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Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: gazzawazza on November 05, 2013, 07:05:08 PM

Title: email problem with Avast Free Antivirus 2014
Post by: gazzawazza on November 05, 2013, 07:05:08 PM
hi there

I sometimes get the following error message from my email client, when polling my accounts.

Platform is vista home premium 32bit and client is outlook 2002.

This has happened with the last couple of builds of Avast Free 2014.

Current version is 9.0.2007

"Task 'lineone - Sending and Receiving' reported error (0x800CCC0F) : 'The connection to the server was interrupted.  If this problem continues, contact your server administrator or Internet service provider (ISP).  The server responded: OK 3167 bytes'"

The fix is to de-activate then reactivate the mail shield OR to disable protection, poll account then reactivate mail shield (which obviously isn't good, since you're deprived of A/V mail protection).

I know there is no problem with the mailbox itself because I can successfully check it using non avast protected clients AND with avast mail protection switched off.

The other 2 mail accounts I check seem to work ok and don't exhibit same problem.

The only other pattern that I can see is that the lineone account is the only one of the 3 that ISN'T SSL.

If there are any logs I can supply, I will do so but someone will have to tell me how to it.

Thanks in advance for any assistance received.


Regards,

Gary
Title: Re: email problem with Avast Free Antivirus 2014
Post by: Pondus on November 05, 2013, 08:31:54 PM
Quote
The fix is to de-activate then reactivate the mail shield OR to disable protection, poll account then reactivate mail shield (which obviously isn't good, since you're deprived of A/V mail protection).
not necessarily, many mail servers have virus scanners ...like Gmail / Yahoo / Hotmail

have you tried avast repair option to see if that changes anything?


Title: Re: email problem with Avast Free Antivirus 2014
Post by: gazzawazza on November 06, 2013, 03:45:57 PM
@Pondus

Thanks for the reply.

I've tried a repair and will see if that helps.

The problem is intermittent though, so might take a little time to show up.


Thanks,

Gary
Title: Re: email problem with Avast Free Antivirus 2014
Post by: gazzawazza on November 08, 2013, 03:17:12 PM
Sorry but the same problem has re-occurred again.

I actually thought the avast repair had worked because things have been ok for a couple of days.

Sadly I was wrong.

Problem is intermittent but clearly tied to avast - I can access & download email headers, etc, from my lineone mailbox from non-avast protected clients.

My avast protected mail client works fine with my SSL accessed mailboxes. Only my LineOne account, which is non-SSL (and is also the default account in Outlook) gives the problem.

Interestingly, my avast-protected mail client knows how many emails are in the problematic mailbox - Outlook's Send/Receive Progress window 'looks' like it's working I.e. the progress bar works through the emails in the lineone mailbox but then doesn't receive the actual messages and outlook returns the same error as before:


"Task 'lineone - Sending and Receiving' reported error (0x800CCC0F) : 'The connection to the server was interrupted.  If this problem continues, contact your server administrator or Internet service provider (ISP).  The server responded: bOK 11312 bytes'"

Any more tips?

Any logfiles I can examine?


Thanks,

Gary
Title: Re: email problem with Avast Free Antivirus 2014
Post by: gazzawazza on November 08, 2013, 04:28:44 PM
Just to confirm, suspending avast mail shield allows emails to download to my mail client successfully.

Once this has happened, re-enabling the mail shield permits further successful access to the previously problematic mailbox.

Please can this be passed onto Avast Tech Support as a problem / bug?


Thanks,

Gary
Title: Re: email problem with Avast Free Antivirus 2014
Post by: gazzawazza on November 08, 2013, 04:45:27 PM
btw, in mail settings I did find something which sounded like a logfile (settings / active protection / mail shield / report file) but simply can't find where it's been written to.

I've checked in my OS user area and in Avast's application folder.

I've looked for any .txt or .log files, as well as any files with "email" in the title... as the report file is supposed to be called "email scans"

Any ideas?


Thanks,

Gary
Title: Re: email problem with Avast Free Antivirus 2014
Post by: gazzawazza on December 31, 2013, 12:18:35 PM
Hi there

Just to confirm, this is STILL happening with latest avast build 2014.9.0.2011.

I've just tried a repair on avast too. No change.

This is an intermittent problem but when the only sure way to get my emails through is to disable mail scanning, it's virtually pointless having avast on my system (I don't use the file and web shield much).

Note that disabling mail scanning then successfully polling my mailbox normally means that I can reactivate the mail scanner and further downloading of emails can resume.



Regards,

Gary
Title: Re: email problem with Avast Free Antivirus 2014
Post by: NoelC on December 31, 2013, 08:45:32 PM
What components do you have installed / active beyond the basic shields?

If you have the spam filter, et. al. installed, have you tried removing the Outlook Add-in?  I don't know how that could affect your eMail server connectivity, but it's just a thought.

-Noel
Title: Re: email problem with Avast Free Antivirus 2014
Post by: jwoods301 on December 31, 2013, 08:53:24 PM
btw, in mail settings I did find something which sounded like a logfile (settings / active protection / mail shield / report file) but simply can't find where it's been written to.

