More issues after update than just turn firewall on

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

New thread as this is more than just that the firewall will not turn on.
Like many my firewall did not turn on after updating, this thread helped me turn it back on but it still does not work and there are many other issues.
https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=233126.15

After losing a day to trying to fix things, I am realizing 20.2.2401 (build 20.2.5130.564) has many serious issues beyond the turned off firewall. I have spoken to tech support who was not able to confirm most of these. They also were not able to tell me how to revert back to the previous version (19.8?).

Can anyone tell me how to get an offline installer of the previous, working, version? Also below is a list of the issues I have encountered for others to confirm or not. I am on Windows 7 if that matters.

  1. The firewall simply does not work, even after selecting Reset to default and rebooting. It says it is on and working, but it is not. I have noticed the following issues (firewall set to always ask for a new rule)

a. Web Access is allowed to an application before I click allow access. Even after I select block all access and remember my answer, it sometimes blocks access and sometimes does not intermittently. For the most part it does not block

b. Does not store settings. Repeatedly asks again for permission when I have already granted denied it and said remember.

c. Apps recently managed by firewall sometimes shows it managing the blocked app, but usually does not.

d. Apps that show blocked are not being blocked

e. Applications that I have manually added to the block list are not only not being blocked but are asking me if I want to block them or not when I open them. This seems to be related to the “stray invisible” issue below as they are the same application.

  1. These bugs were noted in the firewall settings UI

a. Stray “invisible” entries in the applications settings. A group may show it has 3 rules but only 1 rule displayed. Or it may show 1 rule but you can’t expand it and show them. Rebooting seems to make these invisible entries go away.

b. Clicking packet rules, making no changes and o.k. changes the rule when no change made.

c. Can expand an application rule but not collapse it

d. New Application rules are often misnamed and not the same or correct app name that the pop up window shows.

  1. There are other serious issues I have noted as well

a. Computer stalls with a black screen for a very long boot time since update. It required CTRL/ALT/DEL to get out of this. Reset fixed for 1 boot then problem comes back. On more inspection this may be related to having either “UEFI BIOS” and/or Modules Loaded in Memory checked in the full virus scan box. Unchecking also seems to fix this sometimes (but not always)

b. There has been a lot of strange and inconsistent behavior. Each time I reset AVAST is performs differently and gives me different options. The last time, after several resets Avast, for the first time told me that it had updated (it had not before) and in the settings sections I see different settings that I had not seen the last several resets. The last reset also fixed the long black screen boot time issue I had been having for 1 boot only. Lastly this reset reset things that had not been reset before (like privacy settings and the way the update screen options looked). The fact that Rest has a different effect on what it resets or does not as I go through all the settings is very disconcerting.

c. If I “open old settings” the settings do not always match the main screen settings. Is this a clue?

d. My NAS keeps reporting that something from the computer has been trying to log, unsuccessfully into the FTP server with Admin user name from my computer. This started as soon as I updated Avast last night and it keep trying, NAS locks it out and it tries again when the NAS removes the lock out. Seems to be some sort of AVAST port/health/Security scan trying to log into my NAS? This never happened before.

I’m at my whits end here. I don’t feel very secure knowing my firewall has a hole in it only the size of the entire internet.

2

Hi HawkerEng,

can you post a path for the app that gets asked over and over again? Is the path always the same? Sometimes application gets moved to a new folder every time they are updated. Couldn’t that be the case here?

Thanks.

3

Hello Lukor

This is happening with multiple apps but the two that concern me most are not changing location at all.
I can PM you the path and application but am not comfortable posting publicly. It is a commercial CAD program that I do have a legal license for, I just don’t like that it keeps phoning home. It is not in the programs directory.
Path is
C:{parent company name}{product name}{home directory}\Programs\filename.exe

4
b. Does not store settings. Repeatedly asks again for permission when I have already granted denied it and said remember.

Same problem here, even after removing the firewall, rebooting, adding it back, rebooting again. Most frequently, it seems to happen with BackgroundTransferHost.exe from system32. I already allowed it at least ten times since the update.

2) These bugs were noted in the firewall settings UI

Can confirm these as well.

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@Martin134 thank you for confirming.
Any chance you have WireShark on your computer?
It appears the problem of asking over and over and not storing results went away after I uninstalled WireShark and rebooted. I don’t need WireShark anymore so it was fine to remove it.

BTW before I did that it also would, after coming out of sleep, loose all it remembered and ask again over and over. Same on a reboot.

The good news is there was a major bug when using the firewall with a FlexLM / HASP Dongle protected program that made the program frequently stall out that seems to be resolved now. For me that is huge.
There was also a bug that made Acrobat reader sluggish when denied that is also resolved. Good work Avast team.

6

I do have WireShark indeed. I also had a Hyper-V virtual network adapter that I no longer needed, so I tried to disable that now. As soon as I did that, avast started asking for every single program again, so I had to click “allow” like 50 times in the past few minutes (though when I went to firewall apps settings, it was still showing that all the rules already exist).

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I also had a Hyper-V virtual network adapter that I no longer needed, so I tried to disable that now. As soon as I did that, avast started asking for every single program again

Actually this happens every time a network is connected or disconnected (and I already uninstalled Wireshark and the npcap driver):

  1. I’m on WiFi.
  2. I connect ethernet in addition to WiFi → avast starts asking for every running program.
  3. I disconnect ethernet → avast starts asking for every running program again.
  4. I connect ethernet again → avast starts asking for every running program again.

All networks are set as private and the UI shows all the rules already exist but it asks anyway.

8

After a couple of days I am also seeing the same thing.
After I uninstalled Wireshark most of the programs it was asking about it asked about one more time then never asked again.
However if I disconnect the Ethernet cable or I put the computer to sleep and wake up it does ask again about several Windows system files, but the number of files it keeps asking about over and over has gone down from several dozen before I uninstalled WireShark to only about 3 or 4 now.
Seems to be some sort of time out bug where the network changes so it starts to ask before the network can get itself reconfigured.

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Avast firewall does not store settings at the computer where it has never been installed WireShark.