Stopping/re-starting the Firewall is not helpful.
I never tried the Repair option.
Try this:
Menu > Settings > General > Troubleshooting
Click Add/Modify Components
UNCHECK Firewall
Click Change button
I believe you will then have to restart the computer
When you reboot, Avast will no longer have the firewall component installed. You will not see it in Protection or in Settings. And - your Internet access should now work, because nothing will be blocked.
If your Internet still doesn’t work, it’s probably not the fault of Avast. You’d probably have to uninstall Avast completely to test that though.
Now, go back to the same settings screen and Add the Firewall back.
You may have to restart Windows, I don’t remember.
At this point you’ll have to set up the Firewall - set the network to Private and let it rescan. If you have any custom rules or preferences, you’d need to set them up again.
@DavidR, I think you might have confused things with your Edit, “diluting” or distracting from your suggestion that the OP try the fix that worked for me.
I don’t know what the Micro Update is or was that you referred to, but I’m on 20.2.2401 (build 20.2.4.5130.566), release date April 1, 2020 12:55 AM, and it says it is “up to date.” “Check for updates” finds nothing new. The firewall in this release is broken - probably their update left some incompatible elements behind, and removing/adding it back forces in a compatible firewall component.
Not sure if I diluted your suggestion, having given your posts location, Reply #12.
Micro Updates are fixes that generally don’t need a full blown program update and in general restarting should trigger it. So first I would have try that (if I had the Avast Firewall) to see if it worked, otherwise move on to the more complex step.
“Edit” implies to me the new content overrides the prior. But I can see your point too. I wasn’t sure why my idea wasn’t tried, but perhaps people don’t post when fixes work for them.
The EDIT was because I saw the post by an Avast Team member and quoted it, I wanted to give this further information without creating another post in isolation.
The chances that anyone having this problem didn’t reboot their system seems low to me. I probably rebooted a half dozen times. At first I thought the problem was that Parallels lost connectivity to the Mac, so I also rebooted the Mac multiple times and then the Windows VM. If there is a micro update at Windows VM boot time, it doesn’t fix the problems described in this thread. It was on a whim that I finally removed the firewall component.
What you are implying is that a person rebooted only once, after they uninstalled the firewall. That’s possible… seems unlikely but possible.
Also, the people posting here including me observed numerous bugs in turning the firewall on or off. On some screens it could not only not be turned on (for instance, the Alerts screen which always said it was off regardless of Settings), but also when they tried to turn it on it reported “Firewall not available.” So, turning it on and off, which everyone tried, is a futile endevaor.
Anyway, that’s the situation in this thread. Other threads are reporting other problems, like rules not being learned or being learned and then forgotten.
But - that said, I’m just frustrated, and actually do appreciate the efforts by several of you to offer suggestions! You don’t have to do so, so thank you for chiming in.
Nobody is distributed at the same time, so it is difficult to draw obvious conclusions for universal solutions.
Moreover, for the last few days I have not seen any more topics saying that people are encountering the problem of internet access.
We have moved on to the “ask” problem.
Maybe yesterday’s update was made for this problem?
I have just put the parameters back on “ask”, I’ll keep you informed if the problem is still present or not.
edit:No, the update didn’t change anything, there are still tons of requests for the same applications.
I have restarted my system since last post (#31) about 100 times…
After each start or deep sleep/hibernate avast desktop firewall is blocking network connection and I also have to allow or disallow every rule again…
When my PC, for a very short time, can connect to my internet network on secure browser I can’t open any website because “The firewall are blocking internet”; but on Firefox I can open some webistes… what a low level by Avast, very disappointed.
Also in the interim period have you restarted your system, complete shutdown followed by a restart ?
This can have a number of effects:
For example, I have been waiting for a recent version number and build number update plus an update to the UI (user interface). I got this today, version and build number and UI version number in my signature below my posts.
Are yours the same as mine ?
Also , Have you set your firewall to “auto decision” rather than “ask” (already waiting a fix for this issue)?
I noticed that when it was set to “ask”, the internet connection or browsers was sometimes blocked.
svchost needs to be allowed , and this is not always requested or requested late.
Sleep or hibernate states won’t help anything because Windows simply freezes in place and then resumes from the same state.
What do you mean “I also have to allow or disallow every rule again…” After you modify your rules, does the firewall start to work properly?
If that is the case, then it sounds like your problem may be that Avast is not retaining rules. Or - perhaps Avast is re-ordering your rules putting Block rules on top.
That is what happened to me - after getting the Firewall component added back, and entering my application rules, Avast kept messing up the application rule order, always forcing Block rules to the top.
I kept trying to re-order them using Move Up and Move Down, and guess I eventually got lucky with it, as they finally stayed in the right order. Once they were in the right order, things worked properly for me.
(But I was only able to get that far by removing and then adding back the Firewall component - until then, I wasn’t able to even access the rules. So - I had two problems. At first a complete breakdown of the Firewall, and after resolving that, the problems with how Avast manages rule ordering.)