Scan Crash Again

[Kate3005]

Some interesting observations on the Scan Crash problem I have already posted (as repeated below);

When I initiated the scan of my Hard Drive volume, the scanner counted the number of files on my hard drive. It stopped with the count at around 540,000 files and the scan started. The progress bar moved across steadily as the scan progressed and reached 100%, but the scan activity continued for around 30 minutes !! When THE DAEMON DIED error occurred and the scan stopped, the scan reported that it had scanned 707,941 files !!

Could it be that the scan is failing to recognise when all the files have been scanned and it starts scanning again (or scans the last file over and over??) until a time-out or capacity issue arises

PREVIOUS POSTING:

Hi, After downloading 2.74 for Mac I have tried to run 2 scans of my hard drive. Both times the scan has stopped at the same point (after about 1.5 hours and 856,000 items scanned) with the message "The Application com.avast.MacAvast.MAD quit unexpectedly". There is also a message saying "Daemon Died". Do I have a problem ?? Can this be fixed ?? Many thanks again!!

[.: Mac :.]

Sounds like you will need to wait on Zilog, one of the avast developers, to post here. But To try and help him are you using a PowerPC or Intel Mac? And What version of the Mac OS are you running?

[Kate3005]

I am running Leopard OS X 10.5.3 on an iMac 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. Hope this helps.

[zilog]

Some interesting observations on the Scan Crash problem I have already posted (as repeated below);

When I initiated the scan of my Hard Drive volume, the scanner counted the number of files on my hard drive. It stopped with the count at around 540,000 files and the scan started. The progress bar moved across steadily as the scan progressed and reached 100%, but the scan activity continued for around 30 minutes !! When THE DAEMON DIED error occurred and the scan stopped, the scan reported that it had scanned 707,941 files !!

Could it be that the scan is failing to recognise when all the files have been scanned and it starts scanning again (or scans the last file over and over??) until a time-out or capacity issue arises

PREVIOUS POSTING:

Hi, After downloading 2.74 for Mac I have tried to run 2 scans of my hard drive. Both times the scan has stopped at the same point (after about 1.5 hours and 856,000 items scanned) with the message "The Application com.avast.MacAvast.MAD quit unexpectedly". There is also a message saying "Daemon Died". Do I have a problem ?? Can this be fixed ?? Many thanks again!!

Hallo,
this is technically possible (could be one of the very rare effects of the PATHMAX/MAXPATH-mess flaw).
But, normally, this shouldn't occur. Please, try those steps:

- ensure that the avast's persistent mode is off (preferences...)
- then, quit both avast app and agent (from menubar)
- download this file http://public.avast.com/~cimbal/md69.zip
- the file will unzip and the resulting com.avast.MacAvast.MAD will be created
- put the resulting file to the /Applications/avast\!.app/Contents/Resources (use "show package contents" over avast's icon in Finder)
- then start the app again, and the problem should be (let's hope) gone

Please, let me know, whether this helped. In the past, we had similar problem, but with absolutely different cause (double descriptor reading and internal libSystem buffer desync as consequence - it  was quite pain to find the real cause

regards,
pc

[Kate3005]

Thanks for the info on replacing the .MAD file. This has stopped the "Daemon Died" error and the scan no longer crashes.

However, it still fails to stop scanning after scanning the number of files "Counted" before the scan starts and it keeps scanning after the progress bar has reached 100%. In fact I had to stop the scan manually after it scanned about 3 times the number of "Counted" files and the errors were repeated in the scan results.

It would be good to fix this problem, but at least I can be sure there are no viruses !!

[.: Mac :.]

I would guess the difference is because it may be counting a archive file as one file when actually there may be many files inside

[Kate3005]

OK, but when I do a shorter "Default" scan, the scan stops automatically when the progress bar reaches 100%.

I'm not too concerned about the problem with the Hard Drive scan as I presume it is not necessary to scan the whole volume regularly. Do you agree??

What are your recommended paths for the Default Scan ?? Thanks again for your assistance.

[zilog]

OK, but when I do a shorter "Default" scan, the scan stops automatically when the progress bar reaches 100%.

