Auto Shutdown of PC not working

[pthubbard]

I'm using the most recent version of Avast! 5.0  I have scheduled a full scan for 12:10am on Sundays and checked the box for shutting down the PC when finished.  For the last couple of weeks, it has failed to shutdown the computer.  The event log doesn't show any failed attempt.  I have noticed that there are several 'maintenance' tasks pre-scheduled on this new machine (win7x64) for Sunday 1:00 am.  Perhaps they are interfering with Avast's shutdown?  I am rescheduling Avast to later in the day to see if it makes a difference.

[pthubbard]

Well, changing the scheduled time had no effect - still no shutdown.  I'm pretty certain the first version (of 5.0) did work, so perhaps something has changed since?  Anyone else have this problem?

[cazoza]

hi friend!
Well, i have programed tasks with avast 5, and all them have finished properly and it has shutted down my pc. Even yesterday i left a scan running and at the end it shutted down my pc. Maybe as you stated, the other tasks interfere with avast shut down. Why dont you try to change the date and hour in the scan. And disable the other maintenance tasks so you can be sure it's avast the one is screwing it up.

[pthubbard]

Why dont you try to change the date and hour in the scan. And disable the other maintenance tasks so you can be sure it's avast the one is screwing it up.

Thanks for the reply, but as you can see from my next post, I tried just that and again no shutdown.

[igor]

But the scan was executed as scheduled, right? (i.e. it just didn't shut down)
Were you (or anybody else) logged on when the scheduled scan started? If yes, what was the account? (administrator or not)

[pthubbard]

Yes, the scan did run.  I only have one account setup on this machine (as administrator).  I scheduled it to run when the computer was not in use.

[igor]

But you were logged on when the scan ran, right? Or did you log off when you were leaving, so nobody was logged on when the task was starting (or rather finishing)?

What if you create a custom scan of something small (e.g. the "Auto-start programs" area, that should finish in a minute or even sooner) and schedule it to be started in two minutes  from "now" (for example)? You should see the scan being performed (if you let the user interface opened on the page with the scans) - and when it's done, you should see a notification that the computer is about to reboot, with a countdown button. Does this window appear?

[cazoza]

i don't know if this is an issue, but sometimes, i schedule the autoshutdown, and it doesn't shutdown my machine. And i have seen that this doesn't work sometimes, when after a scan there are viruses moved to the virus vault. and i have only one account in my windows, is administrator account.

[coolsilver]

I would uninstall Microsoft Security Essentials and give it another try.

Does the UAC prompt come up when you run Avast or do you have UAC turned off (not default)?

[cazoza]

i have disabled the MSE realtime shield, and i run Avast as administrator every time it opens itself. By right clicking on avast icon, and the properties, and in "shorcut" clic on "advanced properties", and then run as administrator. And then accept. And that's all, everytime it opens, it run as administrator without prompting everytime the UAC. So that's why i say it runs as administrator everytime.

But for me is no all the time, just some rare ocations.

[pthubbard]

But you were logged on when the scan ran, right? Or did you log off when you were leaving, so nobody was logged on when the task was starting (or rather finishing)?

What if you create a custom scan of something small (e.g. the "Auto-start programs" area, that should finish in a minute or even sooner) and schedule it to be started in two minutes  from "now" (for example)? You should see the scan being performed (if you let the user interface opened on the page with the scans) - and when it's done, you should see a notification that the computer is about to reboot, with a countdown button. Does this window appear?

I never log off.

I tried the custom scan and it seemed to work fine... more than once.  I then scheduled a full scan with the GUI open and it worked also.  Then I tried a full scan while the screen saver was going (tried to duplicate what would be running when scheduled at time it wasn't in use) and... one worked and one didn't.  Then I checked the 'wake if asleep' box and set the scan for later when it would not be in use and it worked fine.  I don't use 'sleep' mode (I have it set never to sleep) so I'm not sure if that was the difference or something else changed.  I will continue with it daily to see if I can discover anything else.  I'll let you know what I find.

[pthubbard]

Well... tried another full scan when computer was idle.  Scan worked but shutdown didn't.  Seems to be random, but more often than not, the autoshutdown feature isn't working for me.