Ok, Rej, thanks, I’ll prepare a special instrumented version of WebShield that will enable us to create somewhat more detailed logs. I’ll post the download link and instructions as soon as it is ready.
Cheers,
Lukas.
Welcome.
Great! 
You’re welcome of course 
Helps me as much as it does you/Alwil + other users.
I’ll check back more often to make sure I don’t delay you too much. (got plenty of time on my hands so I’ll be available for as many tests as needs to be done).
and thanks for the welcome joaopr
Cheers too,
Rej
In the meantime, I’ve decided to try to leave webshield on (on Vista) and encountered another problem – a problem that might be related to the delays though.
whenever I try to open this page
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20042244/
…4 out of 5 times, after what seems like the full page has loaded, I get an Internet Explorer error that says…
'Internet Explorer could not open this page… (see attached *.jpg)
then, after pressing OK, I get the ‘page cannot be displayed’ page.
Not sure if this helps, but I don’t want to pass up anything in case it might prove useful.
Rej
P.S. I don’t get this error with FF but then again, I use NoScript and AdBlock, so in effect, lessening the stuff to be loaded… and I assume the handshaking related to those.
I’ve discovered another issue with WebShield… on Windows XP this time (SP2) — will need to test Vista to see if the same thing occurs… I’ll report on this later on.
This issue has been happening to me for a good 2 weeks now (I think it’s before the 1029 version altho I’m not sure).
To test I have been doing is to download this file from the microsoft servers 10 times without WebShield…
(good thing I have no limits on downloads with my current ISP package
and once I activate WebShield, 9 out of 10 times, the download will stop … just stop with the included download screen just staying there, its icon still animating, but nothing else changing… that means the ‘Estimated time left’ stays the same, the ‘transfer rate’ stays the same etc… I’ve left the last one open for 5 minutes and no changes… it just stays there.
Note that this happens only when I have webshield activated OR on pause… if WebShield is terminated, the downloads never ‘freeze’.
btw, since I thought that this was a problem with my ISP (had called them a few times about it without them seeing any issues with my signals), and that when a download freezes, I can cancel and restart it and since it restarts where it left off, it was something I could live with.
But realizing that it’s (well, I think it is based on my tests) a Webshield issue since it doesn’t happen with it off (terminated), well, thought you should know aobut it
Also, the downloads never stop at the same spot (advantage of testing same file over and over).
Now, I’m not sure you wanted this new issue on a new thread or on this thread, so let me know and I’ll report it on a new thread if required.
Sorry to be the bringer of ‘bad’ news but hey, the more bugs fixed, the better it becomes ;D
Regards…
Rej
P.S. Forgot to mention that I tried to log, but when I activate the log, it reports nothing while downloading the file so I thought you wouldn’t need one, but if you do, let me know and I’ll redo the test with log on and send you the results.
P.P.S. Also, this happens wether I use IE7 or Firefox.
Rej gone to test on Vista
I’ve done the tests on Vista and the downloads never freeze, but they always stop at around 18MB (out of 53MB) for a few seconds while I see the ‘a’ icon turning, then it always resumes without problems. – if WebShield isn’t active, then the stoppage at 18mb does not occur. I consider this normal.
Hi Lukor,
First the apology :-[ – I mentionned earlier (in a previous post) that adding a time stamp might help… well I must have been asleep the last time I checked, because I realized you already had time stamps in the logs… so sorry about that 
Since I realized that there were time stamps, I redid the logs which I will include here so you can see the delays I’m referring to in these posts… I include both the WinXP and Vista logs.
In both instances, I did the exact same tests. I started with Google.ca, then went to my performance test page, did the test twice, then returned to google.ca. Last part of the test is opening the main MSNBC.com page (takes a log longer on Vista)
One thing to note is that on my second performance test on Windows XP, the image loading frooze, so I kept it in the log in case you might see something I missed (it’s the same problem as the downloads I mentionned in the previous post – at least this time I was able to log it).
So here are the logs… hope they can help.
I’m going to wait for your exec for the next tests…
So until then…
Regards…
Rej
P.S. since I thought you needed both the .log and .ws files I zipped them, but got stopped since the forum doesn’t allow .zip files… I just added .log to the names but they are still zipped
Hi,
can please check this file:
http://public.avast.com/~rypacek/ashWebSv.zip
It is a zipped webshield service executable (ashWebSv.exe). Unpack it to the avast folder (C:\program files\alwil software\avast4) -WebShield must be terminated during the replacement.
It should create more detailed log in C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA\Log\ashwebsv.dbg. Please send me the file and hopefully something will come out. (the file is accessible again only when WebShield is terminated).
