Constant crashing of avastsvc.exe

[davo-cc]

I’m seeing the AvastSvc.exe crash with an application error – it’s always along the lines of: 

“The instruction as ‘xxxxx’ referenced memory at ‘xxxx’.   The Memory could not be ‘read’.”

This tends to happen most with standard web browsing and happens several times a day.

I’m running the latest 5.0.594 release of the program, I’ve tried complete removal and re-installation (this had absolutely no effect).  I’ve also tried entry removal of the program from Zonealarm (free) without success.

I’ve seen this on one particular machine, I have others with the same software configuration that don’t seem to suffer any ill-effects (including the same version of ZA) so I’m not sure where to go with this, can anyone offer any suggestions?

[Tarq57]

What AV was on the machine before Avast was installed? Is this a fairly new install of Avast?

Did you reboot after installation?

Try a repair of the program, via the "add/remove programs" (or "programs and settings" in Vista), elect the Avast entry, then "change/remove" and a repair option will present. Click it and let it do it's thing, then reboot.

Try a disk scan and repair, right click the drive, select "properties", then click the "tools" tab, then "check this volume for errors".
Tick both the boxes relating to recovery of bad sectors and automatically fix errors. The tool will run on reboot. Takes several minutes.

Another option is to carry out a full uninstall, running the removal tool in safe mode (get it here ), reboot, and re-install afresh.
If you had another AV installed prior to Avast, the appropriate removal tool should also be run prior to reinstalling Avast. Another reboot, ie rebooting at each step, with the final reboot into normal mode, should also be carried out.

Welcome to the forum.

[davo-cc]

Thanks Tarq57, I previously had Avast Home 4.7 but did the upgrade when it started to get out of support.  I'm a daily rebooter at least nowadays.  I initially did an upgrade but since I've done a complete removal and re-installation through normal means but I've not used the removal utility before - will try that now actually.

I'll post back and let you know how it goes, thanks for the pointer!

[superhacker]

I think the problem in your RAM try to change it with another one from another PC("your father,mother,brother,sister,friend,............"),and work on your pc for a while if the problem disappear->change your ram it is cheap nowadays. 

[igor]

Well, "along the lines" isn't very useful - what exactly are those "xxxx" numbers?

[davo-cc]

Igor - the "xxx" numbers are the memory address references which change every time it crashes.  " used the words "along the lines" to indicate the variability of the memory addresses which change during each crash; the crash is the same though.

Superhacker - I'm going to look at that option, I'm going to run memtest86 diagnostics over the system overnight to see if it can identify anything.  I've not had significant issues with other applications however and I've since got some new diagnostics information.

I have noticed a substantial decrease in crashing however it just crashed again when I went to the IMDB in a web browser - I had been opening that site a bit recently and this seems to be a trigger (either that site or something that is linked from it, perhaps an ad or some sort). 

I'm going to run diagnostics overnight to identify or rule out memory issues;  right now though I'm suspecting it's something not being handled correctly on the IMDB website.

[slipperx]

Davo - I have exactly the same problem by my system crashes every time a web address is typed in - I am having to restart the Avast program everytime from the 'Current Status' tab in the Summary tab of the console.  I also have found no solution but I don't think it relates to the website you are looking at.  Someone help please.
Thanks
slipperx

[Tarq57]

davo-cc
Did you try the uninstall utility, and a re-install?
Sounds as thought there might be some kind of conflicting software, or maybe out of date browse software on board. Just guessing, really.
Browser/Java/Adobe all up to date, and old versions removed?
Windows all up to date?

[davo-cc]

Thanks Tarq57,

I initially did a standard removal/re-installation and this seemed to make no difference.  I followed your instructions and did a complete removal followed by the cleaning utility;  this actually found residual files left over from the earlier 4.x installation (which I upgraded from). 

This action reduced the incidence of the failure to only one kind of browsing action;  viewing certain pages on the IMDB.  I think it’s actually one of the ads that they’re carrying that’s breaking things – I suspect it’s flash but I’m not entirely sure.  OS version is XP-sp3, browser is IE7 (I have trouble with IE8 with an older version of Avantbrowser that I use occasionally;  this crash happens in either Avantbrowser or IE alone).

I haven’t been able to replicate it with Chrome;  I’m going to try again to upgrade the browser to IE8 to see if that relieves the problem and to see if I can find another way around the Avantbrowser issue with IE8 (I still use an older version because it supports the “groups” concept, newer versions do not).


Slipperx - that sounds more serious, have you tried another browser application other than the one you're currently using?  I find Chrome a good test (from Google) as it seems to sit alongside IE without upsetting anything;  I'm personally not a firefox fan.

