The download of a 750 KB mail (e.g.) takes about 3 minutes (56k-modem), resulting in the appearance of 16 of those lines. They seem to be generated by Avast!. I can’t observe any timeout - no corresponding pop up and no failure is seen. All mails are transferred correctly (completely), so in my opinion the timeout messages in the mail headers don’t make any sense and I’d like to avoid them.
Increasing the timeout-value in Thunderbird as well as in Avast! didn’t solve the problem, nor did pausing the “Resident Internet Mail Provider”. Even if Avast! was set to not scanning inbound messages, the TimeOut-lines appeared (see code above).
What can I do?
Thanks and regards, Sunrise
Win98SE
Mozilla Thunderbird Version 1.5.0.2 (20060308)
Avast! Version 4.7.827 Home Edition (but it was already the same with Avast! 4.6)
That is weird, I can’t imagine why these x-x: TimeOut lines would appear avast as far as I’m aware doesn’t put them there and I can’t see any purpose or function they would achieve or who is responsible for putting them there.
How far have you extended the Timeout duration in thunderbird ?
Even if Avast! was set to not scanning inbound messages, the TimeOut-lines appeared (see code above).
This confirms what I would have thought avast isn't writing the timeout lines and doesn't appear to be involved in the timeouts. So if avast isn't at fault it could be a poor dial-up connection or an issue with your ISP's mail servers. I'm also on dial-up using OE but I don't have any problem downloading large emails/attachments.
What is your usual connection speed ?
Mine is usually 49.2 Kbps to 50.6 Kbps (best) so for me a 1MB download takes just under 4 minutes. At times that time is greater even if the connection speed is the same as there are more people sharing that bandwidth, etc. (contention rate, the number sharing the same connection).
Is this the same for all email accounts or just one ?
What are your file downloads like ?
In Thunderbird as well as in Avast!, I set the timeout to 600 seconds. That should be more than enough, but is there a timeout at all? As I mentioned, with the mail transmission everything seems to be OK (as it is with other downloads), only these timeout lines are irritating.
DavidR, my typical connection speed is about the same as yours (750 KB in 3 minutes) and the effect is the same for all email accounts at different providers.
What me let suspect Avast! is that when having it shut off completely, there are no such lines. Thunderbird can’t be responsible either, because meanwhile it turned out that with OE it’s the same mystery.
Just checking that you are changing the Thunderbird timeout using Tools > Options > Advanced tab … yes? You should not be using any prefs override that was advised here and in other places for the older versions of Thunderbird.
I ask because you say the timeouts occur for messages bigger than about 200K.
The default timeout with Tbird 1.5 is 60 seconds, about your message limit at which Thunderbird is inserting the X-x: Timeout lines (yes it is Thunderbird).
The “cause” is still likely to be avast since avast basically caches the whole message so that it can decode any attachments and scan them before passing the message on to Thunderbird rapidly inside your system. When avast is turned off Thunderbird is seeing the message coming in steadily block by block and there is no timeout triggered.
Yes, that’s what I did. You mean it isn’t working? It is. In earlyer Tbird versions I never touched this option. So there shouldn’t be any remanents in the profile. When decreasing the value to 6 seconds, I get a pop up saying “Timeout …” - as it should be.
How can one interprete the facts that OE in combination with Avast! shows she same behavior and that without Avast! everything is OK?
I asked you to confirm that you are using the correct way to change the timeout in Thunderbird 1.5 … you did … thank you.
I did not even suggest that this method did not work … I just wanted to know that you were not using an older method that no longer works.
avast does not interest itself in which email client you are using. avast just intercepts the calls of all POP3 clients to port 110. That’s why the explanation of how avast works in scanning the incoming mail (that I gave you above) is the same for Thunderbird and for OE.
It might prove useful in this case to create, for a while, a more detailed log in avast of your mail connections.
You can get the mailscanner to log your connections by editing the avast4.ini file (in Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA folder).