I've checked in my OS user area and in Avast's application folder.

I've looked for any .txt or .log files, as well as any files with "email" in the title... as the report file is supposed to be called "email scans"

Any ideas?


Thanks,

Gary

The report files are located in \All Users\Application Data\AVAST Software\Avast\report

Logs are located in All Users\Application Data\AVAST Software\Avast\log

Microsoft also has a Knowledgebase article on Outlook errors that includes the "Sending and Receiving reported error (0x800CCC0F)..." you're getting.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813514 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813514)
Title: Re: email problem with Avast Free Antivirus 2014
Post by: gazzawazza on January 02, 2014, 08:18:38 PM
What components do you have installed / active beyond the basic shields?

If you have the spam filter, et. al. installed, have you tried removing the Outlook Add-in?  I don't know how that could affect your eMail server connectivity, but it's just a thought.

-Noel

Hi Noel

thanks for the suggestion.

I have a 3rd party spam filter ("spamweed"), locally based, which has worked fine with previous avast free A/V versions. It's actually only since avast went to this new, automatic process of handling SSL / nonSSL mailboxes that these problems have arisen. I did think it used an outlook add-in but have looked and it's not listed under outlook's "add-in manager" or "COM add-ins"j.

Also, as the problem is intermittent, I know that avast and my 3rd party spam filter do co-operative / co-habit... periodically.

Interestingly, nearly all the times I have problems (I poll 3 different mailboxes per send/receive) it's with the non-SSL account. I think I've literally had probs on a couple of occasions with the SSL accounts.

Btw, my spam filter acts on all the incoming mail (i.e. manages all 3 mailboxes).


The report files are located in \All Users\Application Data\AVAST Software\Avast\report

Logs are located in All Users\Application Data\AVAST Software\Avast\log

Microsoft also has a Knowledgebase article on Outlook errors that includes the "Sending and Receiving reported error (0x800CCC0F)..." you're getting.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813514 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813514)


Hi Jwoods301

Thanks for the tips about the logs & reports. Very useful.

I've not fully reviewed the logs but would imagine that'll contain useful info for debugging.

There'll be periods when things work without a hitch and then times when things repeatedly fail (like now :( ).

Getting hugely annoyed by it.
Title: Re: email problem with Avast Free Antivirus 2014
Post by: gazzawazza on January 03, 2014, 01:46:53 PM
Have given up. Literally couldn't download any emails from my primary mailbox without disabling the mail shield, so did a full uninstall and cleanup.

Reinstalled last night and at least things are currently working. Not sure how long for though.



Gary
Title: Re: email problem with Avast Free Antivirus 2014
Post by: gazzawazza on January 04, 2014, 10:47:25 PM
Have given up. Literally couldn't download any emails from my primary mailbox without disabling the mail shield, so did a full uninstall and cleanup.

Reinstalled last night and at least things are currently working. Not sure how long for though.



Gary

The clean install worked without error until now (so a bit under 48 hours).

I can confirm that, during this period, I've received emails from the mailbox which has proven to be most troublesome.

I looked through the mail.log and nearly all the messages read "--pop mail is clean", "--SMTP mail is clean", etc, until we get to this evening and I get this error continuously:

"CreateFile(pszHead) error C:\Windows\TEMP\_avast_ 32"

This error occurs every time outlook does a send/receive.

Whether this is somehow the cause or merely a symptom of the problem, I don't know.

Any ideas?



Thanks,

Gary
Title: Re: email problem with Avast Free Antivirus 2014
Post by: hlloyge on January 05, 2014, 12:25:34 AM
I have this problem too. Avast Free 2014, recently, in last week or so, doesn't download my POP3 mails, one account in Thunderbird. Three other are IMAP accounts, and that works well. RSS feeds also work well. When I disable mail shield, I can download POP3 mails, so problem is somewhere with Avast.
I can't pinpoint what. All I get from Thunderbird is (translated from Croatian: There is an error on POP3 server. Email server xx.yy.hr responded:   ...and there is nothing there, except OK button.
It worked before, at least two weeks ago. Avast is 2014.9.0.2011. and definitions are 140103-0.
Title: Re: email problem with Avast Free Antivirus 2014
Post by: gazzawazza on January 05, 2014, 12:49:30 AM
I have this problem too. Avast Free 2014, recently, in last week or so, doesn't download my POP3 mails, one account in Thunderbird. Three other are IMAP accounts, and that works well. RSS feeds also work well. When I disable mail shield, I can download POP3 mails, so problem is somewhere with Avast.
I can't pinpoint what. All I get from Thunderbird is (translated from Croatian: There is an error on POP3 server. Email server xx.yy.hr responded:   ...and there is nothing there, except OK button.
It worked before, at least two weeks ago. Avast is 2014.9.0.2011. and definitions are 140103-0.

Hi hlloyge

have a look at the mail.log to see if anything is reported.

Depending on your OS and harddrive setup, it'll be here (vista & maybe win7):

c:\ProgramData\AVAST Software\Avast\log


Cheers,

Gary
Title: Re: email problem with Avast Free Antivirus 2014
Post by: gazzawazza on January 16, 2014, 02:31:04 PM
Have given up. Literally couldn't download any emails from my primary mailbox without disabling the mail shield, so did a full uninstall and cleanup.

