Avast 6 Pro system freezes on scan

[Structo]

Hi,
I recently upgraded to Avast Pro 6.0.1367 for my Win Xp SP3 machine.
I recently had my hard drive crash so I had to format and reinstall
Windows XP Pro and then re-install Avast 6 Pro.

Now, if I try to start a Quick Scan or Full scan the screen freezes and I
have to shutdown by holding the power button.
I tried looking at the log files but I don't see anything.
The scan seems to freeze on the svhosts.exe and only gets to about six files before it freezes.
I have Process Explorer and don't see any high activity on any one file.

I am also not seeing a Mini Dump file. It may be due to having the Page File on another
drive.

I even got a full blue screen one time by trying to start a scan.
I don't have any other trouble with this system other than this.
Please help, I don't want to change as I have used Avast for years.
Tom

[ady4um]

Hi,
I recently upgraded to Avast Pro 6.0.1367 for my Win Xp SP3 machine.
I recently had my hard drive crash so I had to format and reinstall
Windows XP Pro and then re-install Avast 6 Pro.

Run Windows Update. Apply the updates, reboot and check again for Windows Updates. Repeat until no new updates are available. This should include XP SP3.

The same goes to updating drivers, if necessary.

Finally, reboot again and install Avast again. Reboot after that and retest.

Please report back.

[Structo]

OK,
Did all that, have all the updates.
I already had SP3.

Completely removed Avast with the removal utility and re-installed it.

Same as before, as soon as I start a scan my screen freezes and I have to hard boot.

[ady4um]

When you said you removed avast with the removal utility, do you mean aswclear.exe?

Have you ran the removal utility for each and all versions of avast you ever had? That would mean rebooting into Windows Safe Mode, removing, say, avast 6, then reboot again and remove avast 5 and so on.

Can you review the service of avast? Is the start up type set to "automatic"?

Is the driver of avast also set to "auto start up"?

When you reinstalled avast, did you used the latest stable version of Avast Pro? Or you used the Free edition first, or an older version first?

When you used Avast Free, did any of these issues appeared?

It is very important to know if you have (or HAD) any other security tools of any kind in addition to avast.

All this information will help us narrow down the origin of the problem. Please report back.

[avast@@dvantage77.com]

Download Whocrashed.exe by Respendence and run it to evaluate that BSOD you add.  It will give you some more data that you don't know.

[Structo]

So after trying everything I can think of I removed Avast Pro (thoroughly) and installed the free home version.
I was a able to do a full scan no problem and I am not having any trouble with it freezing.
What I don't get is that both the free and Pro version have the same engine right?

I am very disappointed that I can't run a program I paid for.

By the way, when I was researching this, I don't seem to be alone, having the Avast Pro freeze my PC.
Many others have complained and I didn't see one work around that worked.

I should also add that I use Google home page and Avast would give me a false positive whenever that page loaded.
I had to edit my hosts file to stop that.

Sincerely,
Tom

[ady4um]

Why not "thoroughly clean avast Pro installation" as you said, and then install anew the latest version of Avast Pro (no pogram updates)?

Have you used the removal utility for avast? Have you removed all previous versions of avast you ever had (by running the utility several times)?

Have you updated your display drivers?

Have you deleted the firewall rules?

You could also post here the latest part of your setup.log and relevant reports.

You could search for memory dumps (mini, kernel, full) in other locations.

The point is, you have not tried all possible steps, and I'm confident that here in the forum there are many users and Avast Team members that can at least try to help you, if you provide the necessary info and and test all possible steps.

[Structo]

Well I guess I got tired of messing with it.
Why would the Free edition work and the Pro not work?

Same engine according to the build numbers.

So why is it when I had Pro installed as soon as I clicked on the Scan
button the system would freeze hard and I would have to hold the power button
to power down.

Then after I cleaned that version from my system and installed the free version
I did a full scan and nothing wrong happened.

I find people skip over what I have posted because they
are used to dealing with newbies.
In my first post I said it was a fresh install of windows SP3.
I had all the updates but checked again and there were four more so
not that much more to update.
My video drivers are stable and I have used them for over a year.

Like I said when I Googled this problem there seems to be a lot of people
having the same problem with the latest Pro build.
So at this point I think I will just move forward and not worry about it any
longer.
Perhaps later I will try again but for now I need a functioning machine to do my
work with.
Regards, Tom

[ady4um]

Then after I cleaned that version from my system and installed the free version
I did a full scan and nothing wrong happened.

Have you rebooted when you first installed Pro?

Are you saying that you already tried uninstalling Pro, clean up and reinstalling the latest Pro and it didn't work?

Just to be clear, I don't mean installing Free and adding the Pro license, but downloading ANEW and installing the latest Pro trial, reboot and test (after the previous uninstall and clean up) and only when all is working correctly then add the license file.

I find people skip over what I have posted because they
are used to dealing with newbies.
In my first post I said it was a fresh install of windows SP3.
I had all the updates but checked again and there were four more so
not that much more to update.
My video drivers are stable and I have used them for over a year.

I don't know about others. I carefully read your posts before. You said you HAD SP3, but the you had a crash and install XP anew and avast. You didn't mention SP3 again, so I asked specifically so to confirm. The drivers can't be there for a whole year either if we are talking about a new clean installation of Windows; and even in such case you could actually try the basic default drivers (at least for a test).

Like I said when I Googled this problem there seems to be a lot of people
having the same problem with the latest Pro build.

Yes, you will find people having some problems, as with any software or even with OSs. You are probably not going to find the other millions using it with no problems. Moreover, you could find people posting the problems, but they don't care to post how they solved it.

So at this point I think I will just move forward and not worry about it any
longer.
Perhaps later I will try again but for now I need a functioning machine to do my work with.

Don't hesitate to try the removal utility for avast and download anew, whenever you are ready. If you solve the problem, please post here some feedback. And of course don't hesitate to come back and ask again for further help if necessary.

[YoKenny]

By the way, when I was researching this, I don't seem to be alone, having the Avast Pro freeze my PC.
Many others have complained and I didn't see one work around that worked.

I run avast! PRO on my XP Pro system without a problem. 

[Structo]

Well this morning I inserted my Pro license key into my Free Home version and it
upgraded to pro with no problems.
I can now scan and everything seems to be working OK.

But for some reason when I did a clean install of Pro, it would crash and freeze every time
I started any kind of scan.