[Tarq57]

Try testing your Adobe version, and verifying your Java version, check they're up to date.
I find it is best to remove old versions first, run the Adobe flash uninstaller, reboot, then visit the pages above to install afresh.

[davo-cc]

ok, have upgraded everything (IE, flash and java) - seeing how that goes, will report back if I see anything funny going on...  Since doing the initial IE8 upgrade I went to the IMDB a few times and wasn't able to crash Avast;  it may not have been getting on with IE7.  This is a rather old build so that may be contributing to the problems.

[slipperx]

Thanks for the response.  Well it happens pretty much each time with Firefox and IE when you go to check a new webpage anad it doesn't seem to make much difference which website you are looking at.  I have tried Chrome and I am pretty sure it crashed too but I will check again just to make sure as I probably had the other browsers open at the same time.
I will get back soon with an answer to that.
slipperx

[SafeSurf]

slipperx,

Sometimes conflicting software, remanents of previous security software, or malware can cause issues.  First I need to ask a few questions:

1.   What is your OS, 32 or 64-bit?
2.   What version of Avast did you install?  5.0.594 is the latest version? 
3.   What product of Avast did you install?  Free, Pro, AIS?
4.   What other security software do you currently have or did you have in the past on this machine including antivirus (AV), firewall (FW), and other security programs (resident and on-demand)?  If they were in the past, how did you remove them (the vendor's uninstaller's tool or another way)?
5.   Are your MS Updates (if you have Windows) current?
6.   Are your software updates current?
7.   Are the Avast definitions (updates) current?
8.   When was the last time you did any kind of scan in Avast, and if so what kind of scan was it?  Did you come out clean? 

If the Avast scan(s) came out clean, please check for malware with Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware (MBAM):

·   Download free http://www.malwarebytes.org/ for an on-demand scanner.
·   Double Click mbam-setup.exe to install the application.
·   After install, click update so you have latest database before scanning.
·   Under Settings:
o   General: Automatically Save File After Scan Completes is checked off
o   Scanner Settings:  Check all boxes
o   Updater: Download and install update if available is checked off
·   Once the program has loaded, select "Perform FULL Scan", then click Scan.
·   The scan may take some time to finish, so please be patient.
·   When the disinfection scan is complete, a log will appear in Notepad and you may be prompted to Restart. (See Extra Note).
·   Click the “remove selected” button to quarantine anything found.  You will find the infection details under the Quarantine tab.
·   The log is automatically saved by MBAM and can be viewed by clicking the Logs tab in MBAM.
·   Copy & Paste the entire report in your next reply.

Let us know if you have any questions.  We will review your responses to the above questions and your MBAM log.  Thank you and welcome to the forum. 

[slipperx]

Hi SafeSurf
First an update.  I tried Google Chrome and found that every letter typed into the address bar causes Avast to crash. i.e. type the first letter - Avast crashes, restart from console, type second letter, crash & console restart etc. etc.  Obviously a problem :-).  I don't recall the problem being so extensive before but realised I had just done an auto update of Speedbit Video Accellerator to the latest version.  I uninstalled that program and since the uninstall there have been no crashes during that session.  I will monitor the situation and see if the problem was resolved with that uninstall.  For the information of others the answers to your questions are as follows:
OS is Windows XP Pro SP3 - 32 bit version running on an X64 Athlon machine
Avast version 5.0.594 - Internet Security
Previously had Trend Micro about 18 months ago - can't remember how I uninstalled it but probably from Control Panel within XP
Updates are up to date as are software updates
Definitions are current
Full scan done showing one possible Trojan within an expensive programme uninstall .exe file - it is a trading software purchased from a reputable source which is never run anyway so I have not deleted that. - Otherwise clean.

If problem resurfaces I will come back and do the further steps but if not will report back all OK too.
Thanks
slipperx

[SafeSurf]

Here is the proper uninstaller tool for Trend Micro: http://uninstallers.blogspot.com/  - see 33a.  Since remnants of not using the vendor's uninstaller's tool may leave remnants (left overs) behind, it is possible that this may cause conflicts with Avast or any other security software. 

It is good that you identified the problematic software and uninstalled it.  Nice work. 

Full scan done showing one possible Trojan within an expensive programme uninstall .exe file - it is a trading software purchased from a reputable source which is never run anyway so I have not deleted that. - Otherwise clean.

Is this trojan in the Virus Chest?  What is the name of this trojan?

I would suggest you run an Avast Boot-time scan as well.

Do you have any on-demand scanners like MBAM free http://www.malwarebytes.org/ to give you another opinion?  It works differently than Avast and is a good back up tool.  I would suggest you run this as well for another opinion.  If anything comes up, make sure you put it in quarantine and a log will be displayed and you to copy and paste it here in your next post for me to analyze.  Thank you.