Avast WEBforum
Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: freeman3 on September 28, 2008, 10:21:06 AM
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it allways hangs when web shield is on. the firefox process become unkillable when i exit firefox. when i turned off the shield it works fine
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I've experienced this sometimes... but I could never troubleshoot it... Strange uh?
Hope some words from Lukas...
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i hope so
this happens always. i have vista, i think there was the same problem on xp and ff2
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Never seen this problem with FF2 or FF3 in XP for myself or those I support.
No reports of this for FF3 (at least yet) for those I support on Vista.
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No reports of this for FF3 (at least yet) for those I support on Vista.
Sometimes this happens when the user closes Firefox and, not that much after, try to start it again. The executable detects the program running and alerts. It's ok.
But sometimes, the firefox.exe process remains there...
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I too have something like this problem. When WebShield is running, Firefox 3.0.1 (running on XP Home) can take up to a minute to close. With WebShield disabled, 10 seconds. Very irritating, especially as I had no problems with Firefox 2!!!
On the Mozilla Firefox Bugs forum I was initially advised to install TCPView to see what was going on. From observing what appears to be going on in TCPView, it seems to me (I consider myself a non-techie here) that Firefox, WebShield, and a related System Process are all scrapping over Port 12080. As soon as all the connections to that port close - and as I said, it can take about a minute - Firefox closes very rapidly.
Any suggestions anyone, please?
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No point chasing any problem/issue with an old version of Firefox, we are on Firefox 3.0.3 now. So my first suggestion is to update firefox as it also closes some security vulnerabilities.
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No point chasing any problem/issue with an old version of Firefox, we are on Firefox 3.0.3 now. So my first suggestion is to update firefox as it also closes some security vulnerabilities.
I don't really want to upgrade to FF 3.0.3 yet, if I can avoid it, because some of my favourite add-ons have not yet been updated! Your suggestion that I should upgrade to 3.0.3 first implies you think the "fault" probably lies with Firefox. Hmm. With WebShield running, problem. With WebShield disabled, no problem. Chicken and egg!
I initially encountered this problem some time in July, after FF 3.0.1 was released. And I'm currently running Version 4.8 Home Edition (Build Jul2008), which I assume was also released in July?
If one were to assume that the fault was possibly on Avast's side of the fence, so to speak, where would one start looking?
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I believe that the add-ons if they work with 3.0.1 will work with 3.0.3.
Based on your reply that the problem happened after ff 3.0.1 was released would make it even more crucial to get the latest version of firefox over and above there is little point trying to fault find on an old version of firefox.
It doesn't imply I think the problem is with firefox, just that it really is pointless starting to do any checking if either firefox or avast weren't fully up to date.
I haven't had a single issue with firefox and the web shield and XP Pro, that is from ff 1.5 through to 3.0.3.
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This phenomenon is not as simple as 1 + 1 = conflict.
I have
2 x XP PRO SP2 machines with avast! 4.8 Home and progressively FF 3.0 to 3.0.3.
1 x Vista Home Basic Notebook with avast! 4.8 Home and progressively FF 3.0 to 3.0.3.
1 x XP PRO SP3 office PC with avast! 4.8 Pro and progressively FF 3.0 to 3.0.3.
and have never seen or had reported anything like this problem.
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...I haven't had a single issue with firefox and the web shield and XP Pro, that is from ff 1.5 through to 3.0.3.
...I have 2 x XP PRO SP2...have never seen or had reported anything like this problem.
Very helpful!!! Thanks guys!!! I'm sure there are millions of "FF/Avast" machines out there with no problems at all but I don't need to know about all of them - I have 5 of them myself crunching happily away on BOINC projects!!! :) :) :)
My problem is with this one which I use daily, and I was just hoping that somebody else who has, or has had, this same problem would be able to point me in the right direction...
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With this "Hanging" problem are you guy's getting any memory issues ? How much RAM are you using , Virtual Memory ? Have a look in your Task Manager , sometimes Firefox can take awhile to close also ... you may be running twice if you restart too quickly . Just a few thoughts :)
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This may be of some help?
