some weird problems with two latest avast! Free Antivirus versions

[temuli]

Hi all,

have a desktop with 64-bit Vista Home Premium. It's been running without problems with Comodo Firewall (64-bit version 4.1.150349.920) and with the latest avast! Free Antivirus (5.0.677).

After avast! Free Antivirus version 5.1.864 came out I did update it via gui and started getting frequent Windows error messages that some modules have stopped working. These are

Windows Problem Reporting

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:   APPCRASH
  Application Name:   wermgr.exe
  Application Version:   6.0.6001.18000
  Application Timestamp:   4791946d
  Fault Module Name:   ntdll.dll
  Fault Module Version:   6.0.6002.18005
  Fault Module Timestamp:   49e0421d
  Exception Code:   c0000005
  Exception Offset:   0000000000016ee5
  OS Version:   6.0.6002.2.2.0.768.3
  Locale ID:   1035
  Additional Information 1:   c690
  Additional Information 2:   7359234b613c8a1c288374440fa62ec3
  Additional Information 3:   4cca
  Additional Information 4:   16929c8890eceff6ed28214468fa1d5c



and COM Surrogate

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:   APPCRASH
  Application Name:   DllHost.exe
  Application Version:   6.0.6000.16386
  Application Timestamp:   4549bbff
  Fault Module Name:   ntdll.dll
  Fault Module Version:   6.0.6002.18005
  Fault Module Timestamp:   49e0421d
  Exception Code:   c0000005
  Exception Offset:   0000000000016ee5
  OS Version:   6.0.6002.2.2.0.768.3
  Locale ID:   1035

I then uninstalled avast! and after reboot did a full install of version 5.1.864, not just update from older version, but there wasn't any difference, the same error messages started to show up. I even did a clean install of OS but again the same thing with 5.1.864 so I finally uninstalled it and did install 5.0.677 and it worked just great!

Today as I saw there had come a new version 5.1.889 I did update it from version 5.0.677 via gui but again the same error messages I mentioned earlier started showing up. No difference with uninstalling and fully installing the latest version. So now back to 5.0.677 with no problems...

[Hermite15]

 you best chance is to uninstall 5.0, reboot, install 5.1 from scratch using "custom install" and uncheck the behavior shield before the setup starts. This should get you rid of these issues I suppose...

ps: something you can try too is disable "enable rootkit scan at system startup"...... shouldn't be related, but the anti-rootkit as resident while logged in may be...

yeah... there seem to be some remaining bugs...

[temuli]

Hey,

thanks, gotta try that some day, have already installed and uninstalled and installed it again enough for today, just have other things to do now... 

Yes, actually i did try disabling enable rootkit scan at system startup - no help - and the same is with load modules after system modules...

[R. Hansen]

There is no actual need to uninstall/reinstall. Go to "Add or Remove Programs." Find avast! Click the "Change/Remove" button.

In the installer dialogue, choose to "change" the install. Then uncheck "behavior shield" and continue through the install.

I had problems with Behavior Shield earlier today (v 884/889, IIRC), and this will eliminate the shield without much pain or fuss. avast! has a very well-behaved installer.

Good luck.  

[Hermite15]

There is no actual need to uninstall/reinstall. Go to "Add or Remove Programs." Find avast! Click the "Change/Remove" button.

In the installer dialogue, choose to "change" the install. Then uncheck "behavior shield" and continue through the install.

I had problems with Behavior Shield earlier today (v 884/889, IIRC), and this will eliminate the shield without much pain or fuss. avast! has a very well-behaved installer.

Good luck.  

he went back to 5.0.677 and I didn't tell him about that (the removal thru the change interface) because if he has to reboot twice, one for the change, and a second after the upgrade, he'd be better off re-installing 5.1 from scratch.

[temuli]

Yeah, back with 5.0.677, both newer versions were so annoying causing those nasty errors every 5 to 10 seconds so wasn't that willing to keep 'em running longer than it was needed to discover all the shields up it just won't work with any available tricks available via gui or reinstall etc.

And yes, knew about changing option but preferred having full protection so found older version in my case better still for a while.

With my laptop, however, with 32-bit Vista Home Premium both newer avast! versions have worked without any problems (with the very same Comodo Firewall (though 32-bit version of course...)) and that is almost about 3 years old os installation that in every way should already have more troubles.

Hope avast! specialist are able to figure out what has changed that much between 5.0.677 and the next newer version that causes such a nice situation with Windows modules. Have always relied on avast! and it just hasn't changed yet! 

[noumenon]

I'm encountering the same problem as descibed by temuli since the update to 5.1.889 on Windows 7 Professional 64bit.
Returning to a previous version (via System Restore) or disabling the behaviour shield in 5.1.889 as suggested by R. Hansen (via Safe Mode) prevents those application crashes.

[temuli]

Yes hope it's on the "to be sorted out" list already... 

[thread]

I posted in the other thread already...

but just another person to confirm this exact issue, my frustration with it and the wild goose chases I've been on.

Perhaps it's a testament to how much I've been happy with avast that I didn't check it early on. I'd already chased windows around, Comodo firewall.

If I'd had symantec or AVG in my system tray they would have been yanked straight out in the first test. :-/

[thread]

For what it's worth. Disabling the behaviour shield (permanently) only temporarily fixed the problem.

I had to use the (well designed) avast installer to remove the shield to get all the functionality back.

[temuli]

As far as my problematic system is concerned, I can see the problem has now been solved with the newest version 6.0.1000.

Thank you 

[chansie41]

err i know it has been months since this topic's been posted, but I just had an avast update a few hours ago. (Didn't read what version it was, coz I just love this av so much that I let it do anything it wants on my pc.

When it asked for a restart, I just clicked yes and when it has already done so, it got stuck on the Welcome screen (Windows Vista, btw). I tried to restart it a dozen of times, did a lot of stuff i got from forum after forum, to the point where I nearly did a complete reformat without back-up coz any safemode thingy gets stuck at the crcdisk.sys issue and just reboots after that, system restore has turned its back on me, last known good configuration comes from the dvd boot that ends up with an incompatible version of sys. repair....sys. repair is impossible bec it said that it wasn;t compatible with whatever there was on the repair option thingy-y'know just below the install windows or something like that...(im a girl who isn't exactly fond of remembering pc terms..., tried but can't), thought it was a hard drive problem and that the HDD needed to be replaced

so anyway,after this series of unsuccessful, unguided and stupid things i've been doing on my poor, frankensteined pc, I left it with the welcome screen and was preparing for bed, then it made the sound that tells you: "i'm done with the welcome screen, desktop's turn) I was about to turn it off but then i saw that it was already fine. I wanted to kick the thing.

Idk what happened, but to the earthling who is reading this post somewhere in the distant future, if this happened to you and you're stuck @ the welcome screen, JUST WAIT FOR IT, don't do anything drastic like i did-I was just lucky enough that my stunt earlier didn't do anything to my pc....whether i liked it or not.