12 replies to this topic

[Sherish]

My problem: Every day, at 15:07, Ad-Aware turns itself off.

At bang on 3.07pm every day, my little system tray flashes up with the MS red warning symbol that my pc is no longer protected. The Ad-Aware symbol is no longer on the system tray, and therefore obviously not running. I have to start Ad-Aware up by running the ad-aware.exe file, and it starts without any problems.

I have run full system scans at noon during the week, and at 3.30pm during the week to see if there are any viruses/issues that are on the pc that could cause this problem but its found nothing.

I have looked at other software I have to see if anything I have could possibly update itself at 3.07pm and cause Ad-Aware to turn itself off - but I have found nothing. I have no other anti-virus software installed on my pc.


My Adaware Version: I have the purchased Ad-Aware Plus Anniversay Edition, version 8.0.6

I have Ad-Aware run everyday except Sunday with a Smartscan at 06:30
I have it run every Sunday with a full system scan at 06:00
I have Ad-Aware setup to download and install updates automatically, both for software and definition files updates, and information updates.


My PC: The following is a snapshot from PC Wizard
<<< System Summary >>>
> Mainboard : Asus P5N32-E SLI
> Chipset : nVidia nForce 680i SLI SPP
> Processor : Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 @ 3000 MHz
> Physical Memory : 4096 MB (4 x 1024 DDR2-SDRAM )
> Video Card : ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
> Hard Disk : Hitachi (500 GB)
> DVD-Rom Drive : Optiarc DVD RW AD-5170A
> CD-Rom Drive : CD-ROM Drive
> Monitor Type : Hanns.G HG281 - 27 inches
> Network Card : Woodside Networks Inc AGN100 802.11 a/b/g True MIMO Wireless Card
> Operating System : Microsoft Windows XP Professional 5.01.2600 Service Pack 3
> DirectX : Version 9.0c (March 2009)


Any advice on this would be great. Let me know if/what more information is needed to further assist.

[casey_boy]

Hi,

As a paying customer you are entitled to use the Lavasoft Support Center for professional support from Lavasoft. Log in with the details you gave when you registered your product and send them an inquiry

If you want to carry on troubleshooting here then let me know,

Casey

[visitor]

My problem: Every day, at 15:07, Ad-Aware turns itself off.

At bang on 3.07pm every day, my little system tray flashes up with the MS red warning symbol that my pc is no longer protected. The Ad-Aware symbol is no longer on the system tray, and therefore obviously not running.

I have looked at other software I have to see if anything I have could possibly update itself at 3.07pm and cause Ad-Aware to turn itself off - but I have found nothing.

Since you have the specific time, maybe you'll find something in Scheduled Tasks or the Event Viewer. Rather than another software, maybe Windows Auto-Update?

[Sherish]

If you could help diagnose that would be great - I've sent a support request to Lavasoft, however I will admit that over the years my trust in official "tech support" has been proven false time and time again, where I have found the best results are usually from the forums, from knowledgeable users and people who work with pc's for a living. Call me a cynic if you wish LOL.

I have looked at my event viewer, and found ooh hundreds of events at 15:07 - they are:
The Lavasoft Ad-Aware Service service was successfully sent a stop control (this is User: system)
and
99% of the User: N/As are
The Lavasoft Ad-Aware Service service entered the stopped state.
and approx 1% are
The Lavasoft Ad-Aware Service service entered the running state.

The "entered the running state" really are incredibly rare on the massive list of events for 15:07.

Unfortunately I don't know how to look for Scheduled Tasks via time.

Edited by Sherish, 26 June 2009 - 06:04 PM.

[casey_boy]

Could you check your Task Scheduler and find at what time the Lavasoft Ad-Aware update is supposed to take place?

[Sherish]

Could you check your Task Scheduler and find at what time the Lavasoft Ad-Aware update is supposed to take place?

Ive had a look at Ad-aware, and unlike other versions of Ad-Aware (that I can remember) and other anti-virus software, I cannot find anywhere where the updates are scheduled. As I said in my original post, I have it set up download/update automatically, but under the section where that information is held, there does not appear to be an option to schedule the updates (on other anti-virus software I used to have, I always used to schedule this daily, at 5am, an hour before my 6am scans).

If there is anywhere else I can checked for its schedule please let me know where to go

Edited by Sherish, 26 June 2009 - 07:28 PM.

[Sherish]

Ive also heard back from official support. I have to uninstall and reinstall the software and wait til tomorrow for 15:07 to see if there is still a problem. I had uninstalled and reinstalled about 4 weeks ago, to see if that would fix it, but there is still a problem, and the event logs for the pc are 3 months worth (since my last pc rebuild).

Uninstalled/reinstalled again anyway, seeing as they dont expect me to get back to them til tomorrow and it can't hurt.

