On occasion, I’m noticing that connections to the POP3 server seem to be time out when I open up Outlook Express. It’s happened before, but since the recent upgrade, at least half the time I open Outlook Express to check my e-mail, I get time out failures. The Internet Mail shield is set to scan inbound and outbound mail, with a redirect for POP3 to Port 110.
I’ve tried all kinds of ipconfig commands. I’ve released and renewed the adapters, flushed the dns, etc. I have noticed that recently more System:8 processes seem to be running in the 3000 port area (all the remote addresses are 0.0.0.0 except for the ones that seem to be associated with ashmaisv.exe), and that four instances of ashmaisv.exe are showing up in my IP viewing program at the same time. using TCP protocols and local ports numbered in the 2700 area.
I’m running Zone Alarm and using a Windows 2000 Pro OS.
Any reasons for the numerous System 8 processes and mail server problems? How can I tell if the mail is being redirected to Port 110? A netstat -an command won’t show it.
avast reported that changes were made to the Internet Mail provider in the 4.7 release and intended to reduce the timeout issues previously reported in the forum (and - given the reduced reports here it seems to be working).
So a few questions.
Can you give us some more details of the timeout messages you are seeing?
Have you tried using the timeout slider in for this account in OE to increase the timeout setting?
In the Internet Mail scanner if you click “Customize” and then the Advanced tab is the box “Timeout for Internet communication (s)” checked or unchecked?
As far as I know there is no utility that will show the intercept that avast places for the calls to port 110. Remember that this has nothing to do with the ports on your system. What avast is intercepting is requests from your system to port 110 on mail servers out on the Internet. Those calls are redirected to an internal port on your system (which is what localhost means) 12110 where ashMiaSv.exe is waiting to take control of them so that it can monitor and scan the mail flow.
If the Internet Mail scanner is intercepting your incoming mail you will see the subject line appear in the “Last Scanned” line of the scanner and the count of messages scanned will be increasing.
I assume that you have given permanent permission for ashMaiSv.exe to have outbound access in ZoneAlarm since it will be ashMaiSv.exe that is really accessing your mail server rather than OE when avast is scanning your mail.
First off, I just noticed in my process explorer that a file called avast.setup has been running since the computer booted up 15 hours ago! I can’t seem to terminate the process, nor manually update.
I’m going to reboot, see if the avast.setup file remains active for a long period, then try your suggestions and report back here.
I’ve read in a post here dated April 26th that avast.setup can hang, and that one should remove all the Zone Alarm references to Avast, which I just did. This way, ZA can ask for permissions again for all the shields and .exe files.
Have you tried using the timeout slider in for this account in OE to increase the timeout setting?
Thanks for the tip. I just extended the timeout period using the slider.
In the Internet Mail scanner if you click “Customize” and then the Advanced tab is the box “Timeout for Internet communication (s)” checked or unchecked?
The timeout box is not checked. I also have my Heuristics set to medium.
I just rebooted, and was able to update. The avast.setup file is no longer listed in my Process Explorer, however I still do see four instances of ashmaisv.exe in my IP internet viewer. I have several e-mail addresses in Outlook Express using different providers, so could that be the reason?
What’s interesting is that after deleting all Avast references in Zone Alarm before rebooting, after rebooting and giving the program permission when asked by Zone Alarm, I still found references to old versions of ashmaisv.exe. The only thing I can say is that whenever there is a program upgrade (or any problem whatsoever with mail or upgrading), the first thing to do is to remove all Avast references in Zone Alarm before rebooting.
Last year, I downloaded a program from Excessive Software called Avast External Control. Is it still useful?
Could it be causing any problems? It’s a nice little program for scheduling boot-time scans and some other things.
Well the avast.setup is the avast update process and should only be live during update so there would appear to be something wrong there.
The avast.setup file is only created during the update process, so I’m not sure if your firewall ZA is blocking avast.setup it may not have this effect, so it would be worth checking. If and update is available and the content of avast.setup changes ZA should correctly challenge for permission if you incorrectly denied access there would be no update.
however I still do see four instances of ashmaisv.exe in my IP internet viewer
avast's ashMaiSv.exe monitors the email ports 25, 110, 119, 143 so you may well see multiple ports or as you suggest the different accounts, but I don't think OE does multiple account downloads, rather serial access to each account.
In my firewall Outpost pro, I see four open ports (localhost loopback) for ashMaiSv.exe, 12025, 12110, 12119 and 12143. The same with TCPview, see image.
I don’t think avast! External Control (AEC), which is still useful provided you keep it up to date, has anything to do with with the problem you mentioned.
Four instances of what are you seeing in the IP viewer - I would assume, that you are seeing four instances of open socket, or we might also say, that the process ashMaisv.exe has four sockets (connected or listening). DavidR has already mentioned that. Not for the first time I see this confusion on this forum …
Hmm, I don’t know if this is how proper firewall should work, despite that ZA remains to be fairly popular…
I have been using ZA Free for many years and have never had this happen … the re-occurrence of old entries that have been deleted. I do not know how that would happen. Are you sure you deleted all the old entries before rebooting? ???
while I have not experienced this condition myself I always work on the assumption that my experience does not represent everyone. I have read far too many reports of ZA failing to remember what it was told … that’s why I tend to suggest that when this happens folks go in and delete the old program approvals and let ZA ask for them again. And … all too often this seems to resolve their problem …
Well, that’s why I asked if I was sure he had deleted all the old entries before rebooting. Once deleted, the old entries should not have reappeared after rebooting.
What's interesting is that after deleting all Avast references in Zone Alarm before rebooting, after rebooting and giving the program permission when asked by Zone Alarm, I still found references to old versions of ashmaisv.exe.