I'm not too concerned about the problem with the Hard Drive scan as I presume it is not necessary to scan the whole volume regularly. Do you agree??

What are your recommended paths for the Default Scan ?? Thanks again for your assistance.

Hallo,
this is strange - could you check what files are processed when the progress bar goes "past" 100%? is it a futile-cycle ove the same stuff, or simply a continuation of "normal" pass, that would end after a while (errm, some hours, probably ?

regards,
PC

[Kate3005]

Hi, The progress bar reached 100% after about 1.5 hours and I stopped it manually after about 2.5 hours. The errors that were detected (mostly err 13) in the first pass were repeated as I scrolled down the log, although I can't recall if they were in exactly the same order.

I hope this helps. What paths do you recommend for the Default scan ?? I have set Documents and Mail.app so far. Thanks again.

[zilog]

Hi, The progress bar reached 100% after about 1.5 hours and I stopped it manually after about 2.5 hours. The errors that were detected (mostly err 13) in the first pass were repeated as I scrolled down the log, although I can't recall if they were in exactly the same order.

I hope this helps. What paths do you recommend for the Default scan ?? I have set Documents and Mail.app so far. Thanks again.

Hmm, when there's really some repeating stuff in the listing (the same files again), it *might* mean that the recursion for some reason really cycles back. Could you run it for some longer time (overnight run) and check whether it's really futile-cycle? Then, please try to determine where the cycle loops (after leaving the / folder? or sooner after leaving some subdirectory? ... enabling "report also files that are ok" in preferences will leave better track in the scan list)

Similar nightmare effect could be invoked when an app accesses fildesc mirrors in /dev while still using libc-cached dir-data, but this was fixed in the beta-daemon months ago, and tested many times - no known case of cycling occured since that.

thanx for reporting this flaw,
regards,
PC

[.: Mac :.]

Kate2005,

 On my system It scans the /usr directory last right before the scan finishes so you might look for that when trying to figure out where it loops.

[Kate3005]

I have let the scan run for 5 hours and it still keeps going.

However, I have studied the list of errors and discovered that after the progress bar reaches 100% it starts to scan "/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/...." files even though I did not select this volume to be scanned (I only selected the Hard Drive in "Scan Volume"). It then gets caught in a loop, scanning the same Time Machine Backups files over and over.

If I Eject my Time Machine volume prior to running the Hard Drive scan the problem is solved as the scan stops automatically when the progress bar reaches 100%. This is a minor inconvenience, but I guess it would be better if this did not happen.

I hope this helps.

[Bob2008]

I have the same thing happening as Kate has reported, have tried 3 times and it crashes at the same point each time. I tried to instill the MAD file recommended, but it said it could not be completed as i do not have privileges or something. I am using an admin account. Also, it was replacing one there already.

[.: Mac :.]

I have let the scan run for 5 hours and it still keeps going.

However, I have studied the list of errors and discovered that after the progress bar reaches 100% it starts to scan "/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/...." files even though I did not select this volume to be scanned (I only selected the Hard Drive in "Scan Volume"). It then gets caught in a loop, scanning the same Time Machine Backups files over and over.

If I Eject my Time Machine volume prior to running the Hard Drive scan the problem is solved as the scan stops automatically when the progress bar reaches 100%. This is a minor inconvenience, but I guess it would be better if this did not happen.

I hope this helps.

Seems you found the issue.  The Time Machine files can be quite large, depending on the size of your backup drive. And Since I don't use Time Machine that would explain why I never had the problem.

[zilog]

I have the same thing happening as Kate has reported, have tried 3 times and it crashes at the same point each time. I tried to instill the MAD file recommended, but it said it could not be completed as i do not have privileges or something. I am using an admin account. Also, it was replacing one there already.

Kate3005 & Bob2008, thanks for the report.
The MAD can't be replaced when the scanning agent runs (you must stop antivirus & agent before, probably enabling this in preferences by unchecking persistent mode)). Then, Finder will ask automatically about the admin-password.

regards,
pc