Avast blocking network printer

Hi all,

I notice when I have Avast up and running my network printer shows as offline, however when I disable the avast shields for 10 minutes the printer shows and prints just fine. I found a similar post where someone replied how to fix it but it seems those steps are no longer valid with the latest version of Avast. I am hoping someone out there might know the proper steps to add my printer to the Avast Whitelist so I can keep it running and still print when needed.

Thank you in advance for your time and effort in responding to this message.

Crucially you don’t say what avast program you are using, does it include the Avast Firewall ?

My apologies, I have Avast Premier which includes the Avast Firewall.

https://support.avast.com/en-us/article/Antivirus-Firewall-Application-Rules

No problem - Aside from the information in the link provided by bob3160, is the firewall set to Private or Public ?

It is currently set to Private Network. I attempted to follow the guide posted by Bob3160 but was unsuccessful in getting the printer to show up by adding a new Packet Rule. I also tried enabling the “Allow Windows File and Printer Sharing” system rule but that also did not yield a successful result.

I appreciate you taking the time to help me with this!

Sorry it wasn’t more productive, unfortunately I don’t use the avast firewall, the public/private setting has in the past been the cause of printers not working.

  1. Is your Firewall mode set to Private? You have done that.
  2. Is “Intenet Connection Sharing Mode” enabled via Firewall > Settings > Policies? This is an important step.

It appears that ‘romulan9822’ has done/tried that, quote from his post below.

When all else fails, remove the Avast Firewall. Make sure the windows firewall is active and that your printer sharing is setup.
Once that works, you can reinstall the Avast firewall and it should assume the rules already followed by the Windows firewall.