Losing internet access after Avast eats up all UDP ports

Hey folks.

I’m losing internet access on Windows 8.1 64-bit when Avast Pro Antivirus starts to use up all available UDP ports. I’m wondering if anyone else has ever experienced this and has a way to fix.

I’ll outline my steps below to show what I’ve been able to find.

PROBLEM: Internet access is lost after a period of time on Windows 8.1 46-bit. Running Avast Pro Antivirus.

1.) Found entry in Event Viewer:

Log Name: System
Source: Tcpip
Date: 11/24/2014 2:02:36 PM
Event ID: 4266
Task Category: None
Level: Warning
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: sfngis.SFNA.local
Description:
A request to allocate an ephemeral port number from the global UDP port space has failed due to all such ports being in use.

2.) Ran “netstat -anob” and output results to netstat_anob_results.txt (1,584 KB) which showed AvastSvc.exe using a lot of UDP ports.

3.) Got PID (1412) of AvastSvc.exe using "tasklist /SVC | find -i “avast”

4.) Generated dump file from task manager of AvastSvc.exe into AvastSvc.DMP (343,923 KB)

5.) Tried to kill AvastSvc.exe with “TASKKILL /PID 1412 /F” but failed, so killed in Task Manager instead. This restored internet access!

6.) Checked ports again with “netstat -anob” and output results to netstat_anob_results_taskkill.txt (9 KB) and the file was much more reasonable.

I’ve tried calling Avast 1-866 number for support but they just offered me an annual subscription to their PC maintenance program and the opportunity to talk with an “engineer”.

attach Farbar Recovery Scan Tool diagnostic logs https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=53253.0

It looks like I may of fixed it by simply re-installing Avast.

Booted into safe mode and used their uninstall utility to remove Avast.

Then booted normally into Windows and re-installed.

No issues thus far and everything is back to normal.

Thanks =)