5.0.377 - service crashes, shields down

[Hermite15]

Will these kinds of problems appear when Alwil rolls out the automatic upgrade from Avast4 to Avast5 (both free and Pro versions)?

I have no idea, I didn't even know that it wasn't done already. I've been on the beta of V5 for months before the final came out. Anyway I would never have done an upgrade between two versions of a program that are so different, this is just not the same software at all anymore, even if many components hold the same names, everything has been completely revised.
 The only way out for a successful upgrade means automatically uninstall V4 first, and completely, reboot and have the V5 setup starting...You can do this manually  

[rlw]

Anyway I would never have done an upgrade between two versions of a program that are so different, this is just not the same software at all anymore, even if many components hold the same names, everything has been completely revised.

I'm aware of the correct way to do an upgrade, except for upgrades that are advertised as needing no user intervention.  I refer you to the avast! 5.0 FAQ on the website (http://support.avast.com/index.php?languageid=1&group=eng&_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=455):

Is it required to uninstall avast! 4.x before installing avast! 5.0?
Yes, but there isn't necessary any user interaction to uninstall avast! 4.x, because installer of avast! 5.0 is able to detect previous instance of avast! 4.x and uninstall it automatically.

I read the FAQ *before* I installed Avast5.  As I recall, the upgrade from 3.x to 4.x was transparent and painless.  I made the mistake of assuming the 4.x->5.x upgrade would be as well.

BTW, it hasn't crashed since uninstalling/reinstalling v5 earlier today.  Thanks again for your help.

RLW

[Hermite15]

I'm sure you're aware  anyway:

I refer you to the avast! 5.0 FAQ on the website

I couldn't care less, for all the reasons I explained above I just wouldn't do it that way. Microsoft also advises to upgrade from XP to Vista or Seven  ...this is suicidal but good to promote a product. Noobs like to hear that.

[rlw]

Well, Avast5 Free ran for a couple of hours before crashing again.  The indication is a red X on the icon, and the message "Unsecured" in the GUI.  Clicking the "FIX NOW" button has the following effect:  A dialog box that states: "The following components could not be started: Mail Shield, IM Shield, P2P Shield, File System Shield, Web Shield, Behavior Shield, Network Shield".  Before I had a chance to click "OK", the GUI (behind the dialog box) displayed SECURED.

I'm not getting a good feeling about this upgrade...

RLW

[Hermite15]

Well, Avast5 Free ran for a couple of hours before crashing again.  The indication is a red X on the icon, and the message "Unsecured" in the GUI.  Clicking the "FIX NOW" button has the following effect:  A dialog box that states: "The following components could not be started: Mail Shield, IM Shield, P2P Shield, File System Shield, Web Shield, Behavior Shield, Network Shield".  Before I had a chance to click "OK", the GUI (behind the dialog box) displayed SECURED.

I'm not getting a good feeling about this upgrade...

RLW

this has happened to me once or twice with older builds (beta) and never again after that...well, just reboot. I don't want to insist on that but I do believe from many posts I read that Avast 5 is optimized for Windows 7. The worse issues, experienced repetitively, were found on XP and Vista systems...while stuff got always fixed very quickly in Win7. I can't elaborate about any detail, that's just observations of V5 behavior, as reported by people here.
 
ps: you can also, instead of rebooting, go to Avast service in "computer management" stop and restart avast services... or just start them manually if they were stopped, like it seems to be the case in your situation.

[rlw]

Still crashing, 4 days later.

I'm running this under XP Home SP3.

No notification from Windows Security Center -- I only notice it crashed when I see the red X on the Avast orange ball icon in the notification area on the XP taskbar.  Windows Security Center does detect Avast as the installed AntiVirus program and the box is checked to alert me if there is a problem with my antivirus program.

Event log notes that it terminated unexpectedly at 12:35 AM this morning.  Checked all log files in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Alwil Software\Avast5\log - nothing in any of the logs that correspond to that particular time.

Can anyone suggest a file viewer for the SQLite log.db file in the Avast5 folder?  There doesn't seem to be any kind of log viewer like the one that was in Avast 4.x.

Is anyone else having this problem?

RLW

[Hermite15]

I don't want to be pessimistic but from the reports I read for a while now V5 seems to be a disaster on XP   ... with a few exceptions.

ps: there's this add-on for firefox. I don't use it...Should work   https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5817

[street_lethal]

I don't want to be pessimistic but from the reports I read for a while now V5 seems to be a disaster on XP   ... with a few exceptions.

Well since XP is still the most widely installed Windows OS.. and will be for quite a while.. I think it would behoove Alwil to fix the bugs.

