Author Topic: Avast! is now "slower than molasses" and reports false scan times!  (Read 39772 times)

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Offline DavidR

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Re: Avast! is now "slower than molasses" and reports false scan times!
« Reply #15 on: April 03, 2008, 12:27:57 AM »
Well currently the rootkit scan fails for me on boot under the FAT32 format and I see corresponding errors in the event viewer (other topic).

No I can only assume that it would also fail in the on-demand scan too and having checked I have two corresponding errors for both of these on-demand scans.

So would there be any delay (hang, etc.) failure or would it just get on with the local disk scan ?
If it just gets on with the next task, the on-demand scan, then my scan duration has indeed increased greatly, approaching 40% allowing a little time for the failed rootkit scan attempt. See my detailed post, http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=34307.msg287608#msg287608.

I generally don't hang around to watch I fire and forget and go get a coffee and my scan is only 16min 11sec much less than the figures quoted in the other topic.
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MarshallO

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Re: Avast! is now "slower than molasses" and reports false scan times!
« Reply #16 on: April 03, 2008, 11:37:00 PM »
I haven't noticed which files it does it on, yet, but particularly the "Quick" scan holds-up for minutes at a time (staying at say, 15% or 26%, or whatever) for 4-5 minutes or so, before the percentage starts to rise again!  It happens as well on the other scans, but not as noticeably, since they're "supposed" to be slower.

I'm not a computer "geek", but all I know is that something is definitely wrong somewhere in this new update!  In 4.7, my scans were much, much faster!  I hope that the Alwil Team can find and fix the problem soon.

Offline igor

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Re: Avast! is now "slower than molasses" and reports false scan times!
« Reply #17 on: April 03, 2008, 11:44:35 PM »
The percentage is not what you should be looking at - it's not possible to do perfectly smooth. The main question is - does the number of scanned files increase or not?

If not, then I'd suggest to go into program settings, enable creation of the Report file and let everything, even "OK files", be included in the scan. Then, run another quick scan - and when the program "stops", interrupt the scan. The end of the report file should indicate where the scan was when you stopped it... i.e. the "troublesome" area (if there's any).

Offline alanrf

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Re: Avast! is now "slower than molasses" and reports false scan times!
« Reply #18 on: April 04, 2008, 12:03:38 AM »
That is not exactly helpful advice Igor.

I have set the reporting in the way you recommend. 

Here is a scan of one of my dirves - that I have already reported above.

All it shows it that it took the ashsimple scanner 1:48 for a Quick scan to do what ashquick.exe does in 3 seconds.

Quote
* avast! Report
* This file is generated automatically
*
* Task 'Simple user interface' used
* Started on Thursday, April 03, 2008 14:53:46
* VPS: 080402-0, 04/02/2008
*

Infected files: 0
Total files: 0
Total folders: 48
Total size: 0.0 B

*
* Task stopped: Thursday, April 03, 2008 14:55:34
* Run-time was 1 minute(s), 48 second(s)

How much more evidence of a problem do you want? I feel like we users are doing the work that you folks missed in regression testing.

MarshallO

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Re: Avast! is now "slower than molasses" and reports false scan times!
« Reply #19 on: April 04, 2008, 12:07:42 AM »
The number of files scanned does continue to increase, but at a much, much slower rate than in 4.7!

I'm not "computer savvy" enough to know how to do the "Report file" things you mention, or even why I should be doing it!  Any further explanation would be appreciated!

Not to "beat a dead horse", but I have made no "behind the scenes" changes from 4.7 (because I don't know how!), yet 4.8 is multiple times slower in doing all the scans!

Please forgive my lack of computer knowledge!  All I know is that everything worked find with my avast! up until this new upgrade, and now it's "freaking me out" with these hideously slow scans!

Offline igor

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Re: Avast! is now "slower than molasses" and reports false scan times!
« Reply #20 on: April 04, 2008, 12:13:13 AM »
alan, well, what can I say... I don't see any such effects here. Quick scan - 20s, Standard scan - 40s.
However, in my post I was mostly refering to that percentage staying for 5 minutes at the same value - it might mean some problem with a particular file, if the files are not incrementing... or maybe the scanner is inside of a big archive (if the archives were enabled)...

MarshallO

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Re: Avast! is now "slower than molasses" and reports false scan times!
« Reply #21 on: April 04, 2008, 12:21:51 AM »
Igor: 

As I am not a computer "geek", it is very upsetting to see that you claim you are getting "no such effects here"!  That would seem to indicate to me that you feel that nothing is wrong with the new avast! update, and that the Team therefore intends to not do anything about what seems to be plaguing a goodly number of us!

If that's the case, and you actually intend to do nothing to try to fix this problem, please let me know, and I'll switch to another virus-scanning program ASAP.

I don't want to wait several times as long for my scans to complete as they did in 4.7.  It's unfair to me (and all the rest of us suffering this problem), and a waste of computer time.

Thanks!

