Visual Studio 2010 Experience Report + Plea for Relief

[FrustratedDev]

As a Visual Studio 2010 developer, I'm extremely frustrated that after a recent update Avast now appears to ignore any exclusions -- specifically exclusions on the folders containing nothing but harmless source code, as well as to sandbox programs launched in debug mode.

Please, I beg you*, add a mode called "I'm a software developer that does not need protection of any kind in this folder path." Make me enter a regular expression, or some fancy JavaScript or something to prove that I know what I'm doing is not for the regular Joe business users or grandparents or whatever.  Make me describe pointer arithmetic, just stop scanning text files.

If there is a known solution to this problem, here's some more information about my setup: Windows 7 x64, Visual Studio 2010 SP1, ReSharper 5.1, Intel Core i3, 8GB RAM, and a 5200RPM disk.  Yes, everything is patched.  Yes, I've rebooted 3 times, blown the dust out of the DVD drive, and chanted over the machine with a group of hippies.

* I use the free version of Avast (7.0.1426), but this is a feature I would pay for.  Yes, I just said that I would pay for a feature that disables AV, yet gives the appearance of having AV running.  As a user of AV products for the last decade, I don't find this ironic.  These products invariably screw-over both production and dev machines, but we're stuck with this fine software because the sales process targets management.

[Gargamel360]

Pardon, but are using Avast! Free on a work PC?

If so, this is a clear violation of the EULA.

Perhaps you should convince the management that forced you to accommodate Avast! Free that violation of license agreements are not in their best interests?

[Pondus]

bad boy bad boy, what you gonna do when they come for you.........   

[igor]

I don't think there's anything wrong about the exclusions.
So, it would be nice to know:
- what exactly have you entered
- where exactly have you entered that
- what exactly appears in the "Last scanned" item of the FileSystem Shield

[FrustratedDev]

I don't think there's anything wrong about the exclusions.
So, it would be nice to know:
- what exactly have you entered
- where exactly have you entered that
- what exactly appears in the "Last scanned" item of the FileSystem Shield

I'm currently working on a console application, so I typed a line of code (C#) into the IDE and pressed Ctrl-S.  To answer the "Last Scanned" question, I just now focused Visual Studio and clicked the Save icon even though the file had already been saved.  As expected, AvastSvc jumped in to help.

Find the attached screenshots.  I've also included the list of exclusions, please not that ASP.NET's Temp Internet Files is in that list as a workaround for another Avast bug I ran into a few months ago.  I mention it to point out that AV locks are serious ongoing issue for developers.

Let me know if you need any more information; thanks for looking into this.

[igor]

Well, as far as I can see, the last scanned file doesn't match any of the exclusions... so what makes you think that the exclusions don't work?
I mean, if VS performs additional operations during the file save, including modifications of unrelated(?) files, there's no wonder that excluding the source folder itself doesn't help (also, I believe that unless you modified the FileSystem Shield settings to scan additional files, it shouldn't really scan source codes by default).

[FrustratedDev]

Well, as far as I can see, the last scanned file doesn't match any of the exclusions... so what makes you think that the exclusions don't work?

The events are strongly correlated in time.  That is, I type something, click save, and then AvastSvc shows up in both the Task Manager and in its own scanner.

The behavior I would expect is that, at most, AvastSvc pops up, checks its cached exclusion list, and goes back to sleep.  But you're right, it may not be the exclusion list.  If not that, do you have any idea what it might be?

[FrustratedDev]

I mean, if VS performs additional operations during the file save, including modifications of unrelated(?) files, there's no wonder that excluding the source folder itself doesn't help (also, I believe that unless you modified the FileSystem Shield settings to scan additional files, it shouldn't really scan source codes by default).

Well, if you can recommend more directories to add to the exclusions list, I'm all ears.

[igor]

I'm afraid I don't have any particular suggestions, as avast! doesn't scan anything for me when I save a source file in VS 2010.
By any chance, do you have the "Scan all files" option checked in FileSystem Shield / Expert Settings / Scan when writing (or Scan when opening)?

Otherwise, I'd suggest to watch the Last scanned file field and try to extract a mask you may want to exclude. Or, you can temporarily enable the creation of the report file for the FileSystem Shield, let everything (OK files) be included - and you'll have the list of all the files being scanned, which might help in creating the mask. (Note - I believe you need to Stop&Start the FileSystem Shield to reload the Report file settings - if you change them.)

But there's something strange about your configuration - even though I don't know what is your uptime, 26.000 scanned files certainly sounds way too much.

[FrustratedDev]

It looks like "Scan documents when opening" is checked on the ScanWhenOpening tab, and "Scan files with default extensions" is checked on the ScanWhenWriting tab.  "Scan all files" is not checked. 

Regarding the large files, `net stats srv` reports that the machine has been up for about 5 days.  It's a laptop, so I frequently hibernate instead of shutdown.

Regarding the report file, I'll try that.  Hopefully, something turns up.

Thanks again for the help.

[wrlucas]

I am a developer and also use Visual Studio 2012 and Avast.  Since the update on March 9th, 2012 I have had problems.

I experience random IE 9 "Cannot display webpage"  This is unrelated to Visual Studio.  However, I can reproduce this error by simply setting a debug point in any of my web applications, run the application, hit the debug stop point, then tell the application to resume.  In short, I cannot resume from a debugging session.

I know it is related to Avast as when I disable all the shields, I can debug normally.  When I enable all the shields, I cannot resume from a debug session.  When I tried disabling the shields one-at-a-time, I still got this error.  Only when I completely disable all shields do I get normal behavior.

You attention to this matter would be appreciated.