Web shield

General Topics
1

Howdy there! There are only 5 providers running on my Avast 4.7 Home Edition. Outlook/Exchange and Web shield say they are “waiting for a subsystem to start”. I don’t care about outlook. I run Windows XP Pro and run Comodo Firewall Pro. On Comodo under application monitor, everything listed for Avast (ashmaisv.exe, ashwebsv.exe, and avas.setup) are all listed as allow. When i click on each one seperatly, I marked “skip parent check”. When i click on "apply following ciiteria: action-allow, protocol-tcp or udp, direction-in/out). When i click on “allow all activities for this application” i mark “skip advanced security checks”, then close everything out and re-boot, but nothing happens, web shield still says “waiting for subsystem to start”. This happened after the last program update. It happened once before after an update, and i came to the forum here, and with the advice you gave me, i had 6 (web shield started working) providers running, but not this time. The pop 3 protocol warning also came up. Every time i boot up, warning pops up from avast saying it will not be able to protect incoming mail.

2

If you don’t have MS Outlook (not express) Terminate the Outlook/Exchange provider, the message means it is waiting for MS Outlook to start. This provider is disabled by default so it would appear that you enabled it.

I have no Idea what sub-system web shield might be waiting for as I can’t recall every seeing that in relation to the web shield. Since you also mention a pop3 alert saying it wouldn’t be able to protect, etc. this is usually associated with another AV or remnants of one or some other application also checking email.

Have (or did) you another AV installed in this system, if so what was it and how did you get rid of it ?

What other security based software do you have, anti-spyware, etc. ?

I don’t know why you would want to skip the advanced security checks or the parent check in Comodo, avast shouldn’t need that and this is a valuable part of the anti-leak function of comodo.

3

Howdy again. I have no idea what happened, but web shield is running again. I re-booted 3 times last night, but after computer being off all day, when i booted this evening, it was running, however the pop3 protocol still appears. If i remember, at one time, Norton/Synamtec was installed, but i went through all steps (un-install through control panel and sysreg). I did have problems with avast once before, went through same un-install routine, then re-installed it. For spyware, i have Spybot Search and Destroy. On another note, a couple weeks ago, when deleting a hotmail message, i did get a virus/worm that Avast stopped: VBS Malware (script)(no attachments were opened). Avast recommended moving file to chest, but when i clicked on that, warning came up that file could not be accessed. I then clicked on the delete tab. Message came up that the file(s) may be deleted on re-boot. I did that a couple times, but Avast warning kept coming up with the virus warning, but, after leaving off all night, upon booting up after work, no warning came up. Ran a thorough scan, nothing came up. It seems like the only time i have a problem is after a AVS/program update, but i think this is only the 2nd time this has happened, so it’s not everytime.

4

Both Outlook plugin and Internet Mail Provider could say that message.
I never saw it for WebShield. Anyway, WebShield is an avast! resident provider and it maybe is not just the corresponding service. If you have WebShield running and stop the service, you disable the scanning of WebShield, but you don’t turn the provider into “stopped” state (rather “waiting for a subsystem to start”).
I’m not sure, but you should check your avast services.
Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services

I suppose you have to have four avast! services:

C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashServ.exe (avast! antivirus service)
C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\aswUpdSv.exe (avast! Update Service)
C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashWebSv.exe (avast! Web Scanner service)
C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashMaiSv.exe (avast! e-Mail Scanner service)

The two first of them should be Automatic loaded and the two last Manually loaded.

5

Please, follow from step 2 if you already did step 1.

  1. Remove NAV through Add/Remove programs from Control Panel. Boot.
  2. Use Norton Removal Tool for Windows 2000/XP/Vista 2008.0.0.21.
  3. Boot.
  4. Install avast! Boot.
  5. See what you get.

Full SymNRT info:

  1. Download and save these three files to the Windows desktop:
    a) ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/linked_files/tsgen/MSIFIX.bat
    b) ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/linked_files/tsgen/SymNRT.exe
    c) ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/linked_files/tsgen/SYMMSICLEANUP.reg

  2. Run the three files that you just downloaded
    a) On the Windows desktop, double-click the MSIFIX icon.
    Click Run.
    A black window may appear very briefly.
    b) On the Windows desktop, double-click the SymNRT icon.
    Click Run.
    Click Next.
    Click I accept the License Agreement, and click Next.
    Type the letters and numbers that you see in the white box, and then click Next.
    Click Yes or OK at each prompt.
    You may need to click more than once. Your computer may be restarted for you more than once.
    You may be asked to repeat some steps after the computer restarts.
    c) On the Windows desktop, double-click the SYMMSICLEANUP icon.
    Click Run, and then click Yes.
    Click OK.

  3. Boot.

Maybe you should use avast scanning at boot time.