Chest size exceeds the limit

[joelinnert]

Hello again,

I've limited the chest size to 20 MB, the ini-files shows:

[Chest]
MaxSize=20

But the real data size in the chest exceeds the limit - it's now about 30 MB. Restarting windows didn't help.

Thanx & bye, Joe

[Eddy]

The true space something is using on your HD depends on the cluster size and therefor it can happen that you have a file that has a certain size and when looking at the space it takes on the drive it can give you a larger size.

I am not saying that this is causing what you are experiencing, but it may have to do with it.

Example:
Cluster size is set to 4096Kb
True file size is 5000Kb
Since the file won't fit in 1 cluster it needs a second cluster.
So total disk space occupied is 2 x 4096 = 8192 Kb
And yes, this means that 3192Kb of the second cluster is not used and not available to other files.

Also keep in mind that 1Mb = 1024 Kb (and not 1000Kb as disk manufacturers wants to make you believe)

Can you tell us how you checked the space that is used?

Are you sure this is just the chest and not also the "infected files", "user files" and "system files" section also?

[DavidR]

What have you got in there that takes up 30MB?

How old is it?

Start some house keeping and delete some of the older stuff,say if it went into the chest some time ago and your computer is running ok (e.g. no system files have been sent to the chest). Then it would be reasonably safe to delete older entries from the chest.

The chest should be a temporary location where you investigate an infection and ensure that it is not a false positive, check the forums, google search, etc. and that no harm will come of your system if you delete it from the chest.

[igor]

Yes, "How old is it" is a good question... did you move the files to Chest recently, or rather long time ago (when the Chest limit wasn't implemented yet)?

[Eddy]

Yes, "How old is it" is a good question

Hmm, shouldn't this matter? I mean even if you have set the size in a old version and in the new version you make it smaller..., shouln't avast delete the things from the chest or at least keep/make it the new size as is set by the user?

[igor]

I don't think so. How should it choose what files to delete? It may remove exactly the ones you would want to keep...
When the limit is set, the subsequent "moves to Chest" can simply fail; but I really wouldn't automatically clean the Chest when the parameter is changed.

[Eddy]

You got a good point there Igor. I understand, but I think many people do not. Just a thought, but shouldn't this be explained in the help/manual or on the website in the FAQ section?

[joelinnert]

Can you tell us how you checked the space that is used?

Are you sure this is just the chest and not also the "infected files", "user files" and "system files" section also?

The folder that I mean is the folder named "chest" in the folder "DATA". It's getting larger than I want it to. The size is shown by the file tool Total Commander.

Bye, Joe

[joelinnert]

What have you got in there that takes up 30MB?

How old is it?

It's from the last three days ... all that well-known f!*?ing stuff like Sober; Netsky and so on.

All data in the chest folder is from incoming mails - I may delete it without doing any harm.

Bye, Joe

[Lisandro]

Default value for MaxSize is 256  
I think the location of Chest (in another drive, for instance) is not allowed. I think RejZor tried this in the past but with no success  :'(

[igor]

I just tried and the Chest limit seems to work here... with a note that the computer must be restarted for any changes in the limit to take effect (at least on WinNT/2000/XP).