What happens when it finishes?

[I Know A Guy]

The first time I ran AOSS, I stepped away from my PC once the scan started. When I came back, apparently the PC had rebooted and was trying to restart AOSS (the 'accept the terms' screen - the first screen of the interface - was being displayed again).

One of two things might have happened: the thing crashed and rebooted itself, or it finished normally and rebooted itself. If it finished normally, should I expect to see a 'status report' screen? I hope there would be one.

So I ran AOSS again, just to keep an eye on it and find out whether it had crashed or not. Part way through, I moved my mouse and *pow* the system crashed.

I guess I'm done running it for now.

Is this the expected behavior, or is it still buggy?

Rgds,
I Know A Guy

p.s. While the scan is running, the screen says "don't shut off or reset your computer", and yet there is a CANCEL button. Is it really OK to cancel the scan? I didn't try; but when I rebooted into WinXP after my mouse-move crash, SCANDISK said there might be a problem (there wasn't). Just some rough edges maybe?

[Reptar]

I have the very same problem. Pleeease any one 'in the know' help us?

Thanks
Dave H

[Reptar]

I have the very same problem. Pleeease any one 'in the know' help us?

Thanks
Dave H

I decided my post was too brief. Here is the details of what actually happened, which may be more informative to anyone offering a solution (I hope!).


I have downloaded and burned AOSS to CD today as per instructions on the
site.

My system is Dell Dimension 4500 PC,
Windows XP Home Edition SP2
I have six hard drives. Two are internal (C: & D: )
Four are external (E: G: M: L: )

When I booted from the AOSS CD after accepting the EULA it detected C: D: E: & G: drives plus my two DVD/CD drives H: & I:

On clicking 'next' it said it could detect any USB storage drives, and with
a message 'Detecting USB drives' .I left it thus for about 15
minutes but nothing happened, it didn't detect my other drives. (I dont have a USB Stick etc. Is this what it's looking for?),So...I
clicked 'skip' and I then selected C: D: E: & G: drives for scanning. After
scanning about 7150 files on C: drive ( with 1 Malware apparently detected) it suddenly
re-booted (during which CHKDISK ran itself on C: - not apparently finding any
problems),and I went thru the whole shebang again, this time just selecting
C: drive for scanning....The same thing happened! after about 7150 files. I allowed it to repeat this twice more before finally hitting 'Cancel' and re-booting to Windows.

Incidentally...when I got back to Windows I found all my hard drives had been scheduled for a CHKDISK session, and had to got through them all in CMD prompt using CHKDSK /F to clear them before I could do a defrag.

I hope this may enable a potential helper to solve this problem for me and I Know A Guy above.Thanks
Dave H

[Graeme]

Same problem here too.

On an Acer laptop the machine re-booted part way through the first stage scan. No malware detected. After several repeats I had to cancel out.

On a Compaq laptop the machine shut down completely.

Great idea but some de-bugging still required....?

[AChen]

Hi All,

Could you please select only (C: ) drive. Also, if you are using a USB disk, make sure to click on "Skip" to skip the database update procedure.

For more info, please see http://www.pctools.com/aoss/download/.

AChen

[Reptar]

Hi A Chen

Yes I did only click on C: drive as per my earlier posting! Also it is not clear in the instructions on the download site what is exactly meant by a USB drive. As I've already said I have four external Hard Drives all connected via USB. Is this what is meant? Or is it USB 'stick' type 'drives' (which are not really drives at all, rather memories) that are meant?
I wish PC Tools would make this clear. Also the instructions refer to 'DRIVES' not DRIVE (singular) which in view of your comments I now assume to be wrong.

Keep it commin'
Dave H

[Graeme]

Hi AChen

I clicked only on C: - and clicked on Skip as I have no USB drives of any kind. It still re-boots (Acer) or shuts down (Compaq) part way through the first stage scan, with no malware detected....

[AChen]

Reptar - the USB procedure is only for updating the database, when one becomes available. For now, do not connect any USB devices, and click on "skip" to skip that step.

To test if there are any problems with AOSS, could you please try a scan with selecting one partition (other then c: ) so we can determine what the problem is.

[Graeme]

Results of latest trial - this time I disabled the screen saver just in case...

Compaq NX9010 laptop
Windows XP SP2
704 Mb RAM - 2.80GHz
one partition C: NTFS 40GB with 11Gb free

Scan ran for almost 2 hours and about 90,000 files (about 60% of progress bar) then suddenly stopped and re-booted. No malware noted at that point.

On re-start the scan lasted only about 15 minutes, then shut down completely.

After re-power and re-start I cancelled out of AOSS - then re-start of Windows required CHKDSK - after which Windows re-start went normally.

Conclusions? None from me ... seems to be random... Any ideas gratefully accepted (I need to get rid of this tenmonkey nonsense....!)

[jpdamigaman]

Hi I got this thing running and it got to a small file and just hung for many mins(at least 20) and I tried it again and same result.

Deleted file started it again and it went on for a little while longer and just reset it self and rebooted pc.

I tried it 2 more times then I stoped

I see other posts in here on same subject but no answers!

Yours
jpdamigaman

[gillilandp]

Without question this software is flawed.

I have tried it on three different systems, each running XP SP2 but with very different configurations. On each system it runs for a random length of time then the system reboots. I'm not trying anything fancy, just a straight scan of C: with no USB drive attached.

Rather more alarming for me is that sometimes XP runs CHKDSK after a reboot.

Happy to run any tests you want me to, to help you find the problem.

Regards,
Philip Gilliland

[Reptar]

A Chen...
I ran the scan on all my drives, one at a time, as you requested. Each scan was successful, even finding some malware on one drive; except for my C: drive which still behaves as before. i.e. re-booting after about 7000 files have been scanned.

I do think AOSS will be a very useful little tool when this bug is ironed out. :-)

Incidentally a bit of info for those who might find it usefull...I found that during the scans, when it was scanning the many 'Thumbs.db' files on my system, the scan slowed considerably. So I turned off Thumbnail Caching in Folder Options, and selected to show hidden files and folders. Then did a Search of my whole system for the 'Thumbs.db' files and deleted them all. (All 847 of them! about 156MB!).The scan completes in much less time now. Thumbnail Caching is not really necessary and I think I'm better off without it in any case. This will probably make normal Anti-Virus scanning quicker too.



Dave H

[AChen]

The developers are now analyzing AOSS.

Will provide more information ASAP.

Cheers,
AChen

[Reptar]

AChen.

OK thanks. We wait with anticipation:)



See ya!

Dave H

[AChen]

Hi all,

The developers are still looking into this issue.

This is a known bug that cannot be reproduced in the labs. With users experiencing this problem, could you please provide more information on the hardware/software installed on your PC, what partitions you have selected and when the scan crashes.

You can also private message these details.

Thanks for your help.

Cheers,
AChen

[AChen]

Hi all,

A new version of AOSS has been released 1.0.0.135.

If you are still experiencing problems, there is a new feature which will allow PC Tools to assist you further. This tool will gather information on your PC which will allow us to troubleshoot the problem.

As soon as you are in the AOSS screen, there is a "Support" button (select drive screen), please click this button as it will generate a report and save it to your USB drive. Once it has been done, you can either submit a ticket to PC Tools or attach the file on the forum.

Thanks,
AChen

[gillilandp]

The three systems I mentioned earlier in this thread, on which AOSS previously failed to function, all now work fine with the new version (1.0.0.135).

Regards,
Philip Gilliland