Update fails

[freelancergal]

Attempts to update fail. I get "avast.setup has encountered a problem and needs to close." I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the program but the error persists. I first noticed this problem a few days ago when I realized I had a security issue - rundll32.exe was showing up twice in the process tree and upon closer inspection a firewall exception for it was found. I then checked avast and realized it was out of date, and that updates seem to have failed for some time with no notices popping up.

I have Windows XP Home Edition, Service Pack 2. I use Windows Firewall. There is no exception for avast and upon reinstall I did not receive a prompt to allow it.

Here is my update attempt log (after reinstall):

10/19/2008 11:42:08 AM   SYSTEM   1592   Function setifaceUpdatePackages() has failed. Return code is 0xC0000005, dwRes is C0000005. 
10/19/2008 11:42:09 AM   SYSTEM   1592   An error has occured while attempting to update. Please check the logs. 
10/19/2008 11:45:17 AM   xxxxxxxx   2884   Function setifaceUpdatePackages() has failed. Return code is 0xC0000005, dwRes is C0000005. 
10/19/2008 11:53:04 AM   xxxxxxxx   2884   Function setifaceUpdatePackages() has failed. Return code is 0xC0000005, dwRes is C0000005. 
10/19/2008 11:53:30 AM   xxxxxxxx   2884   Function setifaceUpdatePackages() has failed. Return code is 0xC0000005, dwRes is C0000005. 
 

Thanks in advance for any help and advice!

[DavidR]

Have (or did) you another AV installed in this system, if so what was it and how did you get rid of it ?

Try a repair of avast. Add Remove programs, select 'avast! Anti-Virus,' click the Change/Remove button and scroll down to Repair, click next and follow.

[freelancergal]

Thanks for responding, DavidR.

I have not had any other anti virus program installed since my last harddrive reformat. I did try (unsucessfully) to fix the problem by repairing avast before I uninstalled.

[DavidR]

OK, one point from your first post, rundll32.dll, I don't see it at all, much less more than once, see below.
I also don't see why there should be an exception for it in the windows firewall (something which provides zero outbound protection).

XP SP3 is the latest SP and you should consider updating as it also allows other things to be updated as well, browser, etc.

Try a clean reinstall.
Download the latest version of avast http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html and save it to your HDD, somewhere you can find it again. Use that when you reinstall.

Download the avast! Uninstall Utility, find it here and save it to your HDD.

1. Now uninstall (using add remove programs, if you can't do that start from the next step), reboot.

2. run the avast! Uninstall Utility, reboot.  If step 1 failed it may be necessary to run this from safe mode, once complete reboot into normal mode.

3. install the latest version, reboot.



####
If you haven't already got this software (freeware), download, install, update and run it, preferably in safe mode and report the findings (it should product a log file).

1. SUPERantispyware On-Demand only in free version.

2. MalwareBytes Anti-Malware freeware version http://download.bleepingcomputer.com/malwarebytes/mbam-setup.exe, right click on the link and select Save As or Save File (As depending on your browser), save it to a location where you can find it easily later.

Both of these produce logs, run one, post the log before running the second and posting that log.
####

[Lisandro]

Will this help?
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=36630.msg307023#msg307023
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=29168.msg240272#msg240272