avast 8 and nntp SSL blocked by anti-spam

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

NNTP connection was working on avast 7 (and earlier).
Since the upgrade to 8 I only get connection fails on send and nothing happens on retrieve (no error but no retrival of messages I know have been posted).
No known other changes to the local or remote ends of the system
This failure ONLY occurs if I have the avast anti-spam filter active. If I disable this, then connection works fine.

Connection details
Avast 8.0.1483
Thunderbird 2.0.0.24 as NNTP client
Remote server is proprietary

NNTP server only provides SSL connection on port 563 so I cant test or use without SSL.

So two questions.

  • Is there any known fix for this issue?
    How do I disable anti-spam JUST for NNTP?

2

I don’t know if this is applicable for NNTP traffic, but I would say it is worth a test. This came from one of the avast team.

  • Non-Standard SSL Ports:
    If you want the Mail shield to scan traffic on non-standard SSL ports, you can configure them in the EmailShield.ini file. Open file “C:\ProgramData\AVAST Software\Avast\EmailShield.ini” using notepad and under [EmailScanner] add such lines:
    PopRedirectPortSSL=995,1234
    Save your changes, the avast self-defence module will seek confirmation, answer Yes.
    And restart the Mail shield.

Where it is mentioned about PopRedirectPortSSL, there is a corresponding line entry for NntpRedirectPort=119.

So that is the one I would assume is for you, add the value 563 to the existing entry, e.g. NntpRedirectPort=119,563

Now, I’m thinking that this may not work and based on the other parameter name it may need a new line added for SSL NNTP connections:
NntpRedirectPortSSL=563

Let me know how it goes, especially if my estimated name for SSL NNTP connections is correct or not.