"Mail Shield" blocks browsers

[Torino]

I've run into this problem with Avast in the past.  I can't remember the resolution and searching the forum hasn't turned anything up.

The last few days, Firefox has been failing to connect to most URL's, and Internet access has been really slow.  I tried Internet Explorer.  Same thing.  I did a bunch of other troubleshooting to no avail.  Finally I started disabling the Avast real time shields one at a time, and the culprit is the Avast "Mail Shield".  Right now I have "Mail Shield" turned off.  Is there some other way to get around this problem?

[Pondus]

have you tried avast repair and reboot ?

[DavidR]

I honestly can't see how the mail shield gets involved unless you are using ports other than the http ports, e.g. ports that the mail shield would monitor (25, 110, 119, 143, and the secure email ports, etc. etc.).

Did you ever try stopping the Web Shield as that is the one with direct connection with http traffic ?

Are you using any sort of internet proxy ?

[Torino]

> have you tried avast repair and reboot ?

Thanks Pondus, I didn't know that there was such a thing, so I went looking.  There it was in Add/Remove programs.  I ran it, then reenabled Mail Shield.  It's still broken.

[Torino]

> I honestly can't see how the mail shield gets involved unless you are using ports other than the http ports, e.g. ports that the mail shield would monitor (25, 110, 119, 143, and the secure email ports, etc. etc.).

Many thanks DavidR that seems to be the answer... 

I don't get it.  I've been running Avast for a couple of years now, and I haven't messed with the default settings in recent memory (if ever).  On the Avast troubleshooting page, I show the following ports:

HTTP:  80,8080,8091,8081,8008,8888,3124,3127,3128
SMTP:  25,80
POP:   110
IMAP:  143
NNTP:  119

Yeah, there's a conflict between HTTP and SMTP.  The 80 obviously doesn't belong under SMTP.  I deleted it, and reenabled Mail Shield, and the problem seems to be gone.

[DavidR]

Yes, that 80 in the SMTP would throw a spanner in the works.

I only wonder who/what put that there as it isn't a default setting.

What email program do you use ?

[Torino]

DavidR...  I'm still using Outlook Express

[DavidR]

Well the only possibility and it is a bit of a stretch, is if you have a Hotmail/MSN web mail account ?

OE can connect to the Hotmail servers to collect email rather than have to use your browser to connect and it uses a proprietary protocol to do that and I don't know if it would be using port 80 to do that. Since port 80 is used for HTTP traffic and would be expected to use the HTTP Protocol, I wouldn't have expected that.

So in short I really don't know how it would be changed if you or another user with access to your system changed it.