Firefox Hang at exit (http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Firefox+hangs#Hang_at_exit)
Firefox hangs (mozillaZine KB) (http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_hangs)
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With this "Hanging" problem are you guy's getting any memory issues ? How much RAM are you using , Virtual Memory ? Have a look in your Task Manager , sometimes Firefox can take awhile to close also ... you may be running twice if you restart too quickly . Just a few thoughts :)
For my particular machine, it doesn't appear to be memory issues...it seems to be the TCP connections between FF and Port 12080 (the port which Avast Web Shield uses), those connections take a long time to close (30 - 60 seconds). As a consequence, sure, initially I was trying to restart too quickly, now I just wait.
This may be of some help?
Firefox Hang at exit (http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Firefox+hangs#Hang_at_exit)
Firefox hangs (mozillaZine KB) (http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_hangs)
Thanks for those links - I've seen them already while checking around the Mozilla forum. The most "relevant" thread at the moment - the one I came here from - is:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=695335&p=4634115#p4634115 (http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=695335&p=4634115#p4634115). As you can see if you skim through it, for several of the "patients" in that thread Norton seems to have been lying behind it. One guy actually solved it by changing from Norton to Avast! !!!***???£££
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Firefox Hang at exit
Sometimes when you close Firefox, it may stop responding and remain in memory, even though no Firefox windows are open.
When you next start Firefox, you may see problems in the new session, such as missing bookmarks or history and a blank Firefox window, which are resolved when you end all Firefox processes or restart the computer and then reopen Firefox. Other times, Firefox will not open at all and you will see a "Close Firefox" dialog box with the message, Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system.. You must then end all Firefox processes or restart the computer before Firefox will reopen. (See Firefox is already running but is not responding for other causes and solutions.)
If Firefox processes that remain in memory at exit are a recurring problem, try these solutions:
* Problematic extensions, including AVG Safe Search, PicLens, and Skype Extension for Firefox, can cause the problem, which can be fixed by disabling or uninstalling the extension. See Troubleshooting extensions and themes for more information.
* Sometimes Java applets can cause the Firefox process to persist after exit. Try updating Java to the latest version or, if you don't need Java, disable the Java plugin by clearing the "Enable Java" checkbox in Firefox (see Using the Java plugin with Firefox for details).
Windows:
* Using certain Internet security software is reported to cause the issue on some systems:
o If you use ZoneAlarm on Windows Vista, uninstall it and use another firewall product (or use the Windows Firewall).
o If you use Avast! Antivirus, switch to another antivirus product if you also have ZoneAlarm installed.
o If you use Norton 360 2.0, make sure that you have all available Norton updates (for more help, contact Norton Support) and that you have followed the instructions in the Configuring Norton 360 article.
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Firefox+is+already+running+but+is+not+responding
Hmmm... Something makes me think that Mozy could be blocking parent.lock.parentlock file and it couldn't be deleted, so Firefox keeps running in background... Not so sure about that.
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I have two computers with basically the same software setups. Firefox was frequently hanging when closing (95 - 100%CPU) on one of them. I would have to patiently wait to open Windows Task Manager and kill the firefox.exe process manually. Both computers have Avast on them and both had Threatfire on them. For me the solution was to uninstall Threatfire, after that...no more lock ups. I never even tried disabling a part of Avast to see if it was the problem. Maybe if I had just disabled Avast's webshield that would have worked too.
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Both had Threatfire on them. For me the solution was to uninstall Threatfire, after that...no more lock ups.
No doubt... Threatfire messing things again...
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...Firefox was frequently hanging when closing (95 - 100%CPU) on one of them...
What version of Firefox were you running at that point ?
(I don't know much about it, but isn't it asking for trouble to run two anti-virus programmes?)
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Could some knowledgeable soul comment on this idea.
In a normal day I mostly visit the same half-dozen sites all the time (BBC News, Yahoo Finance, etc). If I set WebShield at the CUSTOM level, and then under the Exceptions tab enter the URL's of those half-dozen sites, could I expect that to solve - or at any rate alleviate - my problem??? (By "my problem" I mean Firefox 3.0.1 taking a minute or so to close.)
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...Firefox was frequently hanging when closing (95 - 100%CPU) on one of them...
What version of Firefox were you running at that point ?
(I don't know much about it, but isn't it asking for trouble to run two anti-virus programmes?)
I am using XP Home with Firefox 3.0.3.
