Avast Update Announcement dissapeared

[CharlieSkywalker]

  Hi,

  Unlike some other users, I am one of those who like update announcements. Unfortunately, I don't get them any more. I
  run Pro version 4.8, and I've been receiving those announcements at the beginning (about 3 months), but then they
  stopped. When I go to Program Settings>Update (Basic), where I have Automatic option selected in Virus database
  section, and click on Update now.. I can get the Summary window, but the voice is still missing. In Update Details dialog
  I have Normal running mode selected.
  Do I have to look somewhere else? Can anyone help me to get my announcements back?

  Thanks in advance, Charlie...

[Tarq57]

Sure, "program settings">"sounds" should give you the settings you need to access.
Can also be done from within the "sounds" option in the control panle. What seems likely to me is that your sounds scheme may have been changed, so check that your preferred scheme is active.

Welcome to the forum.

[Lisandro]

I have Normal running mode selected.

What about the options on the right side of that Window?
Did you check the announcements panels?

[CharlieSkywalker]

 Thank you, Tarq57, for your time.
 I tried to follow your advice but I'm not sure it helped.
 
 Here is what I've done:

 Went to Program Settings>Sounds; Clicked on Settings button; It opened Sound dialog.
 Under the Sounds tab I opened the drop-down list in Sound Scheme field. There are 3 items there: No Sound, Windows
 Default and Windows Default (modified)(modified). This third one was already selected, so I decided to try it first.
 In the Program field I scrolled down to "avast!antivirus" group. The first item in this group is "Automatic VPS Update".
 I sellected it (vpsupd.wav appeared in Sounds field), and tested it. I was pleasantly surprised when I heard well known
 voice, saying: "Virus database has been updated". I clicked Apply, and then OK.
 Then I went back to Program Settings>Update (Basic), clicked on Update now..., and was very unpleasantly surprised -
 no sound again; only updating window.
 Choosing the two other items in Sound Scheme list (in Sound dialog) have no effect cause they show nothing in the
 "avast! antivirus" group. So I left them alone.

 Now I ama the beginning again. I don't know what to do.

 Any other ideas?

 Regards, Charlie...

[CharlieSkywalker]

I have Normal running mode selected.

What about the options on the right side of that Window?
Did you check the announcements panels?

 Hi, Tech,

 Sorry for late response.

 If you mean: options in Update options section, I have them selected all, except Show icon in task bar tray.

 As for the "announcements panels" - I'm not sure what yoy meant by that. (As you may have noticed, I am not very good in
 English).

 Charlie...

[Lisandro]

Sliding box options...

[CharlieSkywalker]

  Here is what I have checked there:

 

[DavidR]

You don't get an announcement when you do a manual initiation of the update, so that is that one taken care of.

However, you should get the announcement with auto-updates, so are the auto-updates actually working (but no announcement) ?

[CharlieSkywalker]

You don't get an announcement when you do a manual initiation of the update, so that is that one taken care of.

OK. I realise that.

However, you should get the announcement with auto-updates, so are the auto-updates actually working (but no announcement) ?

How can I check whether auto-updates are working?

[DavidR]

By checking the VPS version you have against the current one, right click the avast 'a' icon, select About avast! (current version 090520-0).

If that isn't correct, but reflects the date that you last did a manual update, it isn't working.

[Lisandro]

How can I check whether auto-updates are working?

Check the avast logs (Log Viewer).

[CharlieSkywalker]

Hi,

Here I am again with my problem ("avast! update announcement disappeared").
I haven't quit, as you may thought. I just needed time to do some experiments in order to assure that my auto updates are really working. This is because since I started posting my problem to this forum I made many manual initiations of the update, all in eager efforts to see if I could get my voice announcement back. Therefore, at the end, I couldn't be sure that the VPS file version and Compilation date shown in the About avast! window doesn't just reflect those manual initiations.
So, I stopped with manual updating, and had to wait a couple of days to see if the information in the About avast! window would change by itself. In the mean time I changed Auto-update interval couple of times, making it shorter and longer, and steadily observed changes in avast! logs.
All this took me a lot of time, but at the end I think I can say, with 100% certainty, that my auto-update is working.
I stopped with manual updates three days ago, and from that time I could see in About avast! window that VPS file version and Compilation date were changing properly.
Here is what I have now (in the moment I am writing this, 26.May, 14:30):

And here are some lines from the log file:


I think that you'll agree that my auto-update is working.

In addition, here is another proof: I carefully followed changes in the Push iAVS section of the Update Details dialog, and I saw that "Last iAVS update:" value was changing according to Auto-update interval settings - when it was set to 30 minutes, the Last iAVS update value changed every 30 minutes; when it was set to 60 minutes, the Last iAVS update value changed every 60 minutes...

So, everything works fine...but my update announcements are still missing.

There is one thing that I haven't mentioned before. From about some months ago, a little green window slides up from the Notifications area, notifying me that "the new version of avast! is available on the Internet". I never had this before, but paid not much attention. However, in the last three days I watched its behavior more carefully, and have found out that this window appears in intervals which equal exactly three Auto-update interval set. For example, when Auto-update interval is set to 60 minutes, the green window slides up every 3 hours; and when Auto-update interval is set to 120 minutes, the green window slides up every 6 hours... But, more important, when I checked the Notice list in Log Viewer I found out that, up to the point of time those green windows began to appear, every automatic update was registered in that list [e.g. "30.1.2009  SYSTEM  The virus database (VPS 090130-0) was automatically updated"]. But after that, only the appearances of those green windows were registered [e.g. "16.4.2009  SYSTEM  There is a new version of the program available on the Internet"].  And, when I think a little, it seems to me (although I am not absolutely sure) that the time I first noticed that my update announcements are missing matches the time those green windows began to appear. Maybe I am very wrong, but I began to suspect that this has something to do with the lack of my update announcements.

Anyway, my situation is as follows:

1. My auto-update is working
2. Every other announcements are working
3. My vpsupd.wav file (I checked it in C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ENGLISH\) is OK
4. My related settings are;



But Update Announcements are still missing...

What can I do next?

Charlie...

[Lisandro]

Your automatic update seems to be working ok.
The sliding panel comes up and disappear after some seconds. Maybe you're not in front of the computer all the time...