Avast! update causing issues with WoW
by Alex Ziebart 
Apr 5th 2008 at 3:00PM
Avast! anti-virus, which is used by millions of people around the world, recently upgraded to version 4.8. Unfortunately, it seems that this upgrade has caused many WoW players to have a drastically lower play experience.The most common symptom is severe keystroke lag while playing the World of Warcraft. Mouse actions also seem to be affected by this. Delays as low as a second and as high as five seconds between keystroke and the game receiving that action have been reported. Supposedly, running WoW in windowed mode fixes this, but your mileage may vary.
There is no definite, official statement that I've seen declaring this to be the cause, but there seems to be enough anecdotal evidence pointing to either Avast! 4.8, or a conflict between Avast! 4.8 and some other hardware/software. I've personally been witness to someone troubleshooting keyboard lag in the World of Warcraft, and it turns out the problem was Avast! 4.8, and the issue cropped up immediately after the update of the software. Removing Avast! instantly removed the lag.
A full uninstall seems to be what alleviates the issue, but I don't recommend doing this unless you have other virus protection in place. I use AntiVir, but AVG has been another popular recommendation for an alternative.
Filed under: Odds and ends, News items, Forums
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Spoony Apr 5th 2008 4:24PM
I'm wondering if it's just the Professional or the Home Version.
Because i'm running home at my house and it's not causing any problems that i have noticed. I might still be running 4.7 though.
veikos Apr 5th 2008 4:22PM
AVG Is the AntiVir I use and I dont have any problems with it at all :>
Metaphor Apr 5th 2008 4:30PM
may I suggest playing on a Mac........
And before anyone flames me I know a virus won't harm a Mac user but yes we can pass on an infected file so we need to be responsible and not do anything to harm our Windows compatriots
Oh and yes I hope that we remain virus free.....
Lolpvp Apr 5th 2008 4:32PM
Agreed.
Chiroptera Apr 5th 2008 5:58PM
what do you mean a virus cannot hurt a mac user?
There are mac virus's and trojans with destructive payloads in them.
I recently had to clean up our marketing group as they where nieve enough to think they where invunerable - Virus's and Trojans for MAC's are real and out in the wild - the only benefit a Mac has at the moment is the low numbers of them that reduces cross infection or reduces the value to exploit them
Zan Apr 14th 2008 5:47PM
Avast has always caused problems with just about everything. Use a different program.
Wolfwings Apr 5th 2008 7:10PM
I run avast home edition, and was wondering what the bloody hell was causing the lag. Im going to test later today If the windowed mode helps.
Eggbrook Apr 5th 2008 6:33PM
I use Avast Home Edition and I just upgraded and my machine doesn't seem to be negatively effected by the update. I wonder if it more effects slower machines? I'm running a Core 2 Duo 3.0ghz with 2gigs DDR2 with an 8800gt and everything is fine
Cable Apr 5th 2008 10:16PM
I'm using Avast! Home Edition, and I am definitely experiencing this issue. It seems to occur randomly. One minute it'll be running perfectly fine, the next I'm getting 5 second lag between telling my character to move and him actually moving. It's extremely irritating and I hope they fix it soon.
dan saint Apr 5th 2008 11:56PM
definately running into this problem. It really makes me sad too because avast! has been a really great program for me. I have been totally clean since installing it years ago. I have been recomending it to friends and co-workers but if they don't resolve this I may have to make the switch to AVG or something. :(
Angela Apr 6th 2008 1:28AM
I had the same lag problem. After reading this, I uninstalled Avast and installed AVG. Problem gone! :)
Druid dude Apr 6th 2008 2:51AM
"Keystroke lag" is typically a sign of a keylogger. With some people using Avast and not reporting any issues, I have to wonder if someone had both upgraded to the new version and got an undetected keylogger at about the same time.
I have been using the public beta of Vipre, and realy like it so far. I think its going to be released fairly soon. Definitely worth checking out, and they have a licensing thing where you can buy it for the entire house, regardless of the number of computers there, for like 50 bucks or something.
arcady0 Apr 6th 2008 5:11AM
This got me, and it hit not only WoW, but Guild Wars as well. Switched off of Avast! as a result...
allirog Apr 6th 2008 7:57AM
THis issues effeact ALL games i have not only WoW(i dont play )
Cod4, Soldner, BF2, etc etc all games i play have problems with newest avast update even with deactivatet protection.
Tavil Apr 6th 2008 9:58AM
Has Avast! made a comment on this yet?
Are they working on a fix?
Warlock Apr 6th 2008 1:50PM
Figures, I get rid of Avast! because it was lagging my computer to hell, and when I finally reinstall it, this happens -_-
Thanks for the virus scanner suggestions btw. I had tried AVG before and hated it, but I installed AntiVir and so far I'm really liking it. It seems a lot more light-weight than Avast! was, which is exactly what I was looking for (a big problem with Avast! too was that it liked to completely hog my computer for its updates when Windows came up.. couldn't even open a browser page because it was using up the entire net connection bandwidth)
Hoss Apr 6th 2008 6:30PM
From the Avast Forum posting:
1. with avast 4.8 installed, boot into Windows Safe Mode
2. from there, run regedit and navigate to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services
3. in the aswSP and aswFsBlk subkeys, change the value called "Start" to 3 (manual start).
4. reboot the system
Solved the problem for me.
Tavil Apr 7th 2008 9:28AM
Thanks for the info. Though i think ill wait for a fix from Avast!
I hate messing with the registry.
Griz Apr 18th 2008 9:08AM
Interesting, I've been using Avast on my 64-bit Vista for awhile and recently noticed a lag problem in WoW - I assumed it was a bad add-on. I'm going to give Antivir a try until I see Avast's issues are resolved. Other then this issue in WoW I've not seen a problem with Avast.