System Troubles with Shields

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I’m having some trouble with my computer & Avast at the moment.

I found after a recent update & reboot of Avast that I could not open any programs on my computer. After rolling back Avast everything seemed to be working perfectly again until the next reboot (Today). Instead of reinstalling Avast I simply disabled it and found everything instantly started working perfectly again, so I’ve narrowed down my issue to 2 of the shields and was wondering if anyone could help me figure out how to resolve the issue with Avast.

As it is, it seems that my computer wont let me load anything when the File System Shield and / or the Web Shield are enabled. Programs will appear in the task manager but will go up to about 172/176k of memory and then stop. (The program wont even get to the point where it has a taskbar)I seem to be able to open Internet Explorer(Default) and Firefox (up to date but largely unused) but they will crash when it tries to load a webpage.

Sooner or later Explorer.exe (Not Internet Explorer) will crash if I attempt to navigate any folders or webpages or my start menu. Prior to actually crashing, aside from pressing the start icon no shortcuts will respond or will open to load into 172k of memory and then die.

I have reset the shields settings to default using the option in the settings menu, but this has had no effect at all, I get the same results with having the shields on again.

I’m using Avast Free 6.0.1367 with 111214-2 Definitions. (I was running the most up to date program prior to the original lockups, but since rolling back hasn’t had any effect id guess its something else).

My computer is running
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (32bit)
6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601

In case of any potential conflicts (I’ve had it break things before): I am using ZoneAlarm Free fully updated :
ZoneAlarm Free Firewall version: 10.1.065.000
vsmon version: 10.1.065.000
Driver version: 10.0.217.000
ZoneAlarm Browser Security: 1.5.350.0
ZoneAlarm ForceField Spyware Scanner: 1.5.350.0
ZoneAlarm ForceField Anti-Phishing Database: 1.2.104.0
ZoneAlarm ForceField Spyware Sites Database: 04.155

Thanks in advance if anyone is able to help, Please tell me if you need any more information and how to retrieve it if so. I live in the UK so I will check back once in a few hours and then not until later tomorrow.

2

There appears to be be problems with ZoneAlarm firewall and the recent .1367 version of Avast.

One solution that appears to work is to delete all existing ZoneAlarm firewall rules that pertain to Avast and let ZoneAlarm create new firewall rules for them.

3

First, I would suggest a repair of Avast and REBOOT.

Can you delete the ZA rules for your web browsers and for anything related to avast? After deleting the firewall rules, they should be re-created (“learning mode” or equivalent) when avast and the web browsers try to connect.

If you try to open “about:blank” (as oppose to some link / url), is this problem also happening?

Can you reset to default the settings for IE?

I would also recommend, at least for testing purposes, to disable ZA (but in case the firewall is involved, I’m not sure if a “simple” disable of the firewall would be enough).