I have been running avast Pro (4.8.1201) with ZoneAlarm Pro on Win/XP SP2 without problems for a while. I had implemented the avast recommendation to define a local proxy on port 1208 in IE Connections. After upgrading to SP3, Microsoft Update appeared to hang, or rather, it was EXTREMELY slow to complete (literally hours). After trying various things, I found that disabling the proxy to WebShield allowed Microsoft Update to run normally.
Has anyone else seen this issue? It is reproducible - when I re-enable the proxy, Microsoft Update again appears to hang - I have not waited to see if it is slow or dead
Thanks, Norbert
The latest version is 4.8.1229 so before trying to do any fault finding it would be better to update to the latest version.
You are defining the wrong port, it should be 12080.
There is also a problem with Zone Alarm after the latest batch of windows updates and the recommendation was to install the latest version of ZA to overcome the problem.
David, the port number was a typo - I am using 12080. ZoneAlarm Pro was updated to 7.0.483.000 resolve the Internet access issue after the MS DNS patch.
I recreated the problem today with the latest avast (4.8.1229). I was watching the WebShield statistics - there were 8 calls to WebShield when MS Update started. At this point, MS Update appeared to hang. I saw one call to ZoneAlarm. About 25 minutes after MS Update started, there was a flurry of WebShield activity (24 calls) and MS Update displayed the Express/Custom panel. With the proxy to 12080 disabled, the same process took under one minute.
This problem appears to involve some sort of interaction between avast! and ZoneAlarm Pro. I re-enabled the proxy to 12080 but disabled ZoneAlarm - MS Update came up in under 1 minute. When I brought up ZoneAlarm Pro, I am back in the initial situation: 25 minute delay.
I have not seen any other Internet access problems - the only application affected appears to be MS Update. Any suggestions about how to diagnose what is happening?
Did you answer Yes to the compatibility question about ZA Pro, I assume so or e you wouldn’t need to be manually setting up the browser to use the web shield proxy.
MS Update can cause severe slowdowns as it seems to give itself very high priority, so it would be hard for the web shield to get a look in and that could contribute to any conflict for cpu resources. What was MS Update doing up it is nowhere near patch Tuesday and I’m seeing no MS Update activity at the moment.
Any conflict with ZA Pro relates to the privacy function when it is on high, I don’t know if you use this or not.
As far as trying to diagnose it, that isn’t going to be easy and the only thing I can think of is to open the Task Manager and see what process is eating all the CPU time (%).
I first noticed the problem after the SP3 upgrade when I tried to do a manual MS Update. I believe the automatic update is running, although it may be running very slowly.
I just re-created the problem - no high CPU. System Idle ranges from 90 to 97%.
Weird, it seems strange that there is no high CPU but what is effectively some sort of conflict, what is responsible is the problem. Disabling the Proxy removes one end of any conflict, but doesn’t confirm what is the true cause.
As you say you first noticed the problem ‘after’ the SP3 update.
I too have SP3, with the web shield and no problems with WU auto update (I use the notify but don’t download option). My differences are I won’t use IE (firefox is my primary browser), so don’t visit MS Update for a manual update and my Firewall is Agnitum Firewall Pro 4.0. So I can’t try and replicate your problem.
So I don’t really know what to suggest to avoid this when a WU is in progress other than pause the web shield. Hopefully one of the Alwil team will pick up on this.
