Still Can't Get Avast Working With Thunderbird SSL

[Bolt]

I would have thought the Avast Mail Shield certificate would have been the same between machines.  Did you ask on Thunderbird Portable's forum how it handles certificate exceptions?

@Bolt  End quote

I don't have a portable Thunderbird installation, but rather the regular Windows version installed, first on an old Windows 7 machine last week, and now on a successor Windows 8 machine (transferred my email archives).  The Avast mail certificate appears properly in the Thunderbird certificate list.  My problem, and that of at least many of the others, does not appear in any obvious way to be certificate related (though of course, I'm not certain of that).

[Gopher John]

The top part of the reply above @Bolt was directed to odo who is running Thunderbird Portable.

In your case with Thunderbird having the Avast certificate, one would think that it should work with SSL.  All entries in AvastUI | Mail Shield settings on the SSL scanning tab have been deleted?

[odo]

I would have thought the Avast Mail Shield certificate would have been the same between machines.  Did you ask on Thunderbird Portable's forum how it handles certificate exceptions?

Yeah, me too. Well i've got it kind of working using exceptions. Although it only worked, because i had exported the exceptions prior to installing the root-certificate (you know, from when i didn't know about that way ). So now it seems to work on both machines, with the root-certificate on one and the exceptions on the other. But it's not an ideal way, because i don't want to know what happens when i take the installation to yet another machine.

[vojtech]

I'm not sure what I can add except to confirm that this problem is very real -- others reporting it here are not imagining things.  Here are my details:  I am running the latest version of both Thunderbird and Avast 8.  My Verizon (FiOS) email account on Thunderbird is set to SSL with the proper ports (POP incoming, 995, