Unusual Hotmail issue

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

So we have some users complaining that they can’t access their Hotmail accounts (big deal, get back to work you wage slaves!).

Here’s what we discovered.

After signing in to the Hotmail session, we are presented with a blank screen and the word “Done” in the status bar. Disabling the NETWORK (yes network, not web) service allows the user to get straight in. However…if we leave the service running and simply hit F5 to refresh the page…it goes in too.

So it appears that Avast is causing the secured page to timeout(?) That’s our best guess.
Can anyone suggest a way to lenghten the timeouts for this service or is it a case of put up and shut up?

Sincerly

Nick

P.S Big wave to Ondrej and his lads (and lassess).

2

Which is the operational system?
If you disable WebShield, will the page timeout?
Which firewall does the user have?

3

Apologies for the delay in replying, we’re moving offices and it’s a bit busy.

Which is the operational system? - Windows XP Pro
If you disable WebShield, will the page timeout? - Same result, a blank page with DONE in the status bar.
Which firewall does the user have? - No firewalls running on users PC. Our network is secured by a Cisco Pix firewall.

4

So the scanning by WebShield should be automatic and transparent.

What makes me think that the problem is not avast related…

Well, does ashWebSv.exe is allowed to connect into the firewall?
Does this happen with all browsers?

5
What makes me think that the problem is not avast related...
Evidence to the contrary, disabling avast functions removes the problem as stated earlier.
Well, does ashWebSv.exe is allowed to connect into the firewall?
Not sure what you mean here.
Does this happen with all browsers?
All 2500 of them? Gimme a sec I'll go and check them all. ;) Joking aside, ever one I've tried it on has the same result.

I’m not overly concerned about this since anyone who does moan about it is placated by us telling them to hit F5, and as far as I’m concerned the people that moan about it are obviously spending too much time messing about with hotmail and not doing any actual work. If I had my way I’d block the bloody hotmail and yahoo mail sites!

6

I can just guess that the firewall or any other security program is avoiding the correctly work of WebShield.
Are you using a proxy or any annonimizer tool?

It could have been a browser problem indeed…
It’s not being easy to guess or help you…
Maybe you need to post a WebShield log.

Last tentative, does this occur only with hotmail or other pages bring the same trouble?

7

Yahoo mail does it too.
I’ve checked out PIX firewall issues, and there was one but not with our version of PIX.

Knowing our PIX firewall, it could possibly be that.

As I said, not a major issue, so never mind. However, if anyone else is experiencing the same, drop me a line. Maybe we can establish a commonality.

8

Hi Nick,

how’s it going? I hope you’re still obeying your master ;D

This is indeed a very extraordinary problem and I’d like to find out more about it.
To start, are you absolutely positively sure that the issue is directly related to the NETWORK SHIELD? It just sounds too improbable (especially if the issue is not accompanied by a Network Shield popup in the bottom-right corner of the screen).

Thanks
Vlk

9

Woah! I had forgotten about this posting, time for an update.

The problem still persistss but since we have some other odd problems accessing other websites, we’ve been investigating our PIX firewall.

It’s been a long investigation, hindered by poor lines of cummunication and half a world away supoort, but I’ll let you know whether this resolves these issues.