avast 4.5 internet problem

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hi everyone,

Couldn’t find a solution to my problem in this forum yet. So here I go…

I used avast home 4.0 without any problem on an XP pro SP1 station with Outlook (5 email accounts), ZoneAlarm and a DSN connection.

With the 4.5 home update, I now experience choppy Internet browsing on IE 6.0. I have to refresh a web page several time to finally download something or a bit of it.

  • When I diseable one by one the Avast services (and even the hole thing) and reboot between each try, I still experience the problem.
  • When I remove avast 4.5, then everything gets back to normal.

Any idea?

Thank you so much for your help and Happy Holidays.
Symont

2
When I diseable one by one the Avast services (and even the hole thing) and reboot between each try, I still experience the problem.
rebooting will enable them again. Pause (or shutdown) one provider at a time from the on-access control panel without rebooting. Try to browse after pausing a provider.
3

Thank you Eddy for this reply.

But unfortunately, it doesn’t work. Even with every provider in pause mode (the icon is then gray), the problem is there.

Anything else?

Thanks again
Symont

4

delete all temporary files (internet cache, windows cache, downloaded program files, etc etc)

5

just to add to eddys reccommendation of temp file cleaning heres a checklist
Using Windows Explorer, here are the paths to your temp folders, delete the contents of these folders, not the folders themselves:

C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Local Settings\Temp
C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files
C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Local Settings\Temp
C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files

For each user listed:

C:\Documents and Settings(each user)\Local Settings\Temp
C:\Documents and Settings(each user)\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files

Windows Temp:

C:\WINDOWS\Temp

And the contents of your Prefetch folder:

C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch

If you have problems deleting the contents of your Temporary Internet Files go to your Control Panel and click on Internet Options and under the Temporary Internet Files section press the Delete cookies and Delete files buttons.
HTH :slight_smile:

6

Thanks again Eddy… and also to Ginblossom.

Your suggestions were already under control (and I have plenty of disk space). But… I still have the problem. It is very puzzeling that it doesn’t work even if I pause or terminate Avast but it works as soon as I remove Avast from the computer.

Trying to solve the problem, I ran a File and Registry Monitor. On idle, with Avast running, the Registry access are rare and normal. The File access are going crazy: Avast4.ini and avast4.mbd are accessed several time a second by ashServ.exe (which I guess is normal for an antivirus as my CPU proccess time remain to 0%). Please note that I have desactivated the Virtual recovery database.

When I stop the “Avast resident protection” (literal translation from French, I hope it make sence to you), the File accessing diminishes but doesn’t stop completly (come down to maybe 10 times per second).

With my limited knowledge of the under work of an AV, I see only two leads:
1- Avast changes a DLL file or something else that cause the problem with IE. Remember that when I remove Avast, everything get back to normal.
2- ashServ.exe clearly continue to run in the background even if Avast is stopped. Maybe it interferes with something.

Is this hopeless (one of these things)?

Best regards,
Symont

7

Very strange. just a wild guess, but change ODBC to XML in avast4.ini and let us know if it makes any difference.

8

A good suggestion but… it didn’t solve the problem.

9

By “disabling avast services”, do you mean disabling the avast on-access providers?

Or stoping (disabling) the avast system services? (Control Panel → Administrative Tools → Services).

Thanks
Vlk

10

I am sorry for the confusion. I am translating from the french edition of the software. I tried both these options with the same result:

1- Last item (under the about Avast) in the right-click icon menu that can be translate I guess by “Stop the permanent protection”. A red circle appears on the icon.
2- First item in the icon right-click menu that can be translate by “Management of the permanent protection”. Then I paused and/or terminated every services.

Both time, I was left without protection, still with some processing by ashServ.exe and, most importantly, still with my really choppy browsing.

I tried your suggestion (stopping the services from the Administrative Tools). It did indeed killed all sign of processing by Avast, but the problem remained entirely.

Once again, I then unsinstalled Avast from the computer and the problem was solved.

By Eddy’s words: Very strange.

Thanks anyway vlk for your precious time.
Symont

11

Vlk, one of my computers has the same problem.
Maxthon + avast give me some ‘blank’ Internet pages.

Sometimes I solve the problem with the command:
C:\Windows\system32\ipconfig.exe /flushdns

Sometimes, opening and closing the browser.
Sometimes, booting…

It’s weird that just one of my computers acts this way. I could not found the final solution yet. I did not try ‘disabling’ avast and I’m not sure (of course) both things (the problem and avast) are related :-\ :-[