Offline Lisandro

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Re: Avast! is now "slower than molasses" and reports false scan times!
« Reply #22 on: April 04, 2008, 12:37:54 AM »
If that's the case, and you actually intend to do nothing to try to fix this problem, please let me know, and I'll switch to another virus-scanning program ASAP.
Igor never said he would do nothing. Alwil always try to make avast better, so do us, users.
MarshallO, look, the forum atmosphere is not for blaming. Igor is not running away, just saying they need time to implement *any* deep change into avast 4.8.

In my opinion, on-demand scanning speed is in a very low priority. The on-access resources usage is the central point of an antivirus.
« Last Edit: April 04, 2008, 04:46:56 PM by Tech »
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Offline Vlk

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Re: Avast! is now "slower than molasses" and reports false scan times!
« Reply #23 on: April 04, 2008, 12:40:15 AM »
No need to get emotional here.

All Igor is saying is that the problem is not as obvious as you may think. That is, it does not replicate on the test machines he's tried it on. That doesn't mean it's not there, it's just that it's going to be a bit harder to track down (and fix) the problem as it doesn't take place on all machines.


Thanks
Vlk
« Last Edit: April 04, 2008, 12:52:55 AM by Vlk »
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Offline igor

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Re: Avast! is now "slower than molasses" and reports false scan times!
« Reply #24 on: April 04, 2008, 12:40:53 AM »
Well, would you prefer me to lie and say that I am able to reproduce it here?

I am not saying anything right now - but I can't just do some magic to fix the problem if I don't know where the problem is. So, I'm trying to get some clues, maybe find out differences in some settings on your computer and ours... and if we'll be able to simulate the problem, and if the problem is indeed in avast!, then we'd certainly fix it.

MarshallO

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Re: Avast! is now "slower than molasses" and reports false scan times!
« Reply #25 on: April 04, 2008, 12:43:56 AM »
Tech and Vik:

You're both probably right; I just hope that there are no problems behind the scenes with the "on access" scanning, too. 

As I've mentioned before, I suffer from an anxiety disorder, which makes things always seem worse to me!

I hang my head in shame. . . .

I was not trying to "blame" anybody!

MARSHALL

Offline DavidR

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Re: Avast! is now "slower than molasses" and reports false scan times!
« Reply #26 on: April 04, 2008, 12:52:45 AM »
I Ran the quick scan again and sat and watched it (yawn) and their were distinctly noticable pauses in folders.

c:\Windows\INF
c:\Windows\system32\drivers
c:\Windows\system32\dllcache
c:\Windows\system32 big pause, big folder.
c:\Windows\servicepackfiles\i386


Slow progress through, c:\Program Files\ 675MB, 4308 files 410 folders.
I have some of my programs not on c: but on d:\Program Files\ 582MB 5989 files, 456 folders and there doesn't seem to be anywhere near the same delay as c:\Program Files\.

I can watch it pause slightly on virtually every folder, many enough to quickly write it down, in the past these folders/files would wizz through without pausing and it was hard to record what would be being scanned.

One that surprised me was d:\program files\winfaxpro there was quite a pause and that is only 47.6MB 959 files in 6 folders.

Could there be any impact on the scan duration because of the scan progress ?

Quick Scan, no archives - confirm no aswar scan took place, no error coinciding with the scan start time.

Total Files/Folders scanned  39,657/3871
Scan duration                    16min 03sec
Total scanned file size         7.3GB

My exclusions:
G:\drive-images\*  my back-up hard disk images 2GB file sizes, etc.
D:\avast-excludes\*  samples and tools that would otherwise be detected by avast.
?:\pagefile.sys  I have my page file split over two HDDs, 128MB fixed on c: and 896MB min to 1536MB max on f:
So there you have it, personally like Tech I'm not to concerned about on-demand speed, I'm not normally sat waiting, but I would like to get to the bottom of for others reporting this as a problem to them. Previously program updates resulted in a slight speed increase or neutral/no impact at all. Mine are 40% slower than previously and that is on the Quick scan which has no additional rootkit scan (even though mine would fail {fat32})
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Offline Vlk

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Re: Avast! is now "slower than molasses" and reports false scan times!
« Reply #27 on: April 04, 2008, 12:55:15 AM »
Just out of my curiosity, could you try actually removing the exclusions for a while?
Alan also said that he's got some exclusions defined.
Maybe the problem is related to exclusion mask matching after all?

BTW MarshallO, do you also have some exclusions defined?

Thanks
Vlk
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Offline DavidR

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Re: Avast! is now "slower than molasses" and reports false scan times!
« Reply #28 on: April 04, 2008, 01:01:48 AM »
OK I will give it a try after I log off.
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Offline alanrf

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Re: Avast! is now "slower than molasses" and reports false scan times!
« Reply #29 on: April 04, 2008, 01:40:28 AM »
I think that I have been cooperative in testing before. 

What we need here is a cooperative effort with avast that goes beyond "we cannot reproduce" to a "how can we diagnose the problem.  And you know that I will be here all hours.

Let's get to it.