Losing Disk Space due to Avast Logs (Help!)

[efor130]

I started to notice that I was constantly losing space on my maindrive last week (although judging from the start of the log spam in my avast! folder, it started happening on the 5th). I wasn't sure of what the issue was so I started to remove some of my less essential programs and stuff I could do without. I noticed that it kept happening after I removed the programs, so I went through the whole process of clearing my temporary internet files, and disabling system restore (Recently updated my vid card so i created a lot of restore points while troubleshooting the old video card). Turns out that didn't help. So I went online and researched. I had to figure out where the space was going to. I decided to keep a watch on three folders, Program Files, Windows, and Documents and Settings. I noticed that the Program Files folder was getting larger, so I start taking notes the space in each folder, and I found out that my alwil software folder is 19gbs (I have 2 drives, main one is 75gb and secondary is 110gbs. I'm having no issues on the secondary). The logs folder is abotu 18.0gbs. I have a bunch of error logs in this folder. I keep getting them like every second and they all are scanning errors. (AAVM: Fatal, NOT ENOUGH  DATA GOT etc.) I tried to delete the logs but it won't let me because it says that access is denied. I was wondering if anyone else has had this problem and how they've fixed it. I really would like to get the space back on my harddrive and I would really like to stop this from happening in the future.  I'd really like to get this fixed because I'm really annoyed that it's happening/has happened.

[MikeBCda]

The first and most obvious step would be, under program settings/report file, to use the option to delete/overwrite old logs when new ones are created.  I think that's the default setting anyway.  Otherwise, new logs are simply appended to the old ones so they're continually growing in size.  And set (under Logging) a reasonable upper limit for the log-file sizes, regardless of whether you choose to overwrite or not.

Another log that used to be a problem, but I think got "fixed" a few versions back, isn't covered by either of the above settings and is setup.log, which at one time could continuously grow in size to several megs.  I'd periodically trim it down with Notepad to cover just the most recent 2 weeks, maybe a month, but over the last few months its size seems to hold relatively constant at around 100-110K without touching anything.

And if you're referring to the files shown in the Log Viewer (the report files noted in my first paragraph), if you don't need to save the info in them (as for trouble-shooting), the viewer gives you the option to delete any or all of them, which will restart them afresh.

[efor130]

Ok. I've set the logging to overwrite/delete as you said to in the first paragraph. I'm at the part in logging that says 4096kb is the max log size file limit. I was wondering what a good number would be for those. Now I just need to remove the now 20gbs of old logs that I have. Hopefully this will fix the problem or at the least slow down how fast the logs are taking up space (if not halt completely).

[efor130]

While I'm at it here is the full error that I seem to keep getting every second.

SYSTEM 1584 AAVM - scanning error:FATAL:NOT ENOUGH DATA GOT FROM ASYNC IO CONTROL[99]!!!!!!, 00000000.

If anyone can tell me what this means so I can try and fix it if needed I would also be grateful. (And I'm still getting errors. 2 steps away from uninstalling/reinstalling if not completely. Really want to avoid doing this if there's a simple fix. Just wish I knew what this error meant.) Also, the page keeps filing up fast. I go to the above tab in the viewer after deleting the log and back down again and its full of errors like I didnt even delete anything.

[DavidR]

Nothing to fix:
- Personally I keep my nose out of the logs as for the most part the content is verbose and not to helpful to a user, more so for a developer. Only if I experience a problem with avast or hard errors are displayed to the screen do I look in the logs.
 
So are you getting any errors displayed to the screen or other avast problems ?
 
If not I wouldn't worry about this.

Set the log file size at a more reasonable size like 256KB rather than 4096KB, I have mine set to 128KB and I have never had an issue with this size.

So the page fills up, the actual size of a bog standard text page is minimal, even if it were the default size (4MB, e.g. 4096KB) as the default size, about three of the logs are likely to be there as many of the logs will be empty.

[efor130]

I'm not gettting any other problems. The only issue is no matter what I do, every second in my log folder I get an error file that's exactly 4,097kb in size, and since the 5th I've gotten like 5,000 of them in my folder  (which I didn't notice until after I noticed that I'd lost like 4gb of space every 3 days). It also will not let me manually delete the old logs that I can't use the viewer to delete. I recently was down to literal MBs before I knew this was the problem and I deleted some programs to build space not knowing this was the issue. I've tried the steps listed but I keep getting them. I had cleared to 18gb tuesday. I have not downloaded anything and now I'm at almost 11gb. I can't leave it alone or I'll run out of disk space in a few days, and it would do no good clearing other stuff from my drives if this keeps happening. My log folder is about 20gb in size now and it feels like I cant do anything about it. I'm leaning towards trying to repair/reinstall and I'm hoping that fixes it.

Also, the files are named "Error1260004619" "Error1260004756" with different numbers at the end. Here are a few pictures of what's happening. Sorry if the pictures are too big for some.

[DavidR]

If you set the log file size at 128KB and then clear the logs within the avast log viewer, that would start that log from square one and not grow beyond that 128KB.

However not all log files are governed by that limitation as in the setup.log

The error logs that you show in the last three images I have never seen in avast before (see image example of my Data\Log folder), so I really don't know what is going on in your setup.

To be able to manually delete there error files (which as I say I have never seen before) you are going to have to disable the avast self-defence module, Program Settings, Troubleshooting, see image2.

However, I think there is essentially something seriously wrong with your installation, so it may be best to do a clean install:
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. Ensure that you scroll down and select the avast direct download link for the English version and not Cnet as that is for an on-line installation (not what you want to do). - Direct download for avast Home, English version, http://files.avast.com/iavs4pro/setupeng.exe.

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.

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

[efor130]

To be honest I can't remember what program I had before Avast!. I think I've had it for at least 2 years if not more and I haven't had any issues with it until recently. I think it was McAfee but I'm 99% sure (especially if i haven't had any problems) that it was completely removed before I installed Avast. I'm about to try what you posted and hopefully it will fix my problem.

[DavidR]

Conflicts don't work to a schedule.

Here are the various tools:
- McAfee has an uninstall tool that you could run to ensure any possible remnants are removed.
http://download.mcafee.com/products/licensed/cust_support_patches/VSCleanupTool.exe Or http://majorgeeks.com/McAfee_Consumer_Product_Removal_Tool_d5420.html
 
2007 version - http://download.mcafee.com/products/licensed/cust_support_patches/MCPR.exe
 
Also see - How do I uninstall SecurityCenter? http://ts.mcafeehelp.com/faq3.asp?docid=71525

[efor130]

I think I'm fine now. I'm having them resend my license key now and I have the 20.1gb of space back again. As of the install I'm at 33.0gb on my main hdd and I'm going to keep track of it over the next few hrs to see if it goes down again. I'm also going to check in the log folder to make sure it looks like the one you posted your picture of. I also changed the size of the logging file to 256 kb (couldn't remember the exact number here at the time but I figure that's low enough.) Hopefully it was just a bad install and the problems are behind me now.  And as of the reinstall, my last error log was at 10:50pm est us time. I've deleted that file and went up and back a tab, no error logs to be seen unlike before.  Thanks for all of your help. 

[DavidR]

You're welcome.

[Mr.Agent]

me its 4096 kb the limits and its never go more than 4 mb... Or even 1 mb lol. Mine is like 466 kb now. I rarely seeing avast! log to got all those files and steal up alot space like that...