Author Topic: Having issues trying to scan folders with avast! 6...  (Read 16410 times)

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Saito S

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Having issues trying to scan folders with avast! 6...
« on: February 25, 2011, 06:40:57 AM »
So I have the latest update of ver. 6 (it just updated earlier tonight), and I've had nothing but good experiences with avast so far.  And I have Windows XP Pro sp3.  However, I've been experiencing major slowdown and other problems with my second hard drive (H drive), which until recently has worked fine.  So, one of the first things I thought of was to scan it with avast... but it refuses to complete the scan.  It gets maybe 100+ MB scanned, then it just freezes on whatever file its currently on.  It still SAYS it's scanning, and the time elapsed continues to count up, but nothing else will change; the % indicator stays at 0, and the amount of data scanned will not change, and it will not move on from whatever file it gets stuck on. 

So, just to test it out, I tried to run a scan on some folders - some small, some large - on my main (C) drive.  The scan... worked, kinda.  I'm not sure it IS working right, tho: I hit "start", and almost immediately, it jumped to "Scan Completed - No Threat Found."  It would do this both on folders that were nothing more than several hundred KB, and on folders that are 5 GB+.  Additionally, after "scanning" the folder, the results returned say folders scanned: 1, files scanned: 0, amount of data tested: 0.0 B.  And the scan run time is ALSO zero.

Is this RIGHT?  Somehow I doubt avast can actually scan 5.84 GB in less than a second.  And all those results saying "scan complete", yet "stuff scanned: basically nothing"... it has me worried.  Coupled with the fact that I want to scan this H drive to see if I can begin to diagnose whatever is wrong with IT, and it's pretty frustrating.

So!  Basically it boils down to 2 questions.  One, what I described with scanning 5.84 GB in a second and saying "0 files/0.0 B" for what was scanned... that's not normal, right?  And two: has anyone else had the problem with a scan of a specific folder (hard drive in this case) just getting stuck on one file after several seconds?  And of course, any ideas on how to fix that problem are welcome. 

Yeesh... thanks in advance for any help!

SafeSurf

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Re: Having issues trying to scan folders with avast! 6...
« Reply #1 on: February 25, 2011, 07:31:27 AM »
Hello Saito S and welcome to the forum.

What previous version of Avast did you upgrade from?

Did you have previous antivirus (AV) on this machine prior to Avast?

What other security software, including firewall (FW) do you have?

What kind of scan are you doing?  Quick, Full, Custom, Boot?

Saito S

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Re: Having issues trying to scan folders with avast! 6...
« Reply #2 on: February 26, 2011, 06:05:22 AM »
Hello Saito S and welcome to the forum.
Thanks   ;D
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What previous version of Avast did you upgrade from?
Hmm... I thought I saw a log of previous updates somewhere in the program, but now I can't find it.  Not sure how to tell... it's currently on 6.0.1000.
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Did you have previous antivirus (AV) on this machine prior to Avast?
I did have Norton (yes, I know), but I got rid of that and installed Avast in April of 2010.  Been using it since then with no problems, until these last couple of days. 
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What other security software, including firewall (FW) do you have?
Spybot: S&D.  The only firewall I use is the Windows XP one. 
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What kind of scan are you doing?  Quick, Full, Custom, Boot?
Specifically, scanning individual folders/drives, via the "Select a folder to scan" option in the "Scan Computer" section in the main avast window.  Didn't think to try a Custom Scan, which seems kind of obvious... I blame the insane week I've had.  But after reading your post, I decided to try it... it seemed to work fine.  I still find it odd that it can scan a 5.84 GB folder instantly (is Avast really THAT fast?), but it actually returned the correct number of files scanned and amount of data scanned (instead of saying "zero" for both) this time, so hey. 

So apparently, it's a problem with that specific option, the "Select Folder to Scan" option.  Which is freakin weird, but at least I can create custom scans to get things done.  Still trying to troubleshoot my hard drive (not my C drive where Windows and my programs are, fortunately, but still); accessing the drive is slow as molasses now.  At first, I noticed it with watching videos, but even just opening Explorer windows pointing at folders on the drive is quite slow.  I recently installed Dragon NaturallySpeaking on my computer to test it out, and I used that drive... I decided not to keep it (partly because it caused a lot of slowdown and seemed pretty glitchy), but I can't help but wonder at the timing.  These problems didn't start till I installed it, and have unfortunately persisted even though I got rid of it...