[Hermite15]

I don't want to be pessimistic but from the reports I read for a while now V5 seems to be a disaster on XP   ... with a few exceptions.

Well since XP is still the most widely installed Windows OS.. and will be for quite a while.. I think it would behoove Alwil to fix the bugs.

the thing is I have also doubts, because as I said there are exceptions, people running avast 5 on XP with no problem... there are also people messing with their systems and they won't say it here, they just report the end result after installing avast 5. Too bad I don't have an XP system to test that myself...

[street_lethal]

there are also people messing with their systems and they won't say it here, they just report the end result after installing avast 5.

No doubt.

[sunrisecc]

For the record, I have installed Avast 5 (AV only) on my test XP SP3 computer and I have absolutely no problems with it.  I am running Defender and XP's firewall. I did have the beta.

[Hermite15]

For the record, I have installed Avast 5 (AV only) on my test XP SP3 computer and I have absolutely no problems with it.  I am running Defender and XP's firewall. I did have the beta.

OK so that's already good news, or better news 

[street_lethal]

I'm running XP SP3 and have no issues except the exclamation point over the taskbar icon for a few seconds on boot. Although I wouldn't call that an issue since it's waiting for all of the shields to kick in or waiting to connect to the network I assume.

[rlw]

...there are also people messing with their systems and they won't say it here, they just report the end result after installing avast 5....

FWIW, my XP SP3 system is about as clean as it can be.  My system is fully updated (as of today) to XP SP3 (including IE8, which I rarely use).  I've got most of BlackViper's list of non-essential system services set to "Disable" or "Manual".  The file system is about 99% defragmented (I use the excellent free defrag program "MyDefrag").  I only have 2 "crapplets" running in the notification area - Process Explorer and Taskbar Shuffle.  The Windows Firewall is disabled (I use a hardware firewall, haven't had a virus or malware in years).  The bulk of my web browsing is via an up-to-date Firefox 3.6.  I don't run a mail client, I use gmail.  Don't run Outlook or any other calendar, I use Google Calendar.  I don't use IM or P2P software (I don't even have anything like that installed on this PC), so, for that reason, I've disabled the Mail, IM, and P2P shields (even less system services to run and clog up my PC).

Avast 4.8.xxxx ran pretty much flawlessly with this same setup - giving me great confidence in Alwil's software.  That's why I *believed* the FAQ when it said the upgrade to Avast5 would cleanly remove Avast4.

My concerns are as follows:

• Windows Security Center detects Avast 5 as the resident AntiVirus program, but does NOT raise an alert when the Avast service fails/terminates.
• The log viewer from 4.x is either missing, or I can't find it.  It was VERY helpful in determining problems on the rare occasion I had one with Avast4.
• At some time in the future, I'm guessing Alwil will auto-update Avast 4 users with Avast 5.  I hope the issue of the service dying and lack of communication between Avast 5 and Windows Security Center is resolved before then.
• Avast 4 updated its own event log that was visible in the Windows Management Console Event Viewer.  Since installing Avast 5, that log is no longer available -- another troubleshooting tool missing from this version

Even though my profile says "Newbie", I'm just a noob to THIS forum.  I've been an independent (one-man shop) computer consultant for over 20 years, supporting a wide range of OSes (Windows 3.0 to 7, NT3, 3.5, 4, Server 2000, 2003, 2008, Mac OSX, SCO Unix, IBM AIX, every Linux since it came out on diskette, etc.), designing advanced LAN and VPN solutions, and providing custom data conversion services for medical offices.  I've used Avast (and recommended it to my customers) since back in the days of Avast 3.

I'm hoping some of the Alwil development team are monitoring this forum, and will provide fixes for the problems I'm having with Avast 5.  I'm more than willing to work with them to help troubleshoot this issue, as I'd like to head off problems for the hundreds of users I support who are currently using Avast 4.  My guess is that the Alwil folks can contact me through this forum if they'd like my help.

BTW, @Logos -- thanks for the link to the SQLite viewer add-on for Firefox.  Unfortunately, there was nothing in the log.db file that provided any clues to the root cause of the problem.

RLW

[Gopher John]

I have no problems with Avast Free 5 on my WinXP Pro SP3  fully patched.   I'm running the old Sygate software firewall and am behind a NAT router.

I did the overinstall over Avast 4.8.1368 without incident.  Almost all of Avast 4 was removed (except for the two new files added just before the release of Avast 5.  I've since deleted the C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4 folder that was left behind and it's few remaining contents as the system wasn't accessing them, and then ran CCleaner.  The hardware is a Pentium4 3.4GHZ with 2Gig of memory.  I'm very pleased with the way everything went.  I use Firefox 3.6 as my default browser, but Opera 10.10 and IE8 also have no problems.