Avast Free 2015 v10.3.2223 RC2 Corrupts Thunderbird

freeforever03 · 2015-07-11T23:23:56.000Z

I updated Avast Free 2015 v10.2.2215 to version v10.3.2223 RC2 and found a problem. After installation, I launched Thunderbird 38.1.0 and found that an error was generated when Thunderbird tried to communicate with Gmail. The error was that Thunderbird could not connect to pop.gmail.com. This error was not present in the previous build of Avast Free. Therefore I uninstalled the new RC2 version of Avast and reinstalled the previous version. The error persisted which implies that the problem may have to do with something getting broken during installation. It should also be noted that accessing Gmail directly was not a problem. The only problem was accessing Gmail with Thunderbird. In addition, Thunderbird had no issue accessing my Yahoo accounts.

NON · 2015-07-12T04:51:53.000Z

For me it’s working fine.

I suppose the SSL certificate in Thunderbird is somehow corrupted during update process, that makes GMail inaccessible as GMail forces users to use SSL while Yahoo not.

freeforever03 · 2015-07-12T05:01:46.000Z

Thank you NON. Your analysis make a lot of sense. Is their anything I can do to recover the SSL certificate after upgrading?

NON · 2015-07-12T13:56:34.000Z

This method is just a guess, hope this works.

In short,

Export current avast certificate
Delete corrupted avast certificate from Thunderbird
Import current avast certificate into Thunderbird

Step by step method (strings might be wrong, as my Thunderbird is in Japanese)

[ol]- Open Avast Interface → Settings

Select “Active Protection” → Mail Shield and click “Customize”
Select “SSL scanning” and click “Export Certificate” then save it to desktop (or somewhere)
Run Thunderbird and open Tools → Options
Select “Advanced” → “Certificate” and click “Show Certificate” button
Select “Certificate authority certificate”
Find “avast! Web/Mail Shield root” then delete it
Click “OK” twice to close “Options” window
Follow step 5 to 6 again and import newly exported certificate at step 3
Click “OK” twice to close “Options” window[/ol]

Rednose · 2015-07-12T20:31:34.000Z

Avast! has a guide for Thunderbird in the FAQ too : https://www.avast.com/en-eu/faq.php?article=AVKB91#artTitle

Greetz, Red.

freeforever03 · 2015-07-13T14:32:23.000Z

Thanks NON and Rednose for your interest and your help. I tried replacing the certificate but unfortunately, that did not fix the problem. It appears that Thunderbird goes out to the pop server and connects to the server. Thunderbird then displays a message saying that it is connected to the server. It then times out after about 10 seconds or so. I wonder if I should save the certificate from my current Avast and import it into the newer version?

freeforever03 · 2015-07-13T22:53:18.000Z

After hours of searching I finally found the problem. It turned out to be a setting in Thunderbird. Under Account Settings / “Account Name” / Server Settings there is a sub-heading called connection security. I had it set to “none”. I changed it to SSL/TLS and everything worked fine. However, I truly appreciate your trying to help me. Thanks again.

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