Avast! Free v6 - "Web Shield" conflict with Outlook 2007

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

When I updated to the current version of Avast! Free Antivirus (6.0.1289), I began having problems with SMTP sending in MS ???Outlook 2007, resulting in error “Task ‘xxx@xxx.com - Sending’ reported error (0x8004210B): ‘The operation timed out waiting for a response from the sending (SMTP) server. If you continue to receive this message, contact your server administrator or Internet service provider (ISP).’” I did not have this error with the previous version of Avast.

I was still able to receive incoming IMAP mail, but could not send. After triple-checking the settings suggested in the topic “avast! 5.x: Some e-mails are not scanned by the Mail Shield” (http://support.avast.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=458) and doing some troubleshooting, I have discovered that the only way to get sending to function is by disabling the WEB SHIELD (NOT the Mail Shield). With Web Shield stopped and all other shields running, email sending works fine.

Is there any way to change Web Shield settings to fix this so I don’t have to keep protection disabled? Maybe using an exclusion rule? Thanks!

2

Probably:

Web shields → EXPERT settings → “…well known browser only”

is the easiest way.

Now, this is only one possibility. Deleting firewall rules for avast and then rebuilding them should help too. if this is the case, you could add the Avast Service executable (in addition to avastui.exe) to your firewall rules, and revert back the first expert setting suggestion so to test that combination of settings.

3

Excellent, that first fix worked! Thanks so much for your help.