One other thing I noticed.  After successfully scanning my 5.84 GB test folder, I created and ran a custom scan on a folder full of videos on the H drive (which is, of course, the drive with the issues).  So we'll see how that goes (gonna take a bit to finish, as this folder is much bigger), but iTunes (which is stored on C, not H, as are all the music files) was playing when I started the scan, and every now and then, the music gets a little choppy and static-y.  I don't recall this happening before... I've never read anything suggesting that running a program while scanning is a particularly bad idea (as long you are not accessing the very files/programs being scanned WHILE Avast is trying to scan them), but I must admit that despite being decent with computers in general, I'm not very good knowledgeable when it comes to anti-virus or other security software.  So... basically, IS it a bad idea? 

SafeSurf

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Re: Having issues trying to scan folders with avast! 6...
« Reply #3 on: February 26, 2011, 06:14:12 AM »
Instead of doing a particular drive scan or a Custom scan, in general since Avast is always scanning your machine, you really only need to do a Quick scan...unless you suspect something.  Then do a Full or a Boot-time scan. 

Try doing a Full scan and see what happens.  If Avast does not seem to be working correctly, let us know.

Question:  You said that you have SB.  Are you also using TeaTimer (TT)?  This has created conflicts for others using SB with TT and Avast and uninstalling it has resolved the problem.  Let me know if you are using TT and I have instructions on how to uninstall.

Saito S

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Re: Having issues trying to scan folders with avast! 6...
« Reply #4 on: February 27, 2011, 05:30:21 AM »
Instead of doing a particular drive scan or a Custom scan, in general since Avast is always scanning your machine, you really only need to do a Quick scan...unless you suspect something.  Then do a Full or a Boot-time scan. 

Try doing a Full scan and see what happens.  If Avast does not seem to be working correctly, let us know.

Question:  You said that you have SB.  Are you also using TeaTimer (TT)?  This has created conflicts for others using SB with TT and Avast and uninstalling it has resolved the problem.  Let me know if you are using TT and I have instructions on how to uninstall.
So... strange results here.

First: I DO have TeaTimer, apparently.  I wasn't even aware of it (like I said, when it comes to anti-virus and security software specifically, I'm... not as adept as I'd like to be).  Checked in the Task Manager, and the "TeaTimer.exe" process is running.

I did the full scan, and it... worked?  It was still pretty weird. It started off fine: the full scan began, and scanned through the entire C drive in a reasonable amount of time.  Then, when it got to the H drive, it was still scanning, but VERY VERY slowly.  In just a couple of hours or so, it went from 0% to 60% (this was while it scanned the C drive); once it started on the H drive, it took almost twelve hours to get from 60% 75%.  Then, another weird thing happened: I was monitoring it (not constantly, with it taking that long, but generally, just looking at the results every 10-30 minutes), and at one point, I looked up and it was just DONE.  The last time I had looked at it, it had almost reached 80%; given how fast it had(n't) been going, there's no way it could have gotten all the way to the end in half an hour.  So I'm not sure what happened there.  It did say it had scanned the entirety of both drives and found no problems, but I'm not sure I can trust it.

Clearly, there IS something wrong with the "Select Folder to Scan" option in Avast, but I'm not that worried about that if the full scan works; thing is, I'm not even sure if it IS, given what I described above.  Of course, this all could still be a problem not with Avast itself, but with whatever is going on with the H drive in general.  I still have no idea WHAT is wrong, exactly, but maybe it's compromising Avast's ability to properly scan the drive?  Of course, that's a bit of a catch-22, since running a proper virus scan is one of the steps in determining what the problem is in the first place...