Reinstalled last night and at least things are currently working. Not sure how long for though.



Gary

The clean install worked without error until now (so a bit under 48 hours).

I can confirm that, during this period, I've received emails from the mailbox which has proven to be most troublesome.

I looked through the mail.log and nearly all the messages read "--pop mail is clean", "--SMTP mail is clean", etc, until we get to this evening and I get this error continuously:

"CreateFile(pszHead) error C:\Windows\TEMP\_avast_ 32"

This error occurs every time outlook does a send/receive.

Whether this is somehow the cause or merely a symptom of the problem, I don't know.

Any ideas?



Thanks,

Gary

Just an update. Haven't had any problems with currently flagged issue for ages now (he says this very quietly, under his breath) ;)

I've had about 3 or 4 more blocks of the "CreateFile(pszHead) error C:\Windows\TEMP\_avast_ 32" error message documented in the mail.log... but haven't actually witnessed any problems with not being able to download emails.

Seems that the full uninstall and reinstall may have fixed the issue.

Please note that I tried running the avast uninstall utility too, after the uninstall, initially in safe mode (where it did nothing i.e. it ran but nothing additional happened - I was kinda expecting to see some messages about registry key deletion, etc... as most software seems to leave remnants behind)... then ran it in normal desktop mode too (despite the warning that using in safemode is better).

Not saying that this is significant in the apparent resolution of my problem but just documenting what I did.

I'm currently on 32bit vista home premium, with avast 2014.9.0.2011 and virus defs 140116-0


Cheers,

Gary
Title: Re: email problem with Avast Free Antivirus 2014
Post by: gazzawazza on January 17, 2014, 02:04:19 AM
Have given up. Literally couldn't download any emails from my primary mailbox without disabling the mail shield, so did a full uninstall and cleanup.

Reinstalled last night and at least things are currently working. Not sure how long for though.



Gary

The clean install worked without error until now (so a bit under 48 hours).

I can confirm that, during this period, I've received emails from the mailbox which has proven to be most troublesome.

I looked through the mail.log and nearly all the messages read "--pop mail is clean", "--SMTP mail is clean", etc, until we get to this evening and I get this error continuously:

"CreateFile(pszHead) error C:\Windows\TEMP\_avast_ 32"

This error occurs every time outlook does a send/receive.

Whether this is somehow the cause or merely a symptom of the problem, I don't know.

Any ideas?



Thanks,

Gary

Just an update. Haven't had any problems with currently flagged issue for ages now (he says this very quietly, under his breath) ;)

I've had about 3 or 4 more blocks of the "CreateFile(pszHead) error C:\Windows\TEMP\_avast_ 32" error message documented in the mail.log... but haven't actually witnessed any problems with not being able to download emails.

Seems that the full uninstall and reinstall may have fixed the issue.

Please note that I tried running the avast uninstall utility too, after the uninstall, initially in safe mode (where it did nothing i.e. it ran but nothing additional happened - I was kinda expecting to see some messages about registry key deletion, etc... as most software seems to leave remnants behind)... then ran it in normal desktop mode too (despite the warning that using in safemode is better).

Not saying that this is significant in the apparent resolution of my problem but just documenting what I did.

I'm currently on 32bit vista home premium, with avast 2014.9.0.2011 and virus defs 140116-0


Cheers,

Gary

Well I managed to jinx things well and truly with my last post!!!!!!

I had a re-occurence of my problem.

HOWEVER, I'm almost 100% I've worked out what the problem is and I have a workround to potentially fix the issue.

Ok... the mail.log file reports this kind of error, when I can't download waiting message from my POP3 mailbox:

"CreateFile(pszHead) error C:\Windows\TEMP\_avast_ 32"

I've realised that when I use Ccleaner to housekeep on my PC, it deletes the "_avast_" folder from the windows\temp folder.

I can force the recreation of the "_avast_" folder by getting Avast to do an update.

I'm not sure what other actions may create this folder too... but this seems to work for me. I guess another test would be to simply create a windows folder with the appropriate name in the appropriate temp folder.

Anyway, assuming I've found the problem, I hope this helps someone.

I've going to add the "_avast_" folder to the excluded list in Ccleaner and I'll see whether I get any more incidences of the ""CreateFile(pszHead) error C:\Windows\TEMP\_avast_ 32" error.


Regards,

Gary
Title: Re: email problem with Avast Free Antivirus 2014
Post by: REDACTED on March 01, 2015, 05:01:25 AM
I'm having the same problem with Avast 2015 (version 2015.10.0.2208, 07/11/14). This only started about 2 months ago... took me a few days on and off to track it down, creating other email accounts etc... wasted time. I usually try to update Avast whenever I do a full scan / disk image which is at least every month or so, and as mentioned this problem did not occur in the past, so it's possibly a flake and/or related to other updates besides version updates (?). C'monAvast, lest hear some comments about this. I may start a new thread on this.