Windows sounds delayed

Since updating to Avast 2015 a few weeks ago, I started noticing a delay between Windows events and the sounds that accompany them. For example, when you play Solitaire, win a game, then click the window, it pops up a question (Do you want to play again?) accompanied by a “ding” sound. After trying many things over the last week or so, I found the cause: It’s the Web Shield. If I turn it off, no sound delays. Turn it back on, sounds are delayed as much as 2 sec. I don’t see anything in the options for the Web Shield that should have ANYTHING to do with sounds, so don’t know what option is causing it.

Anybody else have this problem, and if so, were you able to fix it?

Hey mate,

I was struggling for ages with a problem I thought was my sound card. Every now and then, say once a week, videos online would have the audio delayed by a second or two. Sometimes turning my soundcard off and then on again would fix it.

Hearing your issue, it does sound very much like it could be the same issue I get from time to time - basically sound is delayed slightly behind where it normally should/would be.

If/when my problem happens again I will disable the web shield and see if it goes away. Either way, it sounds like it is the problem. Unfortunately I don’t have a solution, but I suspect the delays might be causing higher than normal DPC (deferred procedure call) latency…or should I correctly say, the delays might be indicitave of higher than normal temporary DPC latency spikes, resulting in sound delay, caused by a temporary resource blockage, perhaps by the web shield. If you want to investigate that avenue of how to reduce DPC latency just google those terms (DPC latency). I was getting unusually high DPC latency, never thought that it might be avast’s web shield.

Thanks for your insights. Hopefully someone at avast might read this and help.

The webshield has nothing to do with a game like solitaire unless you play it online.
Did you also had a browser or something open?
If not it can be you have malware that is connecting to the web.
Please follow the instructions:
https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=53253.0

Eddy, he is saying that turning off the webshield eliminates the delays.

I know it doesn’t make sense, but there is a whole other thread about something that is likely related if not the same issue. I was getting both audio crackling and audio delays (audio out of sync with video, the audio was delayed). High DPC was also occurring exacly with these two issues I was getting.

I cannot say personally that for me it is the web shield, as I didn’t have any idea that avast might be causing these problems until now, so never tried to turn it off to see… and I haven’t had any issues like this for two weeks.

But I was getting delays and glitches and high DPC when just playing an offline audio or video file. I have never had DPC issues on my other computer which is connected to the web but does not have avast or any other antivirus installed, only windows firewall is running.