Avast Free Antivirus ZIP Download Problem

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hello there,

since today we have a problem with downloading backups of our WordPresses from one of our servers as a ZIP file. If we deactivate Avast the download comes in fluently without any problems. We tried it with several different WordPress websites in zipped form - everywhere the probem is the same.

Here are all the facts I know:

  • Let’s say the zipped WordPress is about 100 MB in size. Then the download runs through to 40 MB, stops then, and some seconds after this every browser I tried stops the download with an simple download error (no error message I could hand out).

  • If I try to download the very same file from one of our other servers the download comes to this 40 MB mark, also stops shortly, but then doesn’t stop completely but runs through successfully till the end. So I guess, perhaps the problem-server has a shorter timeout than the other servers or so. And again: If I switch off Avast, the download is no problem.

  • I have a quick Core i7 with Samsung SSD, 400 MBit downstream, and the problem with downloading these ZIPs are new to me. I’m downloading these ZIPs on the same PC for the last several years day by day and never had such problems until today, and I didn’t change anything on this PC, but there was an Avast update shortly.

  • It feels like Avast tries to scan the ZIP, somehow needs to long for this and produces a timeout in the download or so.

What can I do to fix this problem without lowering my Avast security? Is it known that Avast did change something in handling ZIP downloads lately?
If you need more information, please also let me know.

Very very many thanks for your help in advance!

Matthias

2

Your assumption (about a scan being performed in the middle of the download) is probably correct. However, it has always been like this (and there were no recent changes in ZIP processing). So I really don’t know why it should appear just now.

You can put the particular URL on the list of exclusions… that should avoid the scanning and hopefully prevent the whole issue.

3

Hi igor,

thank you so much for your answer. We also really don’t know why this happens, since we didn’t change anything and downloading …several hundret MB ZIPs with WordPress files from our servers are our daily work for years. It’s just the case that from now on the download fails - just as long as Avast is activated.

Your suggestion (thanks for that!) to exclude the URL can only be a workaround, since we have several hundrets of domains and keeping the exclude list updated will be quite a bit of ongoing work.

Two questions to this workaround:

  1. Is is possible to exclude an IP (containing many domains then) rather than an URL?

  2. If we would exclude an IP or an URL: How is it with security then? Will the downloaded ZIP be scanned at least when its opened locally? Or would we open an completely insecured channel to this domain then?

Many thanks again in advance!
Matthias