TSGL: AVG - full Scan too long

[Tilman Brandl]

Don,

thanks for your elaborate answer - I'll have to ponder over those possibilities a while.

You mentioned especially one thing that I hadn't checked sofar: The files that get included in a scan - but then I've just looked into it, and it's set only to check files that can get infected, not ALL files (that could've been a reason...).

And yes - it's using heuristic analysis. I've switched it off and will check next time how long it will take without ...

Your scanspeed of about 1000 files per minute btw appears to come close to what I have.

And - finally - I haven't added as many files lately as could explain the huge increase in scan time which has about quadrupled. Since I've also checked task manager for tasks that might intervene - there's nothing with a big impact, nothing new...

I'll have to check things more closely

Later:
Have checked last nights testrun: It took only about 5 hours for my abt. 770,000 files ! ??? How can I explain this? Sofar I can't.

Thanks
Tilman
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Don Penlington 
  To: Tech Support Guy Mailing List 
  Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2007 2:40 PM
  Subject: TSGL: AVG - full Scan too long


  Tilman wrote:
  ><<that full job had started to expand from about 3.5 h to about 13.5 lately>>


  For what it's worth, mine scans at just over 1000 files a minute. So you 
  can work it out.

  If you sit and watch its progress, it lingers longer over executory files 
  (for obvious reasons) so may you have added a lot of large .exe files lately?

  If you care to sit there watching its progress info bar for 13.5 hours, you 
  would be able to see what's holding it up pr where it's getting stuck.

  My guess is that maybe there's a class of file or some unusual extensions 
  that it doesn't quite know how to deal with, so maybe it runs its heuristic 
  testing on those, which will take longer.

  Try disabling the heuristic option and see if there's any difference.

  Maybe memory is getting overwhelmed by that many files, and has reached the 
  point where it's swapping in and out of virtual memory.

  Or possibly something is cutting in while the scan is running (auto 
  updates? Spy scans?) and interrupting the progress.

  What happens if you run the scan in Safe Mode (I'm not sure if you can), 
  making sure there's absolutely nothing else running in the background?

    Otherwise, open Task Manager and close everything non-essential down 
  before scanning.

  As a last resort, open Task Manager and close EVERYTHING DOWN, INCLUDING 
  EXPLORER.  There are many "helpers" which can hook onto Explorer, and 
  occasionally one of these, often invisible, can reduce performance 
  something horrible if it goes wrong. I'm not sure just how you'd get AVG 
  scan started without Explorer, though, as I've never had to try it. Maybe 
  get the scan started, then pause it while you close Explorer and see what 
  happens.

  To restart Explorer, just bring up Task Manager again, click Run, and type 
  Explorer.

  For those who don't know, closing and re-opening Explorer can sometimes be 
  a good way to clear a lockup.

  Don Penlington