the only way i can get vuze to work is to disable the avast firewall:

i tried firewall->configure->Azureus->packet rules and opened all incoming and outgoing ports for all protocols. still wouldn’t allow vuze to connect to a local loopback socket.

i am running:
avast 2014.9.0.2008
windows 7
Java 1.7.0_45
vuze V5.1.0.0/4 az3

avast is getting increasingly in my way these days.