Avast 5 issues ???

[- Bobb -]

Anyone else having occasional connectivity problems with Avast5 (XP SP3)?
Only at startup. Once I get it going ( by turning off shields momentarily,
then start network - get an IP and can turn Avast back on and it's fine)

I see this guy has problems for weeks and Avast support hasn't gotten back
to him.
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=64078.120
He's uninstalled, reinstalled, wiped pc and installed Avast and still
intermittent connectivity issues.
For me:
Never a problem with past versions - I've updated as new releases came along
and no problems since update to Avast 5 last month.
When "this happens" Zonealarm has STOP traffic enabled.
It "seems like" Avast has detected a problem but no info at all in any event
logs - other than "started". So I turn off nic, disable Avast shields for 10
minutes, right-click turn on ZA again, re-enable NIc - get an Ip ( from
router or cable box - same thing) , then I can enable shields on Avast and
all is well - until some future reboot and it may/may not have an issue
then.

 

[Alias]

Anyone else having occasional connectivity problems with Avast5 (XP SP3)?
Only at startup. Once I get it going ( by turning off shields momentarily,
then start network - get an IP and can turn Avast back on and it's fine)

I see this guy has problems for weeks and Avast support hasn't gotten back
to him.
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=64078.120
He's uninstalled, reinstalled, wiped pc and installed Avast and still
intermittent connectivity issues.
For me:
Never a problem with past versions - I've updated as new releases came along
and no problems since update to Avast 5 last month.
When "this happens" Zonealarm has STOP traffic enabled.
It "seems like" Avast has detected a problem but no info at all in any event
logs - other than "started". So I turn off nic, disable Avast shields for 10
minutes, right-click turn on ZA again, re-enable NIc - get an Ip ( from
router or cable box - same thing) , then I can enable shields on Avast and
all is well - until some future reboot and it may/may not have an issue
then.

I suspect it's ZA as I have Avast 5 on four machines, XP Pro SP3, Home
XP SP3 and two Windows 7 and I don't have any of those problems. I would
suggest you uninstall ZA and enable the Windows firewall instead.

 

[- Bobb -]

I suspect it's ZA as I have Avast 5 on four machines, XP Pro SP3, Home XP
SP3 and two Windows 7 and I don't have any of those problems. I would
suggest you uninstall ZA and enable the Windows firewall instead.

ZA has been unchanged for quite a while and this started shortly after
Avast5 upgrade..
But, I went that route. I've turned off ZA , network off and on and still
can't connect to Avast.com for updates, Google - get timeout 169,x.y.z IP
address
If I use static IP still bad, but ( with / without ZA) if I turn off Avast
shield - do the same thing ,it's fine. I can autoconfig and it gets IP , DNS
info.
And it might be fine for the next month, or week, , then it will get "into
this state again" and the only log anywhere is system event log - cannot get
IP, "DHCP error "

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Dhcp
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1007
Description: Your computer has automatically configured the IP address for
the Network Card .. the IP address being used is 169.254.73.91.
I disable Avast shield - restart NIC and all is well. Re-enable Avast and
still fine. SO I suspect SOMETHING in Avast 5 init but can't see any error
logged from it.

I'll update if I can narrow it down, but that Avast forum post is same
problem I see.
Thanks

 

[Pat McRotch]

No problems here on several machines.

 

[George Neuner]

ZA has been unchanged for quite a while and this started shortly after
Avast5 upgrade..
But, I went that route. I've turned off ZA , network off and on and still
can't connect to Avast.com for updates, Google - get timeout 169,x.y.z IP
address
If I use static IP still bad, but ( with / without ZA) if I turn off Avast
shield - do the same thing ,it's fine. I can autoconfig and it gets IP , DNS
info.
And it might be fine for the next month, or week, , then it will get "into
this state again" and the only log anywhere is system event log - cannot get
IP, "DHCP error "

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Dhcp
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1007
Description: Your computer has automatically configured the IP address for
the Network Card .. the IP address being used is 169.254.73.91.
I disable Avast shield - restart NIC and all is well. Re-enable Avast and
still fine. SO I suspect SOMETHING in Avast 5 init but can't see any error
logged from it.

I'll update if I can narrow it down, but that Avast forum post is same
problem I see.
Thanks

I'm not any kind of Avast expert, but have you tried selecting "Load
after other services" in the settings/troubleshoot menu? That should
let the network initialize before Avast starts.

Have you tried disabling the behavior shield or turning off heuristics
in the file shield? Does doing either of these make a difference?

You said the OS had been wiped and reinstalled ... were all the
outstanding updates applied before installing Avast? And were any
other applications installed prior to Avast (other than ZoneAlarm)?

And lastly, is the CPU Intel or AMD? 32 or 64-bit? I have heard
rumors of an issue with Avast 5 and some AMD processors.

I use Avast 5 with Comodo Firewall on several machines - all Intel,
but different model CPUs - with no problems.