Avast will automatically replace this patched service with the original one during reboot - so please be aware that the patched version will disappear automatically 
Hi,
Ok, Downloaded, Scanned ( ) and noted (about patch replacing it, how to install etc).
I’ll send you the logs with the same activities I did with the last ones (see previous post).
Rej
hello,
I register me, because I read this tread and I have the same problem. My Internet is very slow. I also try another virus protection program. But it make no difference. When I quit Avast, the Internet has full speed. Under XP I have never ever any problems. I hope it can fixed. I don´t like to surf without any protection.
Hi,
Here we go… logs included. Not zipped this time… just the .log files.
Same activities as previously (hope you read my previous 2-3 messages but in case you didn’t…)
- Open with Google.ca
- goto http://performance.toast.net/
- run test twice, first time = 4.4 seconds, second time = 1.4 seconds (every and I mean every time)
- go back to google.ca
- open main page of MSNBC.com which was http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3053415/ at the time.
- Terminate WebShield to get logs.
Did this on both WinXP and Vista to demonstrate the delays experienced in Vista.
Hope this helps… if not, let me know if you need other tests/pages etc.
Thx for the test exe btw.
Regards…
Rej
P.S. after checking the logs time stamps, the biggest difference I could notice that doesn’t require user input start with the first MSNBC.com link – that’s when I click to get to the main page, and once it’s loaded, I terminate webshield to get the log… on Xp it’s 12 seconds to load the entire page (with adds etc) while it takes 43 seconds on vista.
Note that my download speeds (when they don’t freeze on Xp) are the same on both Vista and Xp (~ 1 MBytes/s)
Hello Rej,
Thanks for the testing and for the logs. Unfortunately I am still trying to dig some gold out of them, without much luck though.
As you can see yourself, the timeline in the log goes pretty smoothly - no 3 seconds delays anywhere. We have only the per-second precision, this can be increased if needed, but currently I can say it seems to me there is no problem captured in the log.
The only gap I’ve found is between the connections. You can look it up by yourself. Search for the first occurrence of: 2007-7-31 16:29:48
You can see:
2007-7-31 16:29:48,Created
2007-7-31 16:29:48,connection 015D9368 of 5 (to clnt: 5) from 127.0.0.1:12080 to 127.0.0.1:49172
2007-7-31 16:29:48,Server: connection accepted.
This is the point where new connection is accepted by WebShield -that means WebShield was idle and waited in the accept( ) winsock call.
As you can see, the last line before this one is:
2007-7-31 16:29:45,Thread Main 11 is waiting, total 11, 10 threads waiting.
This means, all 10 threads are idle and have nothing to do (the 11th thread is reserved for other tasks, such as VPS updates etc.).
Even one line before, you can see that the same second the last non-idle thread finished it’s duties and became idle as well:
2007-7-31 16:29:45,Thread Main 4 is waiting, total 11, 9 threads waiting.
The 3 seconds gap is here, between the lines:
2007-7-31 16:29:45,Thread Main 11 is waiting, total 11, 10 threads waiting.
and
2007-7-31 16:29:48,Created
During the time WebShield is completely idle, doing nothing, just waiting for some connection to arrive.
Strange indeed.
- Do you use any 3rd party firewall on Vista?
- Have you tried to disable port redirection in WebShield - e.g. deleting the number “80” the the “Http redirected ports” line in WebShield config? Does this helps (yes I now, no your browser does not goes through WebShield, even though it is still running).
- What happens when you enable HTTP proxy in the browser (still with Redirect disabled in WebShield) and configure it to be localhost, port 12080. Is the 3 seconds lag still there?
Thanks for now, hopefully we will find something.
Cheers,
Lukas.
Hi Luktor,
Sure thing, and ready to do more testing should you require it… I actually intend to do more to provide you with an easier way to find the delay. I’ll check into this today (2:00pm here so it must be late where you are… givine me plenty of time to work on this).
I’ll verify the steps you mentionned and let you know what I think.
As for the firewalls I use, I was using Zonealarm home edition until today … I woke up to find out it had crashed during the night (I do P2P) so I switched to a much more robust Comodo Firewall Pro on XP and will do the same on Vista.
If I notice any differences I’ll let you know.
I will also try the redirection of port 80, proxy and test those and report back to you asap
Thanks for your continued interest in this… hope we’ll find a solution to this eventually (gotta… since there is something going on… just well hidden from what I can see on machine that do NOT exhibit the symptoms.
In any case, I’ll be available as long as you require me to be in order to fix this and the download issue with WinXP (mentionned in a previous post in this thread).
Regards…
Rej
P.S. I noticed that the time stamps aren’t part of the *.dbg files I sent you… so I’m assuming they didn’t reveal anything either :-\
Hi Luktor,
I’m trying to find any logs from my Vista config that would contain the date/hours mentionned in your log and could not find any… I don’t remember touching vista after around 3:00PM ET canada time so I don’t know where I could have collected data that would show 17:xx time on the 31st .
