I’m currently using the latest version (6.0.1289) of Avast! Free and am having similar issues with Outlook 2007, Gmail, and the Avast! Mail Shield. I set everything up the way that the main support article says to (Mail Shield → Expert Settings → SSL Accounts → etc…, and changing the settings in Outlook to default.) and everything worked great initally.

Now I get the problem of Outlook hanging because it can’t connect to the servers. Outlook starts, the Mail Shield plugin loads, then Outlook hangs. After a while I get the message that Outlook can’t connect to the server and will go into “offline” mode.

I’ve verified that my internet connection is working and that gmail’s servers are online. I’m not running any other security/firewall software. I’ve isolated the problem and know it’s with Avast!

So far the only “fix” I’ve found for this is to reboot. I would like a real fix for this issue, seeing as this computer is being used as a fileserver. Would simply stopping and restarting the Avast services resolve this? Is there a way to fix this issue without rebooting?

Again, I’m running Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, Outlook 2007, and am connecting to Gmail through IMAP.