In the section headed:
[MailScanner]
add the line:
Log=20
and save the updated file.
The log will be in Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA\log\ashmaisv.log
Please try to read in a large email attachment that typically causes you problems.
If you are then willing to share the log … please first obscure any personally identifiable information in it … we shall have a better chance of understanding what may be contributing to the timeout condition.
Avast sends these lines to a mail client when a mail message is downloaded in order to avoid timeouts in the mail client. The mail scanner needs to download the whole mail, perform actions with it and afterwards transfer the mail to the mail client. If the lines were not sent, the mail client would not receive any data during the whole download and would complain of timeouts in the case a big mail even if there is no real network timeout.
Pausing the Internet Mail will not suppress this behavior. It skips scanning but the mail still goes through the mail scanner because the mail account in your client is redirected to avast.
I assume that this is one of your recent changes to the avast mail scanner behaviour to avoid some of the timeout isses encountered in earlier releases.
This user makes clear that this behaviour is an irritation. I thought that your intent was to leave it all up to the mail client rather than providing “fake” responses to the client.
It would seem to me that you end up pleasing nobody … the old way they get timeouts and have to increase their timer in the client (fairly simple) or this way they get all this crap in the headers and have no choice but to live with it. I suppose they do get a more responsive taskbar to make up for the header garbage. I understand that most users will not notice the extra headers since they will not be displayed but I know … you know … this is not the last we will hear of this. I am glad I have only one user I support left on dialup.
Do you plan on giving the users any choice in the matter?
BTW thanks for stepping in with the update, I was just about to set up a dialup connection on my new machine to see what had changed since my last detailed look at the mail scanner.
I don’t understand what so irritating about it. This is also nothing new, it behaves this way since avast 3. Until v4.7 users needed to increase timeout value only due to outgoing mail, because a solution like this is not possible in SMTP, we had to implement another mechanism for preventing timeouts of the client.
From v4.7 this feature is configurable in avast4.ini by inserting a line
PreventTimeout=X
where X is the time interval in seconds for sending the fake line, default is 10, a value of zero disables this feature. The fake line is sent every X seconds, but only if data is really arriving from a server. If not, the fake is not sent, so the client can measure the network timeout.
I think what Alan is annoyed about (not wanting to put words in his mouth) is that what was designed to improve things and stop the email client timeout issue still continues to function even when the Internet Mail is paused.
Pausing the Internet Mail will not suppress this behavior. It skips scanning but the mail still goes through the mail scanner because the mail account in your client is redirected to avast.
Being able to at least have the fake line interval seems reasonable only when it is widely known about and the default is one which isn’t so short, 10 seconds in dial-up terms is nothing hence the large number of fake lines and they were only downloading a 750KB email. The default timeout delay in OE is 60 seconds so why not go with that or 45 or 30 seconds to ensure the email timeout isn’t triggered.
So my thought is that this avast4.ini PreventTimeout=X function be better documented, the default duration be raised to 30 or 45 say and that when paused the fake lines are also suppressed. Perhaps we also need to rethink the fake line ‘X-x: TimeOut’ to better indicate why or who is responsible for it, I certainly couldn’t believe it was avast.
If these fake lines aren’t suppresses then the email client won’t timeout so the user might still blame avast for any issues. Or can’t figure out what the problem is
I can’t observe any timeout - no corresponding pop up and no failure is seen.
So this doesn’t help user fault finding, perhaps also what Alan is annoyed about.
DavidR, I fully agree with your suggestions. I can’t imagine that I’m the only one who had this problem, and obviously not so many find the way to this forum. So a more detailed documentation (and not so many fake lines ;)) would help much.
I doubt that you are but ignorance is bliss, no slight intended to anyone but if you don’t go looking in depth you won’t find it and how do you report that. Not many people when you add the permutations together may notice, dial-up user, large email size, check their headers, patiently sit and wait since they don’t see any timeouts or warnings, etc.