I’ve looked in the forums for this specific problem, but the intermittent nature of the problem is not the same as other issues users have had with timeouts:
Since upgrading to avast home 4.6.623, I’ve been having intermittent problems with firefox timing out connections. It usually happens when I try and visit the 4th or 5th website in a particular session. It happens both with my network connection at uni and at home with a wireless connection (with ZoneAlarm version:5.5.062.011 when connected wirelessly). A restart allows connections again.
Firefow seems to have some problems with WebShield provider. Can you check if it work with WebShield disabled?
Do you use a proxy filter? Which are your proxy settings into Firefox?
ZA last version seems to be buggy. A lot of users are complaining around the Internet.
Do you have an old version? Could you change your firewall for a while?
scott… that was exactly the problem I was having… using firefox and ZA here at the time… Didnt have to reboot… i just would close zone alarm and then i could browse. Open ZA back up, and after 2 or 3 pages suddenly couldnt browse anymore… over and over again.
I uninstalled ZA and installed Sygate… not a fix… but it completely solved my problem.
I too am thinking its sum buggy thing with ZA… the newer version… the older was fine, but then ive also upgraded my OS recently so with so many changes its hard to know for sure… It also happened whether WEbshield was enabled or not…
anyways… you could , if all else fails (and TEchnical will try to help you first) install Sygate until the ZA problem is fixed…
To answer questions raised: Firefox is set up for direct connection, no proxies.
I’ve stopped both Webshield provider and ZA and so far so good. Will test this arrangement later with the wireless connection to see if it anything to do with the network connection here at uni.
There is a proxy bug of Sygate
Thanks for posting… I’ll not recommend it until it get fixed. If the user uses WebShield and Sygate, outbound traffic won’t be filtered by the firewall, i.e., it’s useless the use of a firewall for outbound connections.
If the user uses WebShield and Sygate, outbound traffic won't be filtered by the firewall, i.e., it's useless the use of a firewall for outbound connections.
Well, it is easy to take care of that issue that is not as bad as you make it sound. Before installing new software, you can disable the webShield temporarily and then check what applications might want out.
Also you maybe don’t have to do even that, just ‘Customize’ the webshield, blanking the redirected port 80, temporarily.
Also in the build 4.6.623 only trusted browsers are now allowed to go through that webShield, other software using port 80 TCP does not use that local proxy.
Thanks, Jarmo.
Can you help me configurating the advanced rules of the firewall?
I use a local proxy (127.0.0.1:8001) to connect.
How can I set my firewall to not create a ‘hole’ and each application ask for permition (of course, using WebShield).
Thanks. I got terrified that, after all, all my outbound traffic was not being monitored by the firewall :-\
Sorry, this does not work if you have a local proxy.
The applications does not ask to connect. For instance:
Browsers > WebShield > Local HTTP proxy > Firewall > Internet
Neither the browser, nor the WebShield will ask for connection if the local proxy is allowed to connect.
You can’t control the HTTP traffic by application as all traffic is allowed to connect by the proxy ‘tunnel’.
email application > Spam killer > avast Mail Service > Internet
Neither the email application, nor the Spam killer ask for connection as all traffic is allowed to ashMaiSv.exe.
This is weird for me. I have no outbound filter this way
This is weird for me. I have no outbound filter this way Sad
I am not sure of a terminology we use here. Avast’s web shield = local proxy for browsers and one regarding then Sygate. But it only allows known browser’s pass Sygate as of now. Not other traffic applications.
Why do you care so much that you want to be asked everytime you start IE or Firefox etc? The traffic connections get logged anyways to Sygate traffic log, as ashWebSV.exe connections.
If you have another local proxy software, proxomitron etc., then maybe your other applications pass too out of the firewall without control as you seem to complain.
AshMaiSV.exe is maybe also another local proxy for email/newsgroup traffic clients only. They don’t get asked true as you say, if the internet mail scanner is allowed.
WHAT you should be concerned about is to check if OTHER applications using http traffic port 80 tcp get asked from Sygate. If they do as I think, then you should be satisfied. Check it for yourself.
But, will you trust IE http traffic, for instance? :
Or a malware that exploits the IE traffic and is ‘kindly’ tunnelled by WebShield ??? : >:(
The DLL authentication will be lost by this too, as far I can see.
Outpost Pro firewall seems to work ok, I’ll try it again.
Ok, but this is a problem of the firewall and cannot be solved by WebShield.
But, when WebShield is the one that is tunneling the traffic… then…
Firewall bug again…
Can you be sure that the OTHER will work and not just exploit IE bugs?
I have begun to see this behavior with 4.6.623 and Firefox as well. I am using Windows XP firewall. After a varying number of website accesses, without any apparent relation to the exact sites, Avast stops processing http traffic and hangs up Firefox. The only way to address this is to stop the webshield.
It seems to have begun only relatively recently as this combination was quite stable for several months before onset.
:-\