W7 64-bit Home Professional + Avast Free 2014 9.0.2011 networked (via Homeplug Ethernet) to a Vortexbox Linux Media Server (turnkey Logitech Media Server h/w & s/w solution)
Squeezeplay (http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/SqueezePlay) is the desktop version of the Jive/Squeezebox Controller software. It provides an audio player with similar look/feel as the Logitech Squeezebox user interface, for browsing and playing music and internet streams on PC.
In the past, this has worked faultlessly with Avast 8. However, as soon as I updated to 2014.9.0.2011, SP would start-up OK but then fail to connect to the media server. Experimentation showed that the problem is the new Webshield – when disabled, SP will connect to the media server just fine, and play music and internet streams, as normal. However, whenever it is active, SP fails to connect. Multiple users on the Slimdevices forum have reported this problem and also report it applies to the Avast premium version, as well.
I’ve tried playing with the various Webshield settings but none of the options appear to resolve the ‘Failure to Connect’ problem whilst Webshield is active. Excluding the SP program and/or the media server IP address from the Webshield function also fails to resolve the problem.
Luckily there is a workaround. Namely, switch off webshield, start up SP (which then connects to the media server just fine) and then switch on the webshield. Bizarrely, although the webshield stops SP connecting to the media server when starting-up, if a connection can be made, the webshield no longer causes any problem and SP can stream music and internet, as normal.
Without this workaround, myself and many other Avast and Squeezebox eco-system users would immediately have to either revert to an earlier Avast version or switch to another product cos it is unacceptable that an AV should prevent local music streaming from our own servers. The workaround stops us having to take any immediate action but it doesn’t help us have confidence in Avast (especially annoying since, apart from this problem, AV 2014 looks like a good update)
So, is there anyway of persuading Avast to take a look at this problem or can anyone suggest a fix which doesn’t require the above workaround?
PS: I can confirm that my version of AV is running the patched aswstm.sys and aswstm.sys.sum files which Lukas referred to in his pinned ‘Webshield download issues’ thread (although, since this referred to download probs, I’m not really surprised that it didn’t do anything to solve this problem!)