V 4.8 has noticeable performance issues

[lhaymehr]

Hello,

In the last few days (since Avast was auto updated to 4.8) I noticed periodic system hangs in the form of heavy mouse lags, temporal system freezes and a few times completely frozen (otherwise rock solid) system waiting for a restart button push. I traced it to Avast with Process Monitor from SysInternals.

Avast 4.7 didn't have these problems. Avast 4.8 is lagging the system really, really hard, especially on larger files. Example, 350MB InstallShield executable lagged it for 7 seconds. A 35MB *.pdf(!) file I just downloaded lagged it for 2 seconds.

I cannot reproduce it every time. Maybe because some soft of caching Avast does? If further details are needed, ask please.

thanks,
Vedran

[igor]

In the last few days (since Avast was auto updated to 4.8) I noticed periodic system hangs in the form of heavy mouse lags, temporal system freezes and a few times completely frozen (otherwise rock solid) system waiting for a restart button push.

Could you move the mouse cursor when the system was frozen?

I traced it to Avast with Process Monitor from SysInternals.

How exactly?

Example, 350MB InstallShield executable lagged it for 7 seconds.

What exactly did you do with the file?

[lhaymehr]

The mouse cursor was not frozen completely, the mouse position updates were drawn less frequently to the screen when the mouse was moved.

The Process Monitor displays a hint in the CPU graph window when mouse-over a peak. It shows the name of the process. The process in question is ashServ.exe

The 350 MB InstallShield file, I ran it.

The PDF file I downloaded was the UX theme guidelines from Microsoft. It was downloading in Firefox. The file downloaded and was automatically executed by my PDF reader program. Foxit Reader. Then it happened again.

[Lisandro]

The Process Monitor displays a hint in the CPU graph window when mouse-over a peak. It shows the name of the process. The process in question is ashServ.exe

It will be good let the providers window open, click 'details' button and then see which file is being scanned by Standard Shield at that time.
Are you using the Pro or the Home version?

[lhaymehr]

As I Said, I know exactly which file is being scanned.

[Lisandro]

Maybe, as a workaround, you can use the Exclusion lists:

For the Standard Shield provider (on-access scanning):
Left click the 'a' blue icon, click on the provider icon at left and then Customize.
Go to Advanced tab and click on Add button...

For the other providers (on-demand scanning such as the screen-saver or the Simple User Interface):
Right click the 'a' blue icon, click Program Settings.
Go to Exclusions tab and click on Add button...

[avvidro]

I had the same problem. I initially though that was a collateral effect of an issue with my video board (that indeed happened), but whenever I replaced avast with (well... It's not applicable) the problem disapeared.

[lhaymehr]

I'm hoping this issue is resolved in the next update. The exclusion list isn't really even a temporal solution. This happens on all new bigger files that are created on the disk.

[igor]

- what operating system do you use?
- did you change any settings of avast! resident protection (the Standard Shield provider in particular), or is in on default?
- is it avast! Home or Professional?

- how did you measure that 7 seconds "lag" when executing the big installer executable? I mean, couldn't it be just the starting of the installer that takes a while? Did you try to run it with avast! Standard Shield paused or stopped?

[lhaymehr]

- what operating system do you use?

Windows XP SP2. AMD K7@2100 with 512MB RAM@333Mhz. The system was installed 4 years ago and is running smoothly since then. Maintenance done every month.

- did you change any settings of avast! resident protection (the Standard Shield provider in particular), or is in on default?

The standard shield is all I have running. In fact, it's all I have selected to install when I first installed Avast a few years ago via installer.

My settings are Custom and are as follows:

Scanner (basic)

• Scan diskette boot sectors (checked)
• Scan OLE docs (checked)
• Scan executed programs (checked)
• 32bit/64bit executables (checked)
• 16bit executables (checked)
• MS-DOS programs (checked)
• Scan dynamic libraries on load (unchecked)

Scanner (advanced)

• Scan files on open (checked)
• Scan files with these extensions (empty)
• Always scan WSH files (checked)
• Do not scan sys libs (checked)

• Scan created/modified files (checked)
• Option "Only files with selected extension" selected
• Default extension set (checked)
• Additional extensions(empty)

Blocker

• Default extension set (checked)
• Additional extensions (empty)
• Blocked operations
• Opening file for writing (disabled)
• Renaming file (disabled)
• Deleting file (disabled)
• Formating (disabled)

"If an operation should be blocked" option: "Allow the operation"

Advanced

• Show detailed info on performed action (disabled)
• Silent mode (disabled)

Exclusion list is default, never modified.

- is it avast! Home or Professional?

Home.

- how did you measure that 7 seconds "lag" when executing the big installer executable? I mean, couldn't it be just the starting of the installer that takes a while? Did you try to run it with avast! Standard Shield paused or stopped?

How i measured it?  I counted for seven seconds! I'm very precise counting up to 45 seconds. It's something I got from my army days  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT-3_Sagger

Yes, I tried running the installer with the Standard Shield paused and the problem does not occur in that case.

This particular file is a 312.477.872 byte file with an *.exe extension. It is an InstallShield package which unpacks several installers into the Windows temp directory first then runs them via a script.

Standard shield lags when this Installer package is unpacking *.msi installers into the Windows temp directory. Several of them are being unpacked and Standard Shield lags the system on each one of them.

You can try this for yourself by downloading the "CoreDraw Graphics Suite X4 trial" from corel.com
http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=uk/ProcessLayout&lc=en&ppg=CorelCorp/Trials/Login&pid=1200587264291&cid=1200587225622&trkid=CJ

[igor]

I checked with Process Monitor and I don't see anything unusual, I'm afraid (I mean, anything that should be different from avast! 4.7, for example).

Yes, the extracted MSI files are scanned - but they always were, as they are OLE files actually. So yes, it will cause some delay - especially for this stupid kind of installer which duplicates its content into TEMP folder and then starts the real installer from there. But I don't see how to avoid the scanning...

[lhaymehr]

Yeah, nothing out of the ordinary. It's normal that *.msi files are scanned. I was just providing details about what exactly is happening when this occurs. I can presume that 4.8 now uses a slightly higher priority when processing files. Unfortunately, this is apparent and is interfering with the system. I'm gonna wait for the next update. If this problem persists I'm gonna have to part with Avast. 

[igor]

What I was trying to say is that I don't think anything has changed since 4.7 (that might be connected) - priorities, scanning of archives, scanning of files, ...

[lhaymehr]

Reinstalled, all OK now.