Were you using one of my logs? if so, can you send it to me (I might have deleted it by mistake without realizing I’d need it again to check).
Both of my *dbg logs were for the 31st but they were done at around 12:30ish PM (not 17:30ish)
What I’ll do in the meantime is recheck the previous log I current have and see if I can’t find something relevant.
Cheers…
Rej
I am referring to the file AshWebSv.dbg (size: 3335090, modified 31/07/2007, 12:34:38), from your zip file AshWebSv-Vista.zip (size: 186623), line: 2432.
Lukas
Hello again,
so i think i have a solution. I don´t use a firewall. I have Zone Labs. I reinstall it. And than speed came out ;). I make some more test!
wow thanks for the quick reply… I’ll check it out and report back.
btw, found the lines. was checking for 16:48, not 16:29:48 … my bad :
be back with some useful infos hopefully.
Rej
HI Luktor,
While I’m about to switch to Vista to replace ZoneAlarm to Comodo Pro (which will constitute another test at the same time), I’d like to refer you to this…
find those line in the log…
2007-7-31 16:34:1,Thread Main 10 is waiting, total 11, 10 threads waiting.
2007-7-31 16:34:4,Created
Notice the 3 seconds delay that seems to NOT come from Webshield btw. What’s interesting about this is that I didn’t do anything while this was happening (this part is when I’m loading the MSNBC.com page, so I’m just waiting for the page to complete loading.
So something is causing that 3 seconds delay. Something that (checking on the WinXP log) doesn’t happen under WinXP.
This is the WinXP part of the same log activity…
2007-7-31 16:17:33,Thread Main 5 is waiting, total 11, 10 threads waiting.
2007-7-31 16:17:33,Created
Slightly different but as you can see, 0 delay between the 2… so something is causing this delay… just not sure what it is…
I’m now switching to Vista to do an intense set of tests (including the ones you mentionned) and I’ll report back to you.
Cheers…
Rej
Hi Luktor,
← bonk bonk bonk (sound of my head hitting my desk)
Problem found by Connecter … congrats Connecter!
I removed Zonealarm completly (uninstalled it) and the speed issue is gone!!!
I had tested it before my disabling it only and the speed issue hadn’t changed so I assumed that it wan’t ZoneAlarm but now that I’ve uninstalled it and restarted my PC, speeds are the same as in WinXP so it looks like ZoneAlarm has some sort of bug with Vista that it doesn’t have with XP.
I’m sooooo sorry to have had you spend time on this when it wasn’t a WebShield issue at all. Truly Sorry about that Luktor. 
I still wish to thank you and all your team for making us feel like our opinion matter and taking our suggestions seriously. This in my eye, makes a company and even though I was an Avast fan before, I’m even more so now with the kind of service I’m seeing – even for those that can’t afford the pro edition and use the Home/Free edition!
Congrats to you and all your team and I sincerely wish you (team/Alwil) a long and succesful life!
Regards,
Rej
P.S. I’ll go back to XP and check if the downloads are fixed now that I removed ZoneAlarm… I’ll let you know.
P.P.S. bah, Comodo Pro isn’t Vista ready yet (it’s really a great Firewall – first in many reviews as being the best, even better than the commercial ones out there… anyone can point me toward a good firewall other than ZoneAlarm? Thx in advance).
Hi Luktor,
Result of tests after reinstalling ZoneAlarm on Vista.
Unlike Connecter, my speed reverted back to the same as before (delays of 3 seconds on each handshake).
So I tried the tests you mentionned earlier.
- Remove the redirect of port 80
— This removed all the delays… it’s as if I had terminated WebShield. All speeds normal.
- I then tried to set the proxy to 127.0.0.1, port 12080
— This is a bit weirder… the Internet became sluggish, (even with no redirect of port 80). My speed tests were normal, but it takes me a very long time to connect to any pages. Seems similar but it’s not the same issue (if an issue at all).
btw, both tests above were done with ZoneAlarm reinstalled.
– I will remove zonealarm and try to find a better Firewall until Comodo becomes Vista ready.
Good news seems to be that WebShield isn’t to blame here although there does seems to be a conflict that doesn’t exist in WinXP – I’ll post that info on ZoneLabs forums but from my experience, it won’t get checked at for a good while. Their service isn’t anything like Alwil service… yours is way better
– Download tests on WinXP coming up soon to a computer screen near you…
Regards…
Rej
Jear! Great! Good that it work by your pc too.
Freeware firewalls which you can use with vista aren´t very often to find. When you found something good please wride down.