sending e-mails

When sending e-mails that are a bit large, ie over 250Kb, I get a message displayed " Your SMPT server has not responded for 60 seconds. Would you like to wait another 60 seconds for th srver to respond" clicking the Wait key gives another 60 seconds and so on until the e-mail is sent.

I have been testing with different size e-mails as I believed the problem was with large e-mails, ie over 1 Mb in size.

When I sent a 1.048 Mb e-mail I had the message ( while monitoring the status of the connection icon) every 60 sec at the following points, 291K, 495K, 705K, 960K, 1158K.
At this point I had a message “Potential infection detected” then the 60 sec warning at 1408K, 1625K,1860K 2110K, and 2251K when I got the Potential warning message again.

I the went looking for smaller e-mails to verify the problem, and I found that a 127K message passed OK, however a 279K message came up with the 60 sec warning. So somewhere between these 2 points is the changeover.

While I had Avast removed for the other problem I decided to test the e-mails again and found that I could send the e-mails without any problem, reinstalling Avast caused the problem to come back. I uninstalled Avast again an once again no problems sending the e-mails, reinstalling Avast brought the problem back.

Is this normal for the message to appear with long e-mails or do I have a setting that is wrong.

regards

Jorgo

Jorgo, did you try to increase both timeouts (of avast into the Advanced tab of Internet Mail provider settings and of your email account, in Properties of the account, Advanced tab too). You can set both to 600, for instance. If you’re on a DSL connection (not dial-up) it shouldn’t be necessary a so long timeout anyway…

The message “Potential infection detected” is due to your Heuristic Mail settings.
Reinstalling avast won’t solve, of course, but you can uncheck the Outbound mail scanning.

Hope this helps.

Where can I fid the internet mail provider settings, I have found Resident Protection: internet mail - advanced in the Help section but I have looked everywhere for the sections in Avast to no avail

Maybe I am missing a section

Jorgo

Hi Jorgo,
right click on the blue avast ball, then select “On-Access protection control”,
a window pops up, left click then on “Internet Mail”, left click then on “Customize” - then select the advanced tab - then you should see in the middle of the window : “Timeout for Internet communication(s):”
br
Peter

never had a problem here and never made any changes in the configuration files

This behavior is normal. Avast! can not start sending the mail until it has it whole in it’s hands and knows the message is clear from viruses. On the other hand the mail client believes that it has already finished sending and refuses to wait for such a long time for final response from avast!. Yes it is kinda annoying, but all you can do is increase the timeout in your mail client.

60 seconds is pretty long time for faster lines but on dialup you will experience this with large mails.

Jorgo, just click on my signature and everything is explained in there. just follow instructions and also, in that thread, you’ll find some screenshots… actually, you can see them if you click here (but first, read that thread from my signature):

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=8951;start=15#msg74056

:wink:

Cheers !

Thanks, I finally found the section and altered the timeout from 120 to 500 and restarted my computer.

Sent off an e-mail and once again it timed out on the 60 sec mark. Reset Avast back to 120 and changed outlook express timeout to 2 min, restarted and sent the e-mail again, this time the message appeared at 120 sec. So this is what is causing the problem, so I have set it at 5 min as this should pass 90% of my e-mails.

Thanks once again for your help, also I managed to see how to get Avast to print on the e-mails sent and rcvd.

Have a merry Christmas

Jorgo

“Reseting” as you said, timeout internet communication in avast! to 120 seconds will not make anything faster if you had that in mind. Actually, it would be much much better if you set that value at least to 300, especially 'cause it’s obvious that you’re experiencing those timeouts. Also, set that TIC value in Outlook Express to 5 minutes if you like.

I’m glad you solved it, but I’m also curious, which version of avast! are you using ? Always try to keep your program up to date, not just iAVS, but also program updates are very important. Currently, avast! is at program buil 4.5.549

In case you don’t know how to chek which version you have installed, just right-click your avast! blue ball icon in system tray, and from the list choose About avast!..
Full info will be displayed.

Using latest version og avast! is very important. Also, you have to be aware that avast! doesn’t support SSL (Secure Socket Layer) connections.

