AVG Releases Fix for Machines Bricked by Update

I use Avast. So far no issues. AVG was good, too, but I always found Avast less resource-hungry and easier to use.
This whole thing... a big blow to Avast users' trust.

I meant AVg users'trust

That's not exactly a brick if it's not permanent, now is it..... There's just a software fix, not a hardware change....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick_(electronics)

We’re very sorry for the inconvenience. Over the past 24 hours, AVG has had two update issues. The problems affected Windows 7 users on 64-bit products. As soon as we were first notified about these issues, we immediately began fixing the problems. AVG is taking swift action on this matter. We remain committed to our customers, and, as such, we are taking the following actions:

1-Updates have been issued for both of these issues and are currently being propagated to the broad AVG user base.

2-For the next 48 hours, we are offering free technical support to our entire user base; anyone who has been affected by either of these issues.

PAID CUSTOMERS: Support for System crash after the recent AVG 2011 update 3292 (BSOD)
If you have encountered the above mentioned issue with the latest AVG update and FAQ 4079 didn’t help you, please contact our English support team by dialing the following numbers:

1-Home and Free customers: 24/7 support +1-877-367-9933

2-Business customers: 9:30am-6:30pm EST +1-828-459-5436 or skype:avg-nc
You can also email us at updateissuehelp@avg.com.

FREE CUSTOMERS: Support for System crash after the recent AVG 2011 update 3292 (BSOD)

1-If you have encountered the above mentioned issue with the latest AVG update and FAQ 4080 didn’t help you, please contact our English support team by dialing the following number:

2-24/7 support: +1-877-367-9933

You can also email us at updateissuehelp@avg.com

AVG sincerely regrets any inconvenience this issue has caused and we are ready to help you resolve this as quickly as possible.

I recall a Semantic story not long ago about bricking. I recall stories about Win XP SP3 bricking corporate machines. It happens to everyone, but in the end, I'd still be happier with Free AVG (though I use Avast personally), rather than knowing I paid McAfee or Semantic $50+ for basically nothing (nothing I couldn't have gotten for free).

From the quoted wikipedia article: "However, it is common to use the term for a problem which can be rectified but only by a complex and difficult procedure, often requiring additional software."

So the security software you download over paranoia or bad web habits causes your computer to be bricked worse then 99% of the malicious software out there.

Ha!

As a Mcafee user, I have to point out: THEY MADE A HUGE SCREW UP A LITTLE WHILE AGO TOO. My family had a windows XP computer that was out of commision for quite a while because they practically killed the computer. Mistakes happen. No company is immune from it. It just sucks for users when those mistakes affect them.

this happened to me. shut down my pc because of the update. went to bed and woke up to find my pc going to the windows screen and then a message saying it couldnt start up. pissed me off. had to use a restore point. i already uninstalled AVG and just gonna use MSE. the itunes false positive earlier this year, was annoying but this was F'n dumb.

I have the 2011 paid version and this happen to me, unfortunately i didn't hear about the fix in time and went ahead and reinstalled win7.

Looks like AVG reads Tom's. That is a plus for them!

There was something like that happen with one of those antivirus erasing user32.dll file, I don't remember if it was AVG, Norton or McAfee

It shouldn't be a debate whether free or paid versions are better. At least half a dozen AV software vender's have had some serious flaws with updates in the past year alone that raise the question as to which does more harm, the virus or the virus scanner. I can't defend AVG personally on this issue just because 1 1/2 years ago I couldn't do anything to prevent it from removing files I'd download via HTTP no matter what option I turned off, even shutting it down. Uninstalled it and tried to reinstall it and it gave back one of their Windows random number don't tell you shit errors. To my surprise this same error was known about for 3 years prior and the developers themselves on their web forum had no fix for it.

At the end of the day, it all boils down to two very important things nowadays:

1. it is a good idea to have a second computer at home in case this happens;

2. Never use the same anti-virus in ALL computers in your home. Leave at least one out of that. If the problem happens to all others you'll have that one still running; if it happens to that one, you still have all the others.

As they say, don't put your egss all in the same basket.

I have to buy AVG.. they seem to have great customer service ! I'll give a try at their software.. Thums up !

Who still uses AVG? thats soo 3 years ago lame.

Security Essentials and Windows Defender work just fine.

Happened to me, but fortunately, my system (Win-7 Ultimate 64-bit) did not "brick". Found a viable solution on the AVG Free forums and was back up and protected within a couple of hours (sooner if I could have found a Windows 7 DVD).

fyi: I had 2 comps affected by this. They were running vista 64bit.

My brother's XP x64 machine fell to this as well. Accidentally ran the automatic repair from the Windows disk instead of the Recovery Console to repair it manually.

The automatic repair managed to make it worse, so we finally installed another copy of Windows on the hard drive so he could boot long enough to back up all his files before formatting.

