I am I am so sad, i been working on this for 3 days now, and im worried cos of now i work from home…Is it safe ??
I just want to add that I fixed it with the fix from Johan136 with a small change. I had the same issue, could not turn firewall on. Two other fixes I saw that worked for others (smart scan and rebuild) did not work for me.
I didn’t want to reset all my settings and loose all the work I had done to customize Avast. So before clicking RESET to DEFAULT I
- Disconnected my internet connection
- Clicked Back Up Settings
- Clicked Reset to Default / Reboot
- Verified all settings were lost. Clicked Restore Settings and loaded the file generated in #2
- Rebooted Computer / Verified all settings were back where they were.
- Connected Internet back to computer. Ran Smart Scan just for giggles and went through all the settings to see if I wanted to change anything (there were some new options since I last looked at it).
At this point everything seems to be fine. I did not loose any settings and my firewall was now turned back on.
I’m pretty sure the firewall is broken in this release.
Is there a way to downgrade the previous version.
My “fix” before didn’t work. While the firewall was on it was not stopping traffic or showing managed apps in the list. I rebooted a few times and now the firewall would not turn on. So I did a reset and manually reset all my configurations. The firewall appeared to be working for a bit and makes requests for new apps, however if I select “block” I’m pretty sure it isn’t blocking.
I do not see managed apps in the firewall listing anymore and some apps that I know are sluggish if they can’t phone home are no longer sluggish so I’m pretty sure the firewall is broken.
Is there a response from Avast on this yet?
Hi everyone,
Thank you for reporting the issue about the firewall not working after the update. We are really sorry for the trouble caused by this.
We have been working on this issue for the past 48 hours. With the help of some of you, who provided us with their logs, we’ve been able to identify the problem. In the code that reads the application rules, we had a bug. Whenever the rules file contained application from nonexisting disk (either old volumes or removable disks that are not connected at the moment), the firewall driver failed to load.
We have fixed the issue now and have released the fix as an emergency update. It should automatically download during the installation and also to the existing installations. You can check the fixed version of the driver:
aswnethub.sys : 20.2.55.0
Or in the UI, Settings / Update. The fixed version is marked as: 20.2.5130.565 (Thanks HawkerEng!)
Restart is needed for the new driver to be active.
We are really sorry about this and thank you all for your patience.
Lukas.
I have tried to update via the UI - does not do it. Full install doesn’t either. Any other methods please?
Hello thank you for the reply.
There are still issues with firewall, in fact the update is now even more broken than before.
My copy of aswnethub.sys is 20.2.55.0 but my UI build is 20.2.5130.565 not .564 so I think you have a mistake.
What now happens is when I launch an application it asks me every time if I wish to allow this application access to the interent. I select deny and remember my answer. Application rules now shows this new rule recorded, however “apps managed by your firewall” does not show it managed. If I close the app, then re-open it I get asked again if I wish to allow it access to the internet even though I already answered this. In addition apps managed by my firewall does not show that app being managed.
If I repeat this procedure several times it occasionally does not ask me again and when that happens apps managed by my firewall shows it managed. So something is not working most of the time, but sometimes does.
You still have a major bug in firewall.
Have you restarted you system since then ?
The Emergency Update Check (EMC) happens after boot also and if one is present it will install it.
You should also be able to manually check for an EMC, by running the AvEmUpdate.exe file in the Avast folder.
Fix confirmed 
Hi,
564, 565 or any of them no matter ? … mine is 564 , I’ve rebooted several times, the vps are up to date and aswnethub.sys is right to 20.2.55.0 (april 3th 8:14 PM)
@Chris
You should be at .565 things got better then. If it didn’t automatically update try settings/update/check for update for the 2nd application tab.
@lukor
I am not suspecting my problem was a conflict with WireShark. I uninstalled Wireshark, rebooted and it is no longer repeatedly asking me permissions that I have already given it.
In addition a major firewall bug for me, from the previous version (19.8) has been resolved. When using a CAD program that uses a HASP Flex LM dongle, and prohibiting internet access to the application/license server the program was sluggish and stalled frequently. However if the firewall was disabled and the internet disconnected it was fine even though to the app I would think it would look like the same thing. This seems to have been resolved in this newer firewall version. This is huge for my productivity! Thank you to the team that fixed that bug.
@HawkerEng
You should be , you should be … , no I’am not
I didn’t say it but of course I tried the manual update, I even made a manual emergency update (AvEmUpdate.exe) many time for today.
If I ask this, it’s because for ages, avast has been getting us used to different build versions without we know why.
edit:finaly ok with 565 just for now
I have to use the repair Avast menu option every day because the firewall will not switch on after upgrading to the latest Avast Premium version. When will this be fixed ??