George

 

[kerneldebugger]

Anyone else having occasional connectivity problems with Avast5 (XP SP3)?
Only at startup. Once I get it going ( by turning off shields momentarily,
then start network - get an IP and can turn Avast back on and it's fine)

I see this guy has problems for weeks and Avast support hasn't gotten back
to him.
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=64078.120
He's uninstalled, reinstalled, wiped pc and installed Avast and still
intermittent connectivity issues.
For me:
Never a problem with past versions - I've updated as new releases came
along and no problems since update to Avast 5 last month.
When "this happens" Zonealarm has STOP traffic enabled.
It "seems like" Avast has detected a problem but no info at all in any
event logs - other than "started". So I turn off nic, disable Avast
shields for 10 minutes, right-click turn on ZA again, re-enable NIc - get
an Ip ( from router or cable box - same thing) , then I can enable shields
on Avast and all is well - until some future reboot and it may/may not
have an issue then.

Avast and ZA don't play well together.

 

[- Bobb -]

Avast and ZA don't play well together.

was never a problem until now.
I'll turn off web shield on Avast permanently and monitor.

But I would think if a conflict, there would be an error SOMEWHERE
Avast log entries show just started / stopped - never an error.
ZA shows no errors either just that the STOP indicator in systray is on when
this happens.
Unchecking " Stop all traffic" didn't help.
The ONLY thing that works is disable all Avast shields - then get an IP,
then all is well.
If no one else having this issue, I'll work it out - just wanted to check
since I saw folks at Avast website with same issue.
Thanks

Each Avast shield log looks like this:
avast! Real-time Shield Scan Report
This file is generated automatically
Started on: Friday, September 17, 2010 9:51:49 AM

avast! Real-time Shield Scan Report
This file is generated automatically
Started on: Sunday, September 26, 2010 6:08:14 PM

avast! Real-time Shield Scan Report
This file is generated automatically
Started on: Sunday, September 26, 2010 6:21:09 PM

avast! Real-time Shield Scan Report
This file is generated automatically
Started on: Friday, October 01, 2010 6:30:41 AM

 

[smlunatick]

was never a problem until now.
I'll turn off web shield on Avast permanently and monitor.

But I would think if a conflict, there would be an error SOMEWHERE
Avast log entries show just started / stopped - never an error.
ZA shows no errors either just that the STOP indicator in systray is on when
this happens.
Unchecking " Stop all traffic"  didn't help.
The ONLY thing that works is disable all Avast shields - then get an IP,
then all is well.
If no one else having this  issue, I'll work it out - just wanted to check
since I saw folks at Avast website with same issue.
Thanks

Each Avast shield log looks like this:
avast! Real-time Shield Scan Report
This file is generated automatically
Started on: Friday, September 17, 2010 9:51:49 AM

avast! Real-time Shield Scan Report
This file is generated automatically
Started on: Sunday, September 26, 2010 6:08:14 PM

avast! Real-time Shield Scan Report
This file is generated automatically
Started on: Sunday, September 26, 2010 6:21:09 PM

avast! Real-time Shield Scan Report
This file is generated automatically
Started on: Friday, October 01, 2010 6:30:41 AM

It is sad to say but Zone Alarm has been known it block the network
access for assign IPs from time to time and can happen at ZA updates.

 

[- Bobb -]

was never a problem until now.
I'll turn off web shield on Avast permanently and monitor.

But I would think if a conflict, there would be an error SOMEWHERE
Avast log entries show just started / stopped - never an error.
ZA shows no errors either just that the STOP indicator in systray is on
when
this happens.
Unchecking " Stop all traffic" didn't help.
The ONLY thing that works is disable all Avast shields - then get an IP,
then all is well.
If no one else having this issue, I'll work it out - just wanted to check
since I saw folks at Avast website with same issue.
Thanks

Each Avast shield log looks like this:
avast! Real-time Shield Scan Report
This file is generated automatically
Started on: Friday, September 17, 2010 9:51:49 AM

avast! Real-time Shield Scan Report
This file is generated automatically
Started on: Sunday, September 26, 2010 6:08:14 PM

avast! Real-time Shield Scan Report
This file is generated automatically
Started on: Sunday, September 26, 2010 6:21:09 PM

avast! Real-time Shield Scan Report
This file is generated automatically
Started on: Friday, October 01, 2010 6:30:41 AM

It is sad to say but Zone Alarm has been known it block the network
access for assign IPs from time to time and can happen at ZA updates.

Thanks for the info - I'll check into it.

 

[George Neuner]

It is sad to say but Zone Alarm has been known it block the network
access for assign IPs from time to time and can happen at ZA updates.

I gave up on ZoneAlarm quite a while ago, but while I was using it I
found that having an explicit DHCP rule prevented lots of weird
startup problems.

I found ZoneAlarm particularly susceptible to startup problems where
the computer was assigned a DHCP address out of a large subnet - e.g.,
from a B subnet or a subnet formed from multiple C subnets tied
together (i.e. the network mask is 255.255.X.0 where X is 0..254 ).

George