Can't send Outlook Express hotmail without being asked for my password

Why is Avast interfering with my Outlook Express mail? I didn’t know what was causing it to keep asking for my password when I tried to send hotmail via OE recently, and I wasted a lot of time googling for an answer, then finally figured out if I pause Avast’s email provider, my mail gets sent with no issue.
It doesn’t cause this problem consistently, maybe only to certain accounts, like when I’m emailing to aol for sure. I’m getting really tired of having this popup happen unexpectedly, when my password is fine, and I can access via hotmail webmail all the time. Even putting the password in again when I get the popup doesn’t help, it just won’t send at all if Avast is on.
I am going to have to turn off Avast email scanning permanently unless you tell me how to fix this issue. I searched the forum but couldn’t find anyone posting this same issue. I am using OE 6, Windows XP Pro, Avast version 4.8-1368.

Avast! is now at V5.0.677 and V4.8-1368 support will stop soon.

I didn’t know there was a newer version because I haven’t been getting notified to update anything, though I have it set to tell me when there are new versions.
This just started recently, without me changing anything, so I figured it was something caused by one of the virus updates that happens automatically daily.
Is anyone else experiencing this, in ANY version of Avast?

You will not get version updates from V4.8-1368

See:
Topic: New release build of avast now available (5.0.677)
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=63621.0

You wouldn’t get an update notification because you still have the latest version of avast 4.8.1368. Avast5 can’t be installed in the normal program updates as it is a complete change, different processes, different folders, different user interface, etc. etc.

A virus update in avast 4.8 shouldn’t change how the mail shield works, so there is something else in the mix. You don’t give any details on exactly what is wrong, e.g. error messages, etc.

AOHell is a bit of a nightmare and I thought that you had to use the AOHell email program and not OE to collect/send email to AOL. Hotmail could never be scanned by avast 4.8 unless it was actually using POP3 rather than a Hotmail web mail account being downloaded by webdev or deltasync, which are MS propriatary protocols.

I don’t know how much value there is in chasing this in 4.8 when avast5 has been out for 8 months (you should have had some pop-up notifications about avas5 (other than the standard auto update/notifications).

Personally I would suggest downloading and installing avast5 over 4.8 that retains your existing registration details, uninstalls avast 4.8 and installs avast 5.0.677.

There are no other details to give. I try to send a hotmail email via OE, I get a popup saying to verify my password, the password is already in the box, and is correct. I click OK, OE tries to continue sending, but nothing happens besides the password box popping up again. If I click Cancel instead of OK, I get the same result. Mail sits in the outbox, OE can’t send it unless I turn off the Avast provider and click OK again.
I don’t have AOL, I am emailing from OE to a friend who has AOL. I have Comcast and hotmail (POP)accounts in OE, and the Comcast mail sends fine, but I never use it to send to AOL, so I’m not sure if it would be stopped by Avast too. I don’t understand why you say Avast isn’t scanning hotmail, when turning Avast off lets hotmail get thru. I never said I thought it was scanning it from the webmail, only via OE.

After the Avast Free version 5xxxx updated itself today I can no longer access my email either without turning off the avast email protection.

UPDATE
Although after stopping the email shield for 10minutes it appears to be working again.

I would suggest confirming the fact that the comcast account can’t send, because if it can then it is pointing back to OE as the problem.

Have you checked the Hotmail account settings that a) you have Remember Password checked and that the Outgoing email server section has the My server requires authentication and that the Settings (button) window reflects that user name and password (or has been set to Use same settings as my incoming mail server).

I qualified the statement about hotmail, if it was a web mail account, OE can still download it using webdev/deltasync and for that reason isn’t using the POP3 protocol so couldn’t be scanned. However, if you are using a hotmail POP3 account as I asked and you confirmed, then it uses the standard email POP3 protocol and can be scanned.

Unfortunately this is unrelated to this topic as the Original Poster (OP) is using avast 4.8.

All the hotmail settings are fine. I checked all of that originally when I first had this problem a week or 2 ago. I never touch the settings, but removed the password that was prepopulated and re-entered it in case that would fix it, but it didn’t.
I haven’t had any problems sending from Comcast at times that OE won’t send hotmail, but I wasn’t sending to Aol. I am not going to use Comcast to send anything I don’t already, because I try to keep that one spam free as much as possible, and the more people who have it in their address book, the bigger the chance of it getting passed to strangers. What I did the first time I noticed this problem, was send myself a message from comcast to comcast to make sure it would go thru, and it did.
If I knew for sure that updating Avast would eliminate this issue, I would do that now, but I am afraid I am just going to end up with further problems that are worse than this, because I’ve seen a lot of posts about problems happening when they updated. I like to wait as long as possible before updating things, since the time I had a major problem happen when I did a Windows update as soon as it came out. That’s also why, besides virus databases updating automatically, I don’t have any programs set to auto update, so I am in control of when the update happens, and will know what to blame if a problem happens. That’s why this one is so frustrating to me, because I didn’t change anything, and still developed a problem, and the problem doesn’t even happen consistently, just intermitently. I was just hoping that posting it would show me that I am not the only one, but even though someone did post a similar problem today, you invalidated it just because it’s a different version of Avast. Are the versions so completely different that they couldn’t have ONE thing the same that is causing this?

Sorry if you aren’t going to confirm one way or the other by trying comcast to send to aol, I have no other things that I can check.

I don’t know either if 5.0 would resolve this, what I do know 8 months down the line I have forgotten a great deal about it and that it is likely to cease support at the end of this year.

Hunter33

What SMTP port have you got set in OE for sending Hotmail?

If it is port 25 then you will experience problems with avast 4.8 which will prevent the connection being made.

If you are using port 25 please switch to the Hotmail alternative SMTP port 587 and avast 4.8 will not be in the way.

By the way this is all handled so much better in avast 5.0.