used in Ransomware shield correctly so folders configured to protect data in them are not protected?

We re-tested this scenario and it worked well, so there must be something we do differently or we do not fully understand the issue. For example, it would be important to know when the backup (with what program version) was created as we are aware of some issues with it from the past. Would it be possible to share the backup with us or again the configuration and log files?

3/ Problems with UI when working with Firewall configuration
We retested this scenario and deleting a single firewall application rule took between 1-3 seconds (even on slower machine) and the UI was refreshed just fine. However, it could depend on hardware configuration of the machine as well as on number of applications and their rules on the specific screen. Here again, it would help us to get basic information about the hardware (CPU, RAM, disk drive type), log files and configuration of the Firewall to see what is happening there. Eventually to have more information so that we can induce the issue in our environment too.

4/ File Shield's 'Scan all files' option sometimes cause my PC to hang for several seconds.
Scanning all files in the File Shield configuration could cause some issues in performance area of the computer as amount of data to be scanned is simply huge. Please note that not only the file you are about to open/run is scanned but also everything the file/program needs to load/process. In a case you belive the performance of the AV is not good, we would need some performance recording from your machine (which can be enabled and sent from the AV Configuration - Troubleshooting section).

Thank you for your time, we appreciate it! Have a nice day.

On behalf of Avast team, Petr

[ccm582]

Thank you, petr, for taking the time to test and respond. I have tried both Avast One and Free, stable and beta releases, the past few months, and giving feedback, so I can't try any more as I have a lot of work to do in the next months. However, I can give some feedback based on my memory when I had Avast.

1.  I also have a trial version of Hide Folders 5 and wanted to test it with Avast as I'm considering buying it. However, from 6016 Beta, hf5.exe can't start up with Avast until I uninstalled Avast. I don't know why. I then had to start hf5.exe manually. But I may not be using HF5 after trial expires.

2a. I tested RS with Editpad Lite 8 by typing something and trying to save it to the Desktop (a protected folder) with RS set to Strict and also set to block Editpad. RS blocked Editpad. But when I restored my protected folders from Saved Settings, it doesn't work in Strict and Block.

2b. I'm happy that RS supports external hard disks which is set to have the same drive letter every time it is plugged in. I agree that it shouldn't support flash drives which are meant for temporary storage to move around and which may have different drive letters when plugged in.

Since RS supports external hard disks, please let us easily set protected folders by having check boxes next to the folder list. It is tedious to set a folder one by one esp. we have many folders.

2c.  I think perhaps every time we installed an Avast version and we restore settings saved from an earlier version, it may affect something. If you tested it and find it ok, then I'm glad.

3.  The UI is the biggest problem I have as explained earlier. Does File Shield 'Scan All Files' also scan Avast components as the UI hangs similarly to FS hanging my computer by taking a long time to scan? I remember that you fixed the UI only recently.

Maybe the UI hangs due to many programs running in the background. The Avast One UI doesn't hang at all. Maybe it's due to its PC Speedup feature where background tasks are set to sleep. Maybe you can consider adding PC Speedup to Avast Free?

4. Earlier in this Forum, I was told that File Shield uses Persistent Cache and that it adds the file to the Cache the first time it is scanned. So I tried to populate Persistent Cache by Full Scan hoping FS doesn't use too much resources the same files are opened whether program files or data file. After all, if a program is added to the Persistent Cache, why does FS still scan it if there is no change to it?

I prefer to use FS 'Scan all files' as a friend told me he had malware hiding in his PC simply by using an innocent extension like .jpg or .txt or .mp4 (can't remember which).

I am sorry to tell you that I won't be free to test Avast for next few months due to my workload but I can tell you that I use Windows 10 version 21H2 on my ASUS laptop with the following specs:

Processor   Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-10210U CPU @ 1.60GHz   2.11 GHz
Installed RAM   12.0 GB (11.9 GB usable)
System type   64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

I used Avast more than 10 years ago and recently reverted back mainly because I missed it and also because of your Firewall. Of course, I missed the malware notification voice.

I wish you and your team all the best. Sorry that I can't be of more help.