I have been having this issue in Vista where IE7 stops working after about 5-10 minutes of use. It will just sit there as if it is loading a web page but the page never loads. I tried Firefox and it is doing the same thing. Today I isolated the problem. If I stop Web Shield, the browsers immediately begin functioning normally again.
During the problem I can still ping, use messenger, access other network resources.
When I restart the Web Shield, the provider doesnt show as running in the Avast! icon on the notification area of the taskbar. It says 2 running out of 7 even though the Web Shield should make 3.
I am using Windows Firewall. Defender is disabled. I havent specifically stopped AshWebSv.exe.
Once I restart Web Shield I seem to have no problems and even though it says only 2 providers are running, AshWebSV.exe is still in the task manager as running.
If the problem shows up again, I can try ending the process specifically and report back if you need me to.
WebShield is not only the process running.
You need to disable it into avast provider settings.
But, in fact, what we want to have is WebShield working in your computer.
Which was your antivirus before avast? Any firewall before?
I did disable it in providers. Thats when the browsers begin working. And I restarted it in the providers and so far the browser problem hasnt reoccurred.
I’ve also experienced this on XP Pro SP3 with both version 4.8.1201 and 4.8.1218 beta.
The problem does not occur consistently, but tend to happen once the PC has been running for a few hours. When it occurs, I cannot load any pages in either Firefox (happened with both versions 2 and 3) and IE7. I’ve noticed this occur more when I’ve been gaming online for a few hours - the game and voice chat connections continue to run without problem, but if I switch to the desktop and try to browse the web then any page I try times out. If I try to fetch mail when this is happening, it too fails.
The following courses of action cause the problem to go away:
(i) disabling the Web Shield; and
(ii) disabling my ethernet apadtor, then re-enabling it.
I don’t particularly like either course of action as (i) leaves vulnerabilities and (ii) causes my connections to Guild Wars and Ventrilo to disconnect.
I also have this problem. Sometimes its random and many times its after running the game F.E.A.R. online. The symptoms are firefox 3 seems to hang and cannot connect to web sites. Sometime it affects both firefox and IE7 and sometimes just firefox 3. Stopping and restarting the avast web shield will allow the browsers affected to connect. My concern is that when I hover over the avast icon it shows one less provider running even though i have restarted web shield. If I go to the On-Access Protection control panel it will say that the web shield provider is waiting for a subsystem to start. This is when I will just reboot the pc and it be fine again for a while.
I’m thinking that all of you need to provide the basic info so Tech can see if there is a common thread
was there ever a security suite or AV pre-installed on your systems or another AV?
what firewall and previous firewalls
any resident security software such as Spybot T-timer, Counterspy active protection, etc
any bit torrent, P2P etc activity
Operating Systems and all that stuff
what is running when this happens?
thanks
you can also put your games in an exclude list
let us know if that helps
Thanks. I am running the following providers (default):
Internet Mail
Internet Messaging
Network Shield
P2P Shield
Standard Shield
Web Shield
The machine came with Norton Internet Security which I disabled using MSCONFIG (two entries), but I am uncertain if I have gotten rid of all of it. The Windows Vista Security Center shows only avast! running under Malware. I am also running Zone Alarm, and Spybot S&D. ZoneAlarm is shown in the Security Center under Firewall (nothing else). I had suspected Spybot and tested without loading it but got the same result. When I discovered that I could reconnect by stopping avast!, I was running only Zone Alarm and avast! (of the three programs). I stopped Zone Alarm to no avail, and then, when I stopped avast!, I was able to reestablish the connection. Subsequently, after running into the problem, I was able to reconnect by the method described above (disabling and re-enabling avast!) with both Zone Alarm and Spybot S&D running alongside avast!.
P.S.
I cross-posted this with a post on the thread I started prior to seeing this one as I saw no other way around it.
You need to uninstall Norton not just use msconfig as that doesn’t stop the drivers loading and following add remove programs to uninstall it you would be best to also run the uninstall tool as it is a pig to remove.
Thank you! I will go through the process of uninstalling it completely. I’m not sure I really installed it as, when I received the machine, each time I booted it would pop up a prompt to get started with NIS and I always just closed the pop-up. It may have been fully pre-installed as a trial though and the pop-up was just a TOS and/or registration procedure. The only thing I may have accomplished with MSCONFIG is to prevent the pop-ups from reoccurring.
Info
BINGO
Norton yet again
(or Panda or Mcaffe or whatever)
post back and let us know how you are doing
Other posters to this thread
if you do not have the Norton/Pand/mcaffe AVG or other previous AV problem/solution id suggest starting new threads
please give all the info required in your first new post
do the previous AV uninstall -reboot- run cleanup tool for previous AV- reboot
another cleanup tool can be found on the ANTIVIR website under programs or products
reinstall Avast
update
schedule a boot scan
Did that fix it?
post back to close your part of this thread or give a link to your new thread
there is malware that also causes this behaviour
with various fixes
let’s get everyone clean
If you received it on your system, it was certainly fully installed (even as a time limited trial) or you wouldn’t have found the entries in msconfig, you should always look in add remove programs first before taking any other action.
Absolutely, I just saw the NIS directory in Program Files, it has it’s subdirectories, and it appears to have been quite completely installed. I also have the icon ('twas hidden) so I’m a little embarassed I even mentioned this part of it. I would like to be thorough in removing the program and will take a moment to study exactly how to do it a little further. Thanks for the warnings. I have not yet had the time to explore the links provided.
Previous AV on my machine was AVG 7.5 followed briefly by 8.0 plus Spybot plus Ad-aware 2007. Removed AVG via add/remove in the control panel, and made sure the Grisoft and AVG folders in Program Files and Documents and Settings are no longer there. Any other steps in making sure it’s all gone?
After installing avast I ran the boot-time scan, which found a few generics in the System Volume Information restore directories but nothing in the Windows directory. Subsequent scan show up nothing.
When I first noticed the problem, I still had Ad-aware 2007 and Spybot 1.5.2 plus Spybot-SD Resident on my system along with avast! 4.8.1201. I’ve removed Ad-aware (via their uninstall shortcut?), and am now running Spybot and its Resident at version 1.6, SUPERAntiSpyware Free and Malwarebytes’ Anti-malware. No firewall running on the machine (running one at the gateway).
With avast, I’m now running 4.8.1218 Home with the default providers and have not made any changes other then (i) disabled skins, (ii) show results of Explorer Extension scans and (ii) check for full-screen applications before showing pop-ups (as I run quite a number of games).
I tend to notice the problem after I’ve been gaming for a while e.g. over the past few weeks I’ve been running Guild Wars plus Ventrilo plus Ventrilo server running for a few hours - Guild Wars and the Ventrilo programs continue to operate fine to the internet, but the web browsers cannot retrieve anything. It’s also occurred at other times though - on a couple of occasions where I’ve run iTunes shortly after boot-up I’ve noticed that it was not downloading my podcasts, and then that my email and web were not going either. When it occurs the indications are that all processes are running normally - ashWebSv.exe is not using CPU time, and no other programs or services are hogging resources.