Avast 5 major issues on XP and Vista

Discussion in 'other anti-virus software' started by GideonD, Jan 24, 2010.

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  1. twl845

    twl845 Registered Member

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    UPDATE: After running the above setup for a while all was good. Then yesterday I booted up and the freeze occurred again. I explained in another thread that I purchased MBAM Pro on December 24th and immediately started having freezes, but didn't install Avast!5 on my system that never had Avast! on it until January 20th. So Avast isn't the cause. I have reverted MBAM to its previous on demand status, and re- established SAS as my real time Anti-spyware. No hangs to date and the system is running snappier. We'll see in time how this setup works.:p
     
  2. JimIT

    JimIT Registered Member

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    Right, and I've installed on XPsp3 with nothing but drivers, as well, and had no issues. Sounds like maybe a driver related conflict? Have you tried rebooting in Safe Mode to see if it persists? Might be able to nail it down further.

    Good luck.
     
  3. zfactor

    zfactor Registered Member

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    running fine for me on a xp sp3 system. though i am using the whole suite
     
  4. acuariano

    acuariano Registered Member

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    no problem at all on my xp-sp3
     
  5. GideonD

    GideonD Registered Member

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    Yep as a matter of fact I have done this. Avast doesn't load automatically in safe mode but when trying to manually start it, BSOD. I unloaded it an put 4.8 on that machine as well, and again, no problems. Alwil is examining a slew of minidumps from what I understand. The problems are multiplying over at the Avast forum. Everything from update issues to email issues.

    I'll set back and wait a build or two. I might even have to finally invest in NOD32 or Kaspersky if this isn't resolved in short order.
     
  6. GideonD

    GideonD Registered Member

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    Test Build 5.0.393 is now available. Seems to fix the BSOD issues for some, but for others they still prevail. Other issues are still present as well. I haven't had time to try it on any of my problematic systems yet.
     
    Last edited: Jan 27, 2010
  7. GideonD

    GideonD Registered Member

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    After reading some more in the Avast forums is looks like the Behavior Shield is probably what is causing most of the issues. It doesn't work correctly on Windows 7 anyway, which seems to be why Windows 7 suffers less problems with Avast 5 than any other OS at this point. Looks like Alwil tried their best to add greater security and functionality to Avast but I don't think they got it right on this one. Hopefully in the near future it'll be fixed. There are several reports of solving the BSOD issue by turning off Behavior Shield. Unfortunately that isn't always possible to do when you can get into the program setting before it Blue Screens.
     
  8. pjb024

    pjb024 Registered Member

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    Do a custom install and you can deselect the behavior shield from being installed.
     
  9. GideonD

    GideonD Registered Member

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    If a normal install doesn't do it this time that's what I'll have to do. I may wait until the final release of 393 though before trying anything as other issues remain unresolved in the Test Build.
     
  10. JimIT

    JimIT Registered Member

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    Gideon, if it's one thing I've observed about the guys at Alwil, it's that they get stuff working when it's broken. Hang in there, and they'll hopefully get a fix for you soon. Good luck.
     
  11. HAN

    HAN Registered Member

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    Build 5.0.394 is out in beta and it solved my installation freezes. My guess is that Alwil is close to making it the next release version...
     
  12. GideonD

    GideonD Registered Member

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    Yep sounds that way. 5.0.394 seems to have fixed several issues. Some people are still having explorer freezes, but the BSOD topics seem to have settled down. I'm waiting for the next full maintenance release instead of the beta test builds before I try updating from 4.8 again. It seems like they'll have it out within the next couple of days.
     
  13. Patrician

    Patrician Registered Member

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    Working fine on Win XP Pro SP3. No BSODs and no issues.
     
  14. zapjb

    zapjb Registered Member

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    No problem on my folks ancient Pentium 3 1GHZ 512MB Ram running XP home SP3. In fact it's lighter & scans 40% faster than 4.8. Heads up though I always do a custom install leaving out 4 of the 7 modules. No IM, P2P, eMail & Behavior Shield. Just don't need them. Way to go Avast5 the computer is snappier than ever.:D
     
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2010
  15. GideonD

    GideonD Registered Member

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    Looks like problem reports with 5.0.394 are starting to filter in. BSOD issues seem minimal now, but there are several people having full system freezes. The update process seems to trigger these for many. Some have had luck with using utilities to delay Avast's startup until after all other startup process have finished. It seems like Avast is trying to take control of certain files before they finish loading.
     
  16. Malcontent

    Malcontent Registered Member

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    FYI,

    You can do this within Avast. There is an option in "Settings", under "Troubleshooting", to load the Avast services only after other system services have loaded.
     
  17. majoMo

    majoMo Registered Member

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    I tried to do that in v. 4.8 without sucess. It seems Avast startup item (ashDisp.exe) is protected and can't be disable.
     
  18. HAN

    HAN Registered Member

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    I am basically getting along with 5.0.394 ok. I had a freeze after my initial boot this morning but after a reboot, it has been fine since. At this point, I am guessing that the definition update was the source of my freeze. I never received any update notice but after the reboot, I was fully up to date...
     
  19. zfactor

    zfactor Registered Member

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    no issues for me here at all this looks to be my next av i like it a lot
     
  20. GideonD

    GideonD Registered Member

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    Final Build 5.0.396 is now available. This is not a beta or test build. It seems to fix the majority of the issues. I'll be trying it this weekend. There are still some reports about minor issues and a few freezes but the BSOD problem seems to be gone from what I'm reading. It still has some issues playing nice with Malwarebytes active shields.
     
  21. JimIT

    JimIT Registered Member

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    Good to hear the Alwil guys are on the ball. Installed the new build this morning. Hope it fixes the issues, GideonD.
     
  22. HAN

    HAN Registered Member

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    I was on 394 when I first booted up this morning and I still had the freeze (I still think it has something to do with the first update of the day.) I have now moved to 396 so we'll see on Monday how things go.

    I too really appreciate the impressive new version. An incredible achivement for Alwil.
     
  23. iwod

    iwod Registered Member

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    I have the same problem as well with Avast where it has BSOD on my Windows XP after log in. This issues still happens after updating to new build.
     
  24. Wan

    Wan Guest

    Works fine on my XP machine
     
  25. Siro

    Siro Registered Member

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    I got a Compaq Mini 110C netbook and I have Panda Cloud Antivirus installed, do you people recommend updating to Avast Antivirus 5.0? And is it light on resources? The OS is Windows Xp Home Edition and 1GB of ram! Please recommend because I have never used Avast before.
     
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