Running two realtime AV's would be asking for conflicts but Threatfire isn't a true AV, it is a behavior blocker. It is meant to run alongside a traditional AV. I ran it or the program it sprang from (Cyberhawk) along with Avast for a long time with no problems at all. I was still having no problems with it one one of my computers. Maybe the problem came from an update to TF or FF that started a conflict, I don't really know. I may reinstall it at some point in the future and see if the problem returns.
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Just adding to this issue, I've always experienced this same kind of hanging effect with Firefox 3 (never FF2) on my system (Vista 64 bit fully updated). The only difference is for me it isn't as significant like hanging for 1 minute which I'm thinking may be because of my computer's hardware performance, but there is definitely something going on. This has happened ever since I've had FF3 (which was since it came out) and every version that has come out since hasn't done anything to the problems (versions 3.0.0-3.0.3 all have done nothing to this including all previous avast! updates).
Other details I've noticed is that there's a slow kind of response when FF3 closes--the window closing looks like it lags (this is using Vista's Aero theme) and even once it's gone the FF3 process will still be in the task manager running for a short while before finally shutting down (which isn't normal from past experience with firefox). I sometimes get errors too where Firefox says something about it being already running or that it's busy shutting down (I forget--it's been a while). Using the built-in function to clear cache in FF3 lags significantly too than before on FF2, which used to be an issue before with avast spewing out tons of error messages just because of me deleting temp files. Then again I'm getting similar errors again (refer to the link at the end of this post).
Oddly enough the reason why I never posted here was because I honestly never thought avast was linked to it, but after reading these posts, it definitely seems relevant. It's been around for quite a while now and looks like it affects Vista users the most as I (so far) haven't seen any drastic issues with FF3 closing on my family computers that run on XP SP3 with avast. I could be wrong though.
The only other "issue" with avast I've been able to identify so far (mentioned it earlier) is that the old error messages for deleting temp files seems to be back. It isn't critical but it is something that has been lingering around for quite a while now. My old post on this is located here (http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=37855) for those that are interested. Not sure if this is relevant at all but I figured it should be added to the list here as well while we're at it.
Edit: Did a short test with avast's shields down while continuously running and closing firefox in different scenarios. I can confirm that there's a difference in responsiveness and speed with the shields down.
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Could some knowledgeable soul comment on this idea.
In a normal day I mostly visit the same half-dozen sites all the time (BBC News, Yahoo Finance, etc). If I set WebShield at the CUSTOM level, and then under the Exceptions tab enter the URL's of those half-dozen sites, could I expect that to solve - or at any rate alleviate - my problem??? (By "my problem" I mean Firefox 3.0.1 taking a minute or so to close.)
Interesting. Very interesting indeed. When I do as described above (i.e. setting WebShield at CUSTOM with my "normal" URL's entered under the Exceptions tab), Firefox 3.0.1 closes (according to Task Manager) in under ten seconds!!! As opposed to around a minute previously...
It really would be nice to have somebody who is an expert at Avast! to (a) comment on that, and (b) to explain to me how I can set the WebShield to CUSTOM permanently. (At the moment whenever I close the On-Access Scanner window, the WebShield sensitivity level reverts back to Normal.)
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Interesting. Very interesting indeed. When I do as described above (i.e. setting WebShield at CUSTOM with my "normal" URL's entered under the Exceptions tab), Firefox 3.0.1 closes (according to Task Manager) in under ten seconds!!! As opposed to around a minute previously...
Which is your firewall? Other security programs installed?
At the moment whenever I close the On-Access Scanner window, the WebShield sensitivity level reverts back to Normal.
If you don't change the sensitivity level, it will be back to Normal. No problems. Settings are kept anyway (exclusions, etc.).
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...Did a short test with avast's shields down while continuously running and closing firefox in different scenarios. I can confirm that there's a difference in responsiveness and speed with the shields down.
FWIW, my "rogue" machine has been running FF 3.0.1 on XP Home SP2, and now SP3 (no difference).
If you could find time to test your machine in the way I've just described, that would be great. (BTW, I consider Firefox to be closed when it disappears from Task Manager's processes list.)
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Which is your firewall? Other security programs installed?
I've got a router, Sygate Personal Firewall (remember that?), and Windows Defender.