I have the latest updates to Avast Build 4.5.549, Xtreme toolkit 1.9.4.0 and skin 4.2.7.3.

I have also set both updates to automatic so I don’t have to worry about updating.

The only worry I have on this regard is one of my daughters computers as I have just installed Avast for her and when she goes back to Uni she will be connecting through the Uni network. I am not sure if she will get auto updates.

This is not a worry as when I see my computer updating I can e-mail her and she can manually update.

Once again many thanks for your help

Jorgo

Just a followup on my e-mail sending.

I decided to do a test with the timeout settings, so I set outlook express to 5 mins and Avast to 60 sec and sent a long e-mail.

I believed that with such a short timeout that I would be asked whether to keep waiting or disconnect by Avast. I hate to say it but I didn’t get any message at all which was surprising.

I knew that I wouldn’t get a message from Outlook Express because I set the timeout way infront of the actual message length

Maybe somebody else can run a test on it

Jorgo

Hi jorgo,
it’s not a surprise that Avast needs a shorter timeout for sending mails if you think how it works:

  • your mail client starts sending a mail
  • the mail must be completly received by avast
  • now the mail is send completly from the mail client and the mail client waits for a completion acknowledge
  • avast scans the mail
  • after sucessfull scanning avast sends the mail
  • the completion acknowledge is then received by avast
  • the completion acknowledge is the received by the mail client

Depending what you send it takes less or more time for avast to scan it (i.e. unpacking needs more time)

br
Peter

A friend of mine is having the same problem. She had the most up-to-date version of Avast Home (4.5.549) and a fast broadband connection. OS is WinXP Pro with SP2.
Increasing the timeouts in both Outlook Express and Avast doesn’t solve the problem.
The problem appears also with very small e-mail without attachment.
The only thing that helps is unchecking the ‘scan outgoning mail’-box in the SMPT settings.

Is she using SSL (Secure Socket Layer) connection ? Just FYI avast! doesn’t support SSL.

What is her ISP ?

No SSL.
ISP is Telenet (Belgium) witch is the same ISP I have and I don’t have any problems (with Eudora). I tried Thunderbird on her PC, same problem.

Check other security programs settings on her computer. It’s very hard to tell from here, especaily 'cause we are unable to see how everything is set on her PC.

Also, check what firewall is installed on her computer and is everything set properly. Maybe some other e-mail notification program is “fighting” with Outlook Express.

Note: new avast! 4.5 uses new mail handling methods. Mail handling is completely transparent, in other words, she needs to set her e-mail accounts as if avast! doesn’t exist. Original pop3 and smtp server names, original loggin name and password given to her by her e-mail provider.

She has Sygate installed, but that’s not the problem. The Windows firewall is disabled.
She never used a version of Avast other than 4.5.549, the settings of her e-mail-account are correct. I checked everything several times.

Like I said before, the problem is solved when she unchecks the ‘scan outgoing e-mail’-box in the Avast SMTP-settings. So, I guess this is an Avast-problem.

This is not an avast! problem, you can’t be so sure. It’s working everywhere else. You said yourself it’s working on your PC with same ISP. Where is the problem then ? Somewhere in some settings on her computer.

70% of users are using Outlook Express including myself without any single problem…

Do some searching on these forums and you’ll see that many many problems 'caused by Beta version of avast! 4.5 are solved with final 4.5 release. Everyone’s happy… where is the problem on her computer now ?

It could be that avast! installation was corrupt. It could be, why not…

Try repairing avast! installation, or even better completely uninstall avast!, reboot, and then reinstall it again. There is no other reason why she is having that problem. Avast! works perfectly with Sygate (on my machine as well), and Outlook Express as mail client.

OK I’ll try completely reinstalling Avast. I won’t be near her computer in the next couple of days, so I’ll post the results as soon as I have tried reinstalling.

I didn’t said I was sure it was an Avast-problem, I just guessed it was, because of the ‘scan outgoing e-mail’-box-thing.

Anyway, thanks for the quick replies.