Thanks for your help so far SafeSurf; it's appreciated.  Hopefully I can get this figured out.  And, I know this is an Avast forum, but ANY thoughts/suggestions/similar experiences, etc. relating to my overall problem are also appreciated (which is the extreme slow speed of anything being done with the H drive: browsing files in explorer, opening files, and apparently scanning the drive with Avast too).  Hope there isn't anything physically wrong with the drive...   X_x

Daris

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Re: Having issues trying to scan folders with avast! 6...
« Reply #5 on: February 27, 2011, 08:36:06 AM »
Het Guys...You said you had Norton or Symantec..But you Uninstalled it...How did you go about uninstalling it? eg. Did you download the Norton removal tool?

doktornotor

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Re: Having issues trying to scan folders with avast! 6...
« Reply #6 on: February 27, 2011, 09:09:02 AM »
First: I DO have TeaTimer, apparently.  I wasn't even aware of it (like I said, when it comes to anti-virus and security software specifically, I'm... not as adept as I'd like to be).  Checked in the Task Manager, and the "TeaTimer.exe" process is running.

Disable this, at minimum. This is bound to cause never-ending issues, completely broken code. (I would get rid of Spybot altogether, does not add any significant security these days, frankly.)

SafeSurf

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Re: Having issues trying to scan folders with avast! 6...
« Reply #7 on: February 27, 2011, 10:58:39 AM »
You said that you have SB.  Are you also using TeaTimer (TT)?  This has created conflicts for others using SB with TT and Avast and uninstalling it has resolved the problem.  Let me know if you are using TT and I have instructions on how to uninstall.
TT will cause problems based on feedback from other users, so I do suggest that you uninstall:

Uninstall Spybot S&D w/Teatimer: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/howto/uninstall.html.
- How to disable Spybot-S&D (temporarily).  http://www.safer-networking.org/en/howto/disable.html .  Even though it says temporarily, the resident parts of SpyBot Search & Destroy must be enabled manually if disabled in this manner.  TeaTimer doesn't load into memory at all when disabled.  Reboot your machine.

In addition, if you want to be sure that Nort0n is off your machine, it can't hurt to run their uninstaller as well http://us.norton.com/support/kb/web_view.jsp?wv_type=public_web&docurl=20080710133834EN
then reboot.  However they are known to leave remnants behind, and you should go into Safe Mode > Search > type in Symantec (and again do another search and type Norton, then the actual software you had like NAV) and see if anything comes up in Advanced Mode.  If it does, you can delete it and empty your recycle bin in Safe Mode, then reboot.  If you are unsure what the file is, right click on the file, which will bring up the file Properties, and it will tell you.

See how your machine acts after running these uninstallers separately then rebooting.  You may also want to clean and defrag your machine afterwards. 

Let me know if you have any questions.  Thank you.




Saito S

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Re: Having issues trying to scan folders with avast! 6...
« Reply #8 on: February 28, 2011, 01:05:27 AM »
Thanks for all the replies! 

Daris and SafeSurf: Yes; I forgot to mention it, but I DID run Norton's wacky uninstaller program (seriously, the hoops you have to jump through to get rid of that thing...), but I will search for Symantec/Norton as suggested. 

Re: Spybot... guess I'll just disable it for now.  I might uninstall it... doktornotor, when you say it doesn't add anything significant these days, is there another program you would recommend instead for anti-spyware/malware? 

Re: clean and defrag the machine... should I assume by "clean" you are talking about using something like CCleaner? (Remember, total noob with this stuff here).  I did defrag the H drive, actually... when I ran the tool, it said defragging wasn't needed at present, so that is apparently not the problem.  I also tried "checking for errors", but that just hung after getting maybe 25% of the way through the process (which doesn't surprise me all that much, given the slowdown whenever I try to access the drive in ANY way). 

I have had the thought of backing up the contents of both hard drives to an external (just to be safe) and then trying System Restore.  Not gonna do that just yet, though.  How might I check for physical problems with a hard drive?  I do have to consider that possibility. 

SafeSurf

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Re: Having issues trying to scan folders with avast! 6...
« Reply #9 on: February 28, 2011, 10:07:05 AM »
Yes, uninstalling N0rton does make you jump through hoops!  I've had to remove it from many machines and I know how bad it can be. :P

A good replacement to start for uninstalling SB would be MBAM (Malwarebytes) http://www.malwarebytes.org/.  There is a free on-demand or a paid resident version.  Many of us here use it and it is compatible with Avast.