...If you don't change the sensitivity level, it will be back to Normal. No problems. Settings are kept anyway (exclusions, etc.)
Uh-huh!!! You sure? If so, that's great. How do I remove my customized settings if I really want to revert to Normal?
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I've got a router, Sygate Personal Firewall (remember that?), and Windows Defender.
Does the problem occur if you uninstall Sygate? Disable it?
How do I remove my customized settings if I really want to revert to Normal?
Hmmm... you need to do it manually (removing customized URLs, etc.) and moving the slider to Normal (I suppose).
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Does the problem occur if you uninstall Sygate? Disable it?
Disabling Sygate is no problem, but for the test to be meaningful I would presumably have to manually remove my customized URLs and set WebShield back to normal. It's a bit late in the day for me to do that (especially on a Friday night!). So far I have never seen Sygate mentioned anywhere in the "Firefox hanging" threads on the Mozilla forums...I've never had any trouble with it, but I suspect there are only a few persons left in the world still running it. I'll keep an eye on it tomorrow and see if it appears to be particularly active with the flashing red signal at any time - it shouldn't be.
Hmmm... you need to do it manually... (removing customized URLs, etc.) and moving the slider to Normal (I suppose).
Noted. Thanks.
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I am running Firefox 3.5 on one of my xp machines and it took about 30-60 seconds to load and then about 30-60 seconds to finally exit. After searching and searching I found this forum. Web Shield was giving me problems. Although I didn't find my fix her I did want to share it with anyone that is having the same problem.
Firefox 3.5
Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Connection -> Click Settings.
Select Manual Proxy Configuration
In HTTP Proxy type in localhost and for the Port 12080
Now when I open or close Firefox it takes about 2-3 seconds.
I'm not sure why Firefox and Web Shield fight, but this seems to help them play better.
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See my sig for program versions. So far, everything is running smoothly.
(Avast has 6 out of 7 providers running.. no outlook/exchange.)
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In HTTP Proxy type in localhost and for the Port 12080
If you open WebShield settings, is "Ignore local communication" option checked?
Is WebShield scanning your browsing activity?
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-= Some sort of same here.. Firefox 3.5rc.. Takes at least 20 secs to completely shutdown FF else, clicking the desktop shortcut yields "Another Firefox process appears to be running. Please close the other processes before opening a new window.."
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The connections are opened, hardware and drivers interaction, the traffic is being scanned... close a browser is not as simple as before. I think the delay could be reduced, but it will be always there.
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-= Because of the "delay", I've switched to Chrome.. Enjoying it.. Hoping for add-ons for Chrome..
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Hoping for add-ons for Chrome.
Man... Chrome has no configurability... my browsing experience got very damaged due to that...
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-= Because of the "delay", I've switched to Chrome.. Enjoying it.. Hoping for add-ons for Chrome..
You will be waiting a while, whilst it is undoubtedly fast, I too felt it was a poor user experience with virtually no user configuration. There are also many concerns over user privacy so much so that it has spawned SWIron chrome without the google privacy issues.
For me it has been more hype than functionality, heck we are now on version 3.0 in 9 months. For me that smacks of trying to look like a mature established program. This is more obvious when you compare it with other major browsers and how long they have been around and what version they are on.
Chrome, thanks but no thanks.
I have to say I have had no such shutdown issues with firefox 3.0 or 3.5, when I close the browser that's it is closes and its task manager entry goes immediately.
So I don't know what settings you have that might be doing anything, clearing browser history or other items or what other security software or OS settings, which might have an impact. Firefox isn't 3.5rc any longer, since I believe that you took part in the beta builds and the rc version you may well have bumped into why beta software is something which you have to fully understand there can be issues.
I would suggest complete removal of firefox (folders, registry, etc.) and ensure everything has gone and install the regular release version 3.5 and install it cleanly.
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-= Differencials in preferences & I wont insist about it..
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-= Because of the "delay", I've switched to Chrome.. Enjoying it.. Hoping for add-ons for Chrome..
I have to say I have had no such shutdown issues with firefox 3.0 or 3.5, when I close the browser that's it is closes and its task manager entry goes immediately.
Same Here!^^
FF rocks!^^
"Maybe" the problem lies in the PC, not the browser?
-AnimeLover^^