Print jobs vanish from Word and Excel Starter

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hi!

When printing from Word or Excel Starter, print jobs silently fail unless Avast! Free is uninstalled. To date, I have seen this behavior on two different computers. Both are new computers running OEM Windows 7 64-bit.

Both had a different antivirus installed by the manufacturer that was first removed through Add/Remove Programs, then the correct removal tool for each was run before Avast! was installed. In one case it was McAfee, the other Trend Micro.

Both computers have HP printer/scanners installed with the latest drivers. In each case, print jobs simply disappear. When the print command is issued, the job shows up briefly in the printer’s queue, then it’s gone. No relevant error messages are seen and Avast! does not report any blocked files.

I didn’t have much opportunity to try to discover which shield(s) caused the problem, or if it was the sandbox, on the first computer. I was instructed by the computer’s owner to replace Avast! with a competing solution as they had already tried replacing the printer with a different model and still had the same print failure.

I’ll be attempting to troubleshoot the second computer later this week. I’d like to know if there are any fixes or workarounds for this behavior, or any other advice, short of disabling or removing Avast! completely.

Both printers use USB connections.

Thanks!

2

Hello,

I realize it’s only been two days and I don’t mean to sound impatient, but I have a limited time to try to solve this. 8)

The error is happening on computers that don’t belong to me. In the first instance, the computer owner needed an immediate fix so there was no opportunity to troubleshoot. The second computer owner is willing to allow me some time to investigate, but not much.

Please respond with any advice regarding troubleshooting or workarounds. I find it hard to believe that it’s a unique situation as it happened twice on two different computers. ???

This forum is a great resource and I’m afraid I might sound impatient or demanding. That’s not my intention. :slight_smile:

It’s simply that I have a brief window of time to troubleshoot a serious glitch, so I’m asking for some attention. ;D

Based on past experience, please do not suggest that I contact I-Yogi.

Thanks for taking the time to respond!

sbcc

3

I think the reason that you got no response before is because this is a very unusual situation, and most forum members are just simple common users.

Have you tried, instead of completely uninstalling avast, just pausing the shields (from the tray icon)?

If pausing the shields would work, then maybe you can perform the same test again but pausing only one shield at a time (although, part of the shields depend on others being active too).

Then, if we can have a specific shield that may be getting in the way, we may have some workaround.

I wonder if you could set the printer pool to wait (or pause) when a new task is sent, instead of directly sending it to the printer. By this, at least you should be able to see it listed in the pool, before it “disappears”. If the task is not even listed, then the problem should not be related so much to avast but to the printer’s software / driver.

BTW, is the printer port detected in Windows as USB or as an IP port? This setting is key to find out the source of the problem.

If you test the shields on / off while sending something to the printer, please report back.

4

Thanks ady4um!

I’ll try to eliminate the shields one at a time.

If I remember correctly, the job does show up in the print queue, but silently disappears - but I will confirm that. I also recall that it is a standard USB port, not an IP address, but again I will make sure.

I appreciate your quick response and will report back with accurate information soon.

Thanks again,

sbcc

5

Got some further information.

The computer in question is NOT a USB connection, it is a TCP/IP port.

I’m going to go there next Wednesday or Thursday to look at it, so I guess it wasn’t quite as urgent as I thought. :slight_smile:

I’ll try the steps listed above and report the results.

Happy New Year!

sbcc

6

Now that makes more sense.

At least 2 areas should be considered. First, delete all firewall rules that are related to:

  • avast;
  • web browsers;
  • the printer’s software and drivers.

If the firewall is disabled, please review its rules anyway. I repeat: DELETE the relevant rules, even if the firewall is disabled.

The rules should be re-created after reboot, not manually, but setting the firewall in “learning mode” or equivalent.

The second area to be considered (only if the firewall rules part turns to be not enough to solve the problem) is avast settings. One possibility (but I can’t be sure if this is the most adequate solution) is:

Avast main GUI → settings → troubleshooting → redirect settings → “ignored addresses”. Here the IP port address could be added, but this may have some additional unwanted consequences too.

The other possibility (and probably better than the ignored addresses possibility), still as part of the avast settings area to be considered, is the web shield settings. Here you go to the web shield EXPERT settings so to add exclusions:

  • URLs to exclude: the IP port
    AND/OR
  • processes to exclude: the printer’s software / driver

You add these exclusions and save avast’s settings.

So, to summarize:
1_ delete the relevant firewall rules so the firewall can re-create them (this is a MUST) after the reboot. (All this “firewall” step is recommended after program updates too.)

2_ If step #1 was not enough, web shield exclusions, for the IP port address and/or the printer’s process.

3_ If previous steps were not enough, then use troubleshooting → redirect settings → ignored addresses.

I hope I was clear enough, but if not, ask again. In any case, please report back the results.