To clean your machine, yes CCleaner Slim version http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/builds would be recommended.  It also has a registry cleaner/fix and you can make a back up prior to fixing temporarily in Documents or on a USB.  The Slim version is not on their web site now as they are updating their versions but should appear in a day or so.  If you download the full version, only download it as a "Custom Install" so you do NOT download any toolbars and carefully look at what you are downloading...e.g. uncheck anything you do not want to download like ebay and any browser toolbars.  The Slim version has no toolbars.

I would suggest defraging your entire system.  There are many defrag tools, but one that also does a boot-time defrag would be best.  A free one that is quick and light on your system and used by our malware removal expert is Puran Defrag http://www.puransoftware.com/.  You would do a regular defrag with Puran, then a boot-time defrag.  Also, during the boot-time defrag, it does a system check (not a complete diagnostic check).

I suggest that you uninstall SB and TT (not disable it) since this could be conflicting with Avast, as well as running CCleaner and defragging your machine, with reboots in between.  If you are still having problems after this, then an Avast Repair might be worth a try or a complete uninstall/clean install...but I will await your reply as to how your machine responds to the uninstall of SB w/TT and cleaning/defrag first.   

I tend to think the root of this problem is not Avast, but something causing Avast to run slower.  The only way to know is to troubleshoot.  Should this fail, then I will have you submit a mini-dump file to Avast, which I will instruct you to do when we get to that point.  Let me know if you have any questions.  Thank you.

YoKenny

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Re: Having issues trying to scan folders with avast! 6...
« Reply #10 on: February 28, 2011, 03:47:34 PM »
A good replacement to start for uninstalling SB would be MBAM (Malwarebytes) http://www.malwarebytes.org/.  There is a free on-demand or a paid resident version.  Many of us here use it and it is compatible with Avast.
Definitly un-install SB as it is inferior to MBAM.

Saito S

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Re: Having issues trying to scan folders with avast! 6...
« Reply #11 on: March 01, 2011, 05:24:13 AM »
Yes, uninstalling N0rton does make you jump through hoops!  I've had to remove it from many machines and I know how bad it can be. :P

A good replacement to start for uninstalling SB would be MBAM (Malwarebytes) http://www.malwarebytes.org/.  There is a free on-demand or a paid resident version.  Many of us here use it and it is compatible with Avast.
MBAM it is.  I've actually heard of it, but never used it, so I'll give that a shot. 
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To clean your machine, yes CCleaner Slim version http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/builds would be recommended.  It also has a registry cleaner/fix and you can make a back up prior to fixing temporarily in Documents or on a USB.  The Slim version is not on their web site now as they are updating their versions but should appear in a day or so.  If you download the full version, only download it as a "Custom Install" so you do NOT download any toolbars and carefully look at what you are downloading...e.g. uncheck anything you do not want to download like ebay and any browser toolbars.  The Slim version has no toolbars.
Oh yes; don't worry, I'm not THAT much of a newb, haha... I always watch for extra crap like toolbars and whatnot when installing anything. 
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I would suggest defraging your entire system.  There are many defrag tools, but one that also does a boot-time defrag would be best.  A free one that is quick and light on your system and used by our malware removal expert is Puran Defrag http://www.puransoftware.com/.  You would do a regular defrag with Puran, then a boot-time defrag.  Also, during the boot-time defrag, it does a system check (not a complete diagnostic check).
The program (Puran) can run both the standard and boot-time defrag?  Or did I mis-read that and I need another program for the boot-time defrag? 

And hm... I did a normal "Windows" defrag, but I take it this is better.  Not that surprising, really. 
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I suggest that you uninstall SB and TT (not disable it) since this could be conflicting with Avast, as well as running CCleaner and defragging your machine, with reboots in between.  If you are still having problems after this, then an Avast Repair might be worth a try or a complete uninstall/clean install...but I will await your reply as to how your machine responds to the uninstall of SB w/TT and cleaning/defrag first.   