[visitor]

I have it set up download/update automatically, but under the section where that information is held, there does not appear to be an option to schedule.

If there is anywhere else I can checked for its schedule please let me know where to go

I'm not sure how Ad-Aware chooses it's time for update. I just set mine at 5:30pm, and it chose 1:41am. Maybe it goes from the last update log.

If you've selected Ad-Aware Main -> Settings -> Download and install updates automatically

Go to Start -> Control panel -> Scheduled Tasks

You'll see "Ad-Aware Update (Daily)" along with the scheduled time, next run time, and last run time.

Edited by visitor, 27 June 2009 - 01:38 AM.

[Sherish]

Bah humbug, I knew I should have waited for you guys!

I checked my Scheduled Tasks (thanks visitor for that pointer, brill) and AdAware updates were scheduled for 19:09, but this was the time I reinstalled Ad-aware my time (Im on GMT). I changed the time to 01:45 to check to see if it was turned off at that time, but nothing seemed to happen. I went into Ad-aware to check to see when the definitions were last updated and it stated 26th (today is now 27th) - I then went back into the update scheduled tasks, and it had been reset to what it was to start with. I changed the time again to 02:55, making sure I hit apply, and closed the task. I then immediately went back into it and it was still 01:55. Come 01:57 and nothing happened, I went back into the task, and the time was still 01:55 - I went into Adaware to check the date last updated, and it was still 26th (I did double check to make sure my pc date is 27th). I then went back into the scheduled tasks and low-and-behold it had reset back to 19:09.

Rinse repeat the above a total of 8 times. No updates done, and checking Adaware itself resets the update time on the scheduled task.

So unfortunately, because I didn't wait for you guys - no way I can tell if it was set to 15:07 prior to the reinstall I just did. I guess I need to keep watch for 15:07 and 19:09 tomorrow (mind I can also double check the event log lest I forget).

Hopefully will have more news tomorrow evening.

By the way - many thanks for the assist so far it really is appreciated.

Edited by Sherish, 27 June 2009 - 03:07 AM.

[visitor]

So unfortunately, because I didn't wait for you guys - no way I can tell if it was set to 15:07 prior to the reinstall I just did. I guess I need to keep watch for 15:07 and 19:09 tomorrow (mind I can also double check the event log lest I forget).

I suspect 15:07 will be insignificant now that you've reinstalled and the new time is 19:09. I checked my logs to find the 01:41 scheduled time and found in Debug.log mine was also the time of installation.

Note: I only turned on auto-update for the purposes of this thread. I prefer to manually update definitions since AE updates both program and definitions - by doing this, I luckily avoided potential problems with version 8.0.4.

My concern now is your uninstall/reinstall since there has been issues when AE does not cleanly uninstall, resulting in a bad reinstall. However, this can go both ways and maybe it will work properly

I'm interested in hearing what happens - in my short time here, this is the first I've read about auto-update shutdown.

[casey_boy]

Sherish,

Welcome to the side of Ad-Aware a lot of users don't see and one which we're not too happy about. As you have probably guessed now, Ad-Aware updates are scheduled for the time you installed the program and it is impossible to change this (you think you can but then it just reverts). Having settings on your computer you can't change is not considered a good thing really - especially to advanced users.

I really do think that the problem was caused by the scheduled updates but, like you've realised, since you've done the reinstall you've now changed the time the update process happens - so I doubt you'll have any problems at 1507; just like visitor says. It will be interesting to see if you have problems at 1909!

If you continue to have problems a fresh reinstall will be best, because like visitor says there can sometimes be problems with the uninstalltion routine. To do this, I recommmend using Revo and its highest setting.

Hope we've been able to shed some light onto this situation for you!

Casey

Edit: visitor, this is the first time I've seen this too - however, if you're interested in reading about the update schedule there's a good topic in the bugs forum (started by Pierre I think).

Edited by casey_boy, 27 June 2009 - 11:18 AM.

[Sherish]

Sorry for the delay in the update, but life got hectic.

Update is it is still turning itself off daily (being sent a stop command, and entering a stopped state), now at the new time of 19:09, which is the time of autoupdate (and the time of the reinstall).

[visitor]

If you continue to have problems a fresh reinstall will be best, because like visitor says there can sometimes be problems with the uninstallation routine. To do this, I recommmend using Revo and its highest setting.

At this point, it would seem a clean uninstall is in order. You can do this manually if you're experienced with finding and removing all files, folders, and registry entries - or you can use Revo as Casey described above. In Useful Free Tools there's also a link to Microsoft's Windows Installer Cleanup Utility (WICU) which cleans up the mess left behind when an installation fails midstream.

After the clean uninstall, I recommend disconnecting from the internet and closing all programs before doing the reinstallation. Afterwards, shutdown the computer and then restart it, and see if you can update. *fingers crossed*