multiple (50) instances of ashWebSv.exe

[Phant0m``]

Was this anomaly ever figured out? I've been recommending Avast! product for awhile now, and everything was perfect. One or two versions back, people begin experience MAJOR slowdowns with Avast! installed. In these people's Task Managers I'd see three or more instances of ashWebSv.exe. The only way to bring back the performance is to disable Avast! Web Shield permanently and re-boot. Uninstalling Avast! and even running the Avast! Cleanup utility and re-booting and re-installing Avast! freshly doesn't resolve this anomaly.

So far I've only seen XP users experience this anomaly, ... I'm in hopes the problem would be quickly resolved, but after having read over different topics regarding this anomaly, it doesn't seem even the developers have any clues to why this is occurring.


Regards,
Phant0m``

[Phant0m``]

While this particular anomaly doesn't exists on a particular type of computer system, one of the commonly affected computer systems that I have observed this anomaly on is with the Intel Celerons. Celerons are very slow to begin with, and with Avast! installed make booting up that much more slower, but with this Web Shield anomaly it brings these Celeron systems to a crawl for the entire Windows session.


The only logical step is to stop recommending Avast! until the Avast! development teams takes this anomaly seriously and addresses it finally.

[YoKenny]

@Phant0m``

Typically if the user chooses a Celeron based system then it will have a small amount of RAM and that is the major cause of slow systems so adding RAM is the best solution and to not recommend avast! is not.   

RAM is the best and cheapest investment to improve system performance.

[Phant0m``]

Has nothing to-do with not having enough RAM in these computers, these computers are fairly new and have 1 through to 2GBs of RAM. Also this isn't specific to Celerons, I have reported a similar if not identical problem happening on Pentium 4 system back in Dec 2008.

And I don't remember seeing several ashWebSv.exe instances running in people's Windows Task Manager up until mid to late 2008.

What are the conditions for two or more instances of ashWebSv.exe to be loaded? Does it have something to-do with simultaneous connections?

I would really like to have this problem investigated, I'll do the WebShield log activation and e-mail it.

[Lisandro]

Does it have something to-do with simultaneous connections?

No, it shouldn't. Normal installations have a lot of connections without multiply WebShield instances.

[Phant0m``]

I have a customer's Laptop here, It's Pentium-III with Windows XP Home running on it.

They have Avast! installed on-it and the anomaly exists with this here setup. I've uninstalled Avast! and re-booted and ran the Avast! Clean-up utility, and re-booted again before re-installing the latest official Avast! package.

I've noticed right from the very beginning of the Windows session, avast! Web Shield, four instances of it shown in Windows Task Manager. These instances are rapidly taking up more and more memory and continues on. After watching for many, many minutes I then see avast.setup appearing and shortly afterwards three more instances of Web Shield appears in Task Manager. avast.setup instantly easts up much memory and continues to increase, avast.setup disappears and re-appears and disappears several times. avast.setup always shows to be cycling through a-lot of CPU, finally long after, like about almost 16 or so minutes later some Web Shield instances disappears. Around 19minutes in, avast.setup is disappeared for a minute or two and Web Shield is down to one instance and then disappears. Avast! now informs me of the updated definitions. And now things seems more responsive, but there isn't an instance running of Web Shield. I went into the Avast! 'On-Access Protection Control', and view the state of Avast! Web Shield in the list of 'Installed providers', and the information shown ... Web Shield Version 4.8-1335, Scanned count 0, Run time 20:23+. The Start button was disabled, Pause and Terminate buttons were active and Web Shield set for Sensitivity level - 'Normal'. Web Shield entry in the list of 'Installed providers' was the usual bolded self. And now when I rebooted into Windows and visiting Windows Task Manager doesn't reveal multiple instances of Web Shield, .. even after doing some browsing.

At this point it's almost seemed like some sort of internal conflict with avast automatic updater and Web Shield. I decided to simply uninstall Avast, re-boot and re-install Avast and to finish it off, I edited the <avast>\data\avast4.ini file to include the Web Shield logging entry and re-boot again.

Upon re-boot it was instant, four ashWebSv.exe instances appears, behaving the identical way as before, with basically everything staying the same until the final stages where it drops to one instance of ashWebSv.exe and remains active. When Avast automatically updates the definitions, I re-boot and when back into Windows things are running smoothly and speedy as if nothing has ever happened with Avast!.

... Now I do remember seeing avast.setup in Windows Task Manager when they experienced major computer slow downs and Avast! had several instances of Web Shield running. I cannot tell you though if every single customer who had Avast! and the Avast! Web Shield anomaly had avast.setup showing in Windows Task Manager.

And by the way, terminating Web Shield after the final stage, and visiting <avast>\data\ folder, both files avast4.ini and ashwebsv.ws were 0bytes for filesize ... I guess there's no point in e-mailing these files then? 



Regards,
Phant0m``

[Phant0m``]

Is there something special I should do?

[Lisandro]

Phant0m, it's beyond my knowledge. I need help from the technical staff of avast.

[Phant0m``]

Having determined from my investigation, multiple Web Shield instances seems to be linked to some type of internal Avast conflict with it's automatic updater .. I've continued to experiment.

I figured perhaps I could get different results if I were to play around with Avast! 'Update *' section, so I enabled 'My computer is permanently connected to the Internet' in 'Update (Connections)', re-booting and monitoring Windows Task Manager some more.

This time avast.setup almost immediately appeared upon start-up, and several minutes later Avast informed me of definitions update. The whole entire time there was ONLY ONE instance of ashWebSv.exe in Windows Task Manager.

I couldn't be absolutely sure this problem was cured by simply enabling 'My computer is permanently connected to the Internet' feature in 'Update (Connections)', so I've uninstalled Avast! and re-booted, re-installed Avast! and re-booted. And re-tested, and had the very same results.


... I wonder if this is the same problem for the other people on this forum who experiencing the multiple ashWebSrv.exe instances in Windows Task Manager. 

[Jack 1000]

Having determined from my investigation, multiple Web Shield instances seems to be linked to some type of internal Avast conflict with it's automatic updater .. I've continued to experiment.

I figured perhaps I could get different results if I were to play around with Avast! 'Update *' section, so I enabled 'My computer is permanently connected to the Internet' in 'Update (Connections)', re-booting and monitoring Windows Task Manager some more.

This time avast.setup almost immediately appeared upon start-up, and several minutes later Avast informed me of definitions update. The whole entire time there was ONLY ONE instance of ashWebSv.exe in Windows Task Manager.

I couldn't be absolutely sure this problem was cured by simply enabling 'My computer is permanently connected to the Internet' feature in 'Update (Connections)', so I've uninstalled Avast! and re-booted, re-installed Avast! and re-booted. And re-tested, and had the very same results.


... I wonder if this is the same problem for the other people on this forum who experiencing the multiple ashWebSrv.exe instances in Windows Task Manager. 

I have never had instances of multiple web shields appearing or conflicts in this regard, but I know that when I check the "My computer is permanently connected to the Internet." it does help with updates, so maybe that would help with the web shield synchronization as well.  Users with this problem, have you checked that prompt, "My computer is permanently connected to the Internet." check box, than rebooted to see if that solves the problem?

Jack

[Phant0m``]

Has this been corrected for version 5 of Avast?