How can I disable AVAST other than “suspend” ?
the error I receive is this :
21/06/2008 13.26.01, Error, mail08> Error while connecting to POP3 server mail.xyz.com:110: concurrent connections limit in avast exceeded(pass:0, processes:minspect.exe[2])
Either Thunderbird and Minspect give me errors in accessing the popmails.
Maybe a server fault, but must be first sure that the error is not by AVAST.
How do I disable AVAST, where is the switch-OFF knob ?
Lipe
Left click the avast ‘a’ icon, select the Details… >> button if it is displayed, that will show your avast Shields. Select the Internet Mail one and click Terminate answer Yes to the question it won’t start on the next boot. This is better than disabling avast completely.
That will allow you to send and receive email, but you have to find the cause of the problem rather than treating the symptom (the error message) by terminating the shield and find the disease (the application taking all the connections). It is also possible to increase the max connections, but that will often mean what was grabbing the connections will just grab more (see below).
What is it that you use minspect.exe for (my google just reveals this, "Remote POP utility - Mail Inspector - iDev.ch ") how do you use it ?
If it is just checking for and reporting the presence of email rather than downloading it, perhaps we can exclude it form being scanned.
Concurrent Connections Error:
You could modify the avast4.ini file using notepad, “C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA\avast4.ini.” Find the [MailScanner] section and insert a new line after the section heading, and enter this MaxConnections=50 (if that line exists you can change the value to 50). Save the changes, the avast self-defence will ask if it is OK answer yes.
[MailScanner]
MaxConnections=50
The default concurrent connection limit is 20 (for mail & news together). If the limit was exceeded, you would see the line Closing connection due to MaxConnections into aswMaiSv.log file. This limit exists not to save resources, but to prevent connection looping in strange configurations, so the user can increase it without worry to, for instance, 50. The value 0 disables the limit.
HI DavidR, thanks for the replay.
Well in the meantime I have tried on a second machine my popmailboxes and they work.
As the switching-OFF of the MAIL-Server did not help I have uninstalled the AVAST prog.
and of course the pc runs “normal”.
Now I am going to try your suggestion.
See you later.
Lipe
Hello again, after a hard-unistall with the special avast file and the insertion in the avast.ini of the suggested commad all seems to work.
Thank you.
Ciao.
Lipe
You’re welcome.
However it is really best to find out what is causing the excessive connections.
Where and what should I look for the excessive connections?
Aha, forgotten to tell, I use also ZoneAlarm v70462.
Not the last version because it has given problems not with AVAST itsekf, but on sites like yahoo
not letting the browser firefox to retain the cookies, so I returned to a previous version of ZA.
Lipe
You’re welcome.
However it is really best to find out what is causing the excessive connections.
I would have though that ZA might have given an indication of what was connecting in its logs, though I don’t think that is a strong point in ZA.
There are tools like TCPView which shows what is connecting to the internet, some times you would be surprised what is connecting. On occasion it reveals undetected malware connecting, so it is a handy tool anyway. I haven’t got a link to hand but google should reveal that, it used to be sysinternals.com but it is now on microsoft’s site (free)
HI DavidR, have just launched the TCPView and look at what happens when checking mail with the
MailInspector prog. It is so fast in checking that the relative rows disappear in a flash.
Have tried to freeze in the clipcache the window and seems that the checked ports are all from the mailboxes servers.
So curious about the MAXCon row added yesterday in Avast.ini I went into that file to try to lower the max number…to make an empirical test, but the MAXConnection row is disappeared.
Sure the AVAST progr has erased it, not me ?!
The mail programs run well now …
The only thing changed is the re-installation of the AVAST with the last setup v481201
taken from the SITE.
All seems to work now.
Thanks and ciao.
Lipe
I would have though that ZA might have given an indication of what was connecting in its logs, though I don’t think that is a strong point in ZA.
There are tools like TCPView which shows what is connecting to the internet, some times you would be surprised what is connecting. On occasion it reveals undetected malware connecting, so it is a handy tool anyway. I haven’t got a link to hand but google should reveal that, it used to be sysinternals.com but it is now on microsoft’s site (free)
You’re welcome. Glad that things are working normally again.
By default that row doesn’t exist as the value is 20, so the line doesn’t need to be there if it is the default value.
So it looks like your previous edit didn’t take so avast4.ini reverted to its previous value or avast cleared the line because it was the default value (though I have no examples of avast doing this before).
Did you get the avast self-defence module pop-up when you tried to save your changes before ?
or avast cleared the line because it was the default value (though I have no examples of avast doing this before).
Indeed, I think avast does not remove avast4.ini file non-default entries, unless you uninstall avast (or change settings by GUI).
Personally I didn’t think it happened that way either, as it hasn’t happened to me and nor have I heard of it happening to others as I mentioned.
A re-installation would certainly be a candidate for removing the avast4.ini replacing it with a default version.