Problems with running automatic rootkit

[USA User]

Hi all,

I am a new avast user, been about a month and it seems the automatic rootkit is not working or maybe it doesn't run sometimes. In the little over a month that I have been using avast I have 3 messages about it not running in the Log Viewer due to it didn't complete successfully during it's last run.

Is this something to worry about? Is this something that runs all the time and getting 3 messages in a little over a month is no big thing?

I tried to see where it's located to run it and see if a message comes up or it runs OK but I don't see it in the menus. I am running the freeware version if that makes a difference.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[DavidR]

It runs (depending on your OS ?) 8 minutes after boot. So it isn't running all the time, if you use the Simple User Interface to do an on-access scan, the Standard and Thorough sensitivity scans also do a rootkit scan.

What are the errors/warnings from the log viewer ?

The anti-rootkit log is here C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA\log\aswAr.log, it only retains information on the last scan and it only takes a few seconds to run.

[USA User]

Thanks for the info!

It seemed to run today without any problems and the last error in the log about the rootkit scan was on 10/23/08. The error only states for all 3 times "Automatic rootkit scan was not started as it didn't complete successfully during the last run". The second time happened 4 days before that and the first happened a few weeks ago.

And I believe you answered my question as to how often it runs. Since I turn off the computer it does the rootkit scan whenever I turn the computer back on. It also does the rootkit scan anytime I run a manual scan on my system. I wasn't sure if it ran on a set schedule of every couple days or whatever and was fouling up when it ran.

Thanks again!

[DavidR]

No problem, glad I could help.

Welcome to the forums.