Avast silently blocking Cloudflare.com

We have been using Avast for Mac for several months, maybe more than a year without issues.

A couple of days ago Cloudflare.com stopped working in any browser on our Macs and simply says the connection was closed. No indication that Avast blocked it. Zero. Zilch. No indication whatsoever.

Smartphones without Avast access the site from the same network without issue.

Out of a multi-day troubleshooting frustration and perseverance to try every possible solution we added cloudflare.com to the Avast Webshield exclusion list and the site starts working again. What the frick?

I’m supremely disappointed that any site blocked by Avast does not say it was blocked by Avast. Three days of no desktop access and frustrating workarounds.

One more incident like this and I’m ditching Avast for Mac.

If you haven’t done so already, report it to avast.

You can report an URL here: https://www.avast.com/report-a-url.php

@Mark C - I can access the https://www.cloudflare.com/ website with Avast Mac Security (build 12.3 #47217, virus definitions : 16121200). If you can still reproduce it would you mind to provide more details? e.g. Help > Avast technical Support > Generate support package.

@Iukas.hasik I have verified the problem still exists if cloudflare.com is removed from the webshield’s exclusion list. Further, my build is 12.3 (47217) but my virus definitions are 16120803. Update says I’m current so if defs 16121200 are the latest I’m not getting them.

I generated the support package zip file.

What now?

Great!
If the support package is up to 10MB then send it by email (hasik AT avast DOT com), otherwise upload it to FTP - https://www.avast.com/en-us/faq.php?article=AVKB160#idt_02

You can try to start the update manually - Avast > Preferences > Updates > “Update now” button.

@lukas.hasik The support file has been sent by email attachment. It is password protected and the password is in a separate email.

The Update Now button is what I have used to verify I have the latest defs since this issue has been discovered.