My home computer uses Avast as its anti-virus software. Just today its icon on the tray sported a red X on its right bottom side indicating that it is not running. When I tried to run it, it showed the following message:
“Unable to start the file system shield. Shield unreachable”
Clicking on Start Scan kicks up another message:
“Unable to start scan. There are no endpoints available from the endpoint mapper.”
Is this another trojan attack outcome? (Or, should I ask instead, am I getting paranoid?) My google search returned some results but I was never really given any answer as to how this happened – whether it’s caused by some freaking trojan or probably an unintended mistake my son committed in one of his computer adventures. Some of my research sources gave suggestions on how to correct the problem like the following:
- Go to Control Panel and click on the Avast Entry in the Add/Remove Programs Window. Click ‘Change/Remove’ then choose ‘Repair’. Then reboot afterwards.
While this may have worked for some, it didn’t in mine.
- There’s also this solution in an avast forum that requires the use of some Norton tool. The procedure is rather complicated and the succeeding conversation between the problem solver and the user with the problem gets even more geeky and complex it gave me a headache. I am either not that tech savvy or just too lazy to do long procedures. Needless to say, I didn’t even try it.
- The Avast Help Center. I clicked on its link on the upper right corner of the avast interface and a help app window appeared. Searching for the term “Shield Unreachable” returned a blaring ‘No topics found’ answer. I wasn’t surprised at all, because I knew how un-helpful most, if not all, Help apps actually are, especially (cough) Microsoft’s.
I however found an answer quite by accident. When I explored the Avast Interface (about 2.5 seconds before I would have thrown in the towel to give up), there was this sub menu under ‘Scan Computer’ that consists of ‘Scan Now’, ‘Boot-Time Scan’ and ‘Scan Logs’. The ‘Boot-Time Scan’ feature actually solved the “Unable to start the file system shield. Shield unreachable” problem. I believe this is not the perfect solution for this. There ought to be a better one out there and I might just have the motivation to find it should this problem arise again. But for now, this will have to do. After all, it worked.
The procedure is shown in the image below. My main purpose for doing this post is actually to serve as a reference for myself so that I wouldn’t have to search far should the problem present itself again in the future. I have posted a few articles of this sort here for the same purpose. If this helps others, good.
