ClamAV : freshclam hangs and uses 100% CPU

Question

I try to update the ClamAV database by running freshclam. The daily-*.cdiff is downloaded successfully, but then the process hangs. The CPU is maxed out at 100%, but the update just will not finish. I canceled the process with Ctrl+C after appr. 10 minutes. Here is the output from my update attempt:

# freshclam
ClamAV update process started at Tue Nov  8 00:15:57 2016
main.cvd is up to date (version: 57, sigs: 4218790, f-level: 60, builder: amishhammer)
Downloading daily-22474.cdiff [100%]

Did anyone else observe this behavior? Is it a bug or is my system not properly configured?

PS: I am using ClamAV v0.99.2 on Ubuntu Mate 16.04.

Solution 1

There was a large Cdiff published for older users recently. Try deleting the daily and daily cdiffs* and re-running Freshclam. Let me know if that works.

Solution 2

When there is a huge daily.cdiff file, the update process might take a long time to finish.

Sometimes, it is faster to delete the old daily definitions and re-downloading them.

sudo rm /var/lib/clamav/daily.cld
sudo freshclam

Comments

[gov]

...and how does one delete "the daily and daily cdiffs*"...???

[Philip Rowlands]

I can confirm that this works on Linux Mint 19.3 with ClamAV 0.100.2

[Philip Rowlands]

@woohoo I was wondering that myself - see darkdragon's answer below.

[bsplosion]

Removing the daily.cld file didn't work for me, but removing the main.cld did. It's a waste to have it re-download the whole thing, but it ensures that there are no diffs to run.