A lot of trouble over one little "Oops" from AVG. Normally I'd be a little more forgiving about it, but AVG should have learned from McAfee's mistake a few months back. My brother will be using Avast from now on (amusingly, Microsoft Security Essentials doesn't seem compatible with XP x64).

I let Win7 repair to a previous restore point then uninstalled AVG. Im giving Avast a try now. I still have AVG running on 2 other PCs and because of their good response to the problem wont bother changing them.

hmmm ... I may have dodged a bullet .. I had to install software that required my Anti virus to be shut down .. that was December 1st...

I never used avg anyways Avast me hardeeesss!!!!

I'm a software engineer with 25 years experience who was burned by this and here is how I see it.

The free-versus-paid question is a moot point. This issue affected both the free and priced products from AVG.

The issue is QA. One of the greatest challenges I have from day-to-day is watching out for cowboy programmers who slip in changes that "shouldn't effect anything" and don't test them before releasing updates. These are usually inexperienced developers who have not been burned and have not had to shoulder responsibility for when things go wrong. In short, their rear end has never really been on the line. So they do not appreciate how taking *any* risk - no matter how small it may seem to be - can cost millions or even billions of dollars and loss of personal data that most people consider priceless.

The only way to guard against such risk is a rigid QA process for releases. Everything must be put through clearly defined tests in the various supported platforms and operating systems before it is released. This is especially important in the anti-virus business because such software is implicitly trusted to guard against damage. At a bank the guard can not be crooked, and on a computer untested security software can never be used. People rely on companies in this business to do their job so they are not part of the problem they are supposed to be a solution to.

So AVG needs to review their processes. That being said, I will say that AVG has tried to be responsive, although even the software fixes failed on my computer (I believe because I did not install their product to the default location).

One final thought on what AVG needs to take a look at is phone support contingency planning for a crisis. They were overwhelmed with support calls. Instead of contracting qualified techs (such as Geek Squad) to roll over phone calls to they called in sales people and stuck them on tech support with zero training. They weren't even familiar with the video explaining how to use the USB boot recovery (which did not work for me). I know. I waited over an hour on hold last night before one worked with me.

While on hold listening to statically bad musich that seemed much to peppy for the situtation I kept hearing recorded voice-overs saying how important my patiences was to AVG. I wondered how important my *anxiety* was to them... Actions speak louder than words, and they did not have sufficient telephone support for this crisis. The best the sales guy that finally answered could do was take notes and pass them along to a tech this morning. How a company responds when doomsday comes determines if people trust that the company will properly handle things when they go wrong.

AVG is not the first company to have this sort of thing happen and they won't be the last, but this is a club no software company wants to be a member of. For some reason I have decided to give them a chance - at least on my laptop. I have removed them from my wife's laptop and have moved her to Mickey soft's free anti virus, and based on past experience the thought of relying on Microsoft does not provide me much comfort.

Another issue I have is with Microsoft. Windows used to provide a step-by-step driver load boot sequence that would allow one to step over a problem driver. They removed it after Windows 98. Nowadays "Safe Mode" aint so safe because of the number of drivers that get loaded. Shame on Microsoft for not providing a way to get out of such situations.

Fortunately I discovered the absolutely awesome Hiren's Boot CD (http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd)! It was much easier to use than the recovery applications provided by AVG (which did not work for me) or the various GNU/Linux boot CD alternatives. All I needed to know was the files that had to be renamed, then I booted from the Hiren's Boot CD and ran mini XP, and used the explorer to rename the necessary files. Hiren's Boot CD is chock full of great recovery goodies! Thank God!

In the final analysis I still think AVG is a fine product. I am giving one more try on my laptop (not my wife's, though). But I will not be able to recommend it to anyone until my trust is regained, and that could take years. It frightens me to think that I just recommended AVG to my 80 year-old aunt down in Florida. Fortunately the man who set up her new computer used an alternative product or I would have had a long-distance support situation on my hands.

So I am trying a re-install of AVG as I write this. Hope it works out...

It bricked my machine, but I ran the disk repair and was able to roll back to a restore point a week before. Lost some of my configurations, but nothing I couldn't fix. I was pretty worried for about 20min, and suspected that the update had done something, so it's good to see that my suspicions are confirmed.

I used AVG for about a month or 2 after having issues with Kaspersky, until several incidents caused me to switch. 1st was a false positive issue with it labeling completely innocent and totally safe game exe's as infected. 2nd issue was also game related. Project Torque a F2P MMO Racing game, when trying to start the game the "Resident Shield" would spazz out on me crashing then restarting repeatedly till I closed the game or turned off RS, a friend I played the game with who also used AVG had the same issue. I did some quick research and found Avast(he did shortly after as well).

I shouldn't have to deal with that many issues in such a short span of time. Which is also the reason I dumped Kaspersky twice! (and the second copy was free from a Win7 Launch party.)

Needless to say, AVG isn't exactly doing a good job of winning back my trust.