I tend to think the root of this problem is not Avast, but something causing Avast to run slower.  The only way to know is to troubleshoot.  Should this fail, then I will have you submit a mini-dump file to Avast, which I will instruct you to do when we get to that point.  Let me know if you have any questions.  Thank you.

So...  This may be a bit long, but I want to get all the info I can out there too see for any who might be able to help.

I'm certainly game to run a defrag with this program.  As I said, you and the others posting here seem pretty knowledgeable about this stuff, certainly more so then me.  But I do worry that the defrag might take... days, potentially.  I'm not even sure how long.

The problem has been with accessing data on the H drive... almost ANY data.  Windows Explorer windows hang and delay, .avi's won't play without stuttering and freezing all over the place (though, bizarrely, .mkv videos stored on the drive - though they take an eternity to start - play fine once they are going), etc.  I'm just glad the problem is with H and not C, but I agree with you that the problem is likely not with Avast itself.  Whatever is wrong with the H drive (and I still have no idea what is wrong or what caused it) is simply affecting Avast. 

So, should I just start the defrag, and if it slows WAY down when it hits the H drive to the point where it could take days to finish (and that it what I am expecting based on what's been happening)... well, what would you do in my position?  Stop it and try something else?  Let it run and hope it actually finishes, even if it DOES take days?  And, as I mentioned before, I worry that there may be physical damage to the drive... would running this defrag be a good way to start diagnosing that, or is there anything else in particular I'd want to do first? 

While I do want to be able to know that Avast is working properly, I think it's easily understood why finding out what is wrong with this hard drive is just as important to me.  I know this is an Avast forum, technically, but I've gotten helpful and friendly responses here so far; any help on the general subject of diagnosing the drive, as well as figuring out what is going on with Avast, is greatly appreciated. 

In the meantime, while I wait for further replies from this thread, I will uninstall S&D, download (and run) MBAM, try CCleaner and Puran... as I said, I'm not sure how well any process that requires accessing or scanning the H drive will go, but we'll see. 

Thanks again to all. 

SafeSurf

  • Guest
Re: Having issues trying to scan folders with avast! 6...
« Reply #12 on: March 01, 2011, 07:24:46 AM »
You are on the right track.  Please do the following in this order:

1.  Uninstall SB w/TT per the vendor's instructions I gave you and reboot.

2.  Run CCleaner to get rid of the crap on your machine before you go any further.  Also run the registry cleaner.  If you feel uncomfortable with the fix (since you uninstalled SB, there will be a fix), make a back up in Documents and keep it for about a week until you know everything is fine. 

3..  Download and install MBAM.  Make sure you update it prior to doing a scan...you will always need to update prior to scanning to make sure you have the most up to date definitions.  Should any infection appear, make sure you put it into quarantine (do not delete it or take no action).  Quarantine is similar to the Avast Virus Chest.  If MBAM asks you to reboot your machine, do so.  If any infection is found, please cut and paste your MBAM log into your next post so I can review it.

4. Download and install Puran, which is more thorough than the Windows defrag.  Each drive will appear and need to be defragged separately.  I would do your H-drive last since this appears to be your problematic drive.  Once you are done with your regular defrag with Puran, there is an option under Boot-time defrag in Puran to select "Restart-Defrag-Restart-Disk+Check."  Select this option.  The amount of time depends on how much you have on your machine and when it was last defragged.  It will reboot probably twice, and yes it will take a longer.

Let me know how things work out after doing the above.  We're here to help you with everything.  :)


Saito S

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Re: Having issues trying to scan folders with avast! 6...
« Reply #13 on: March 01, 2011, 09:26:38 AM »
Thanks SafeSurf!  Going to start on all this tonight, though I imagine the total time required to get all this done could stretch out over a couple of days, especially if various scans/clean-up of the H-drive takes as long as I think it will.   :P  I'll post here again with the results. 

SafeSurf

  • Guest
Re: Having issues trying to scan folders with avast! 6...
« Reply #14 on: March 01, 2011, 09:30:31 AM »
It will go quicker than you think.  ;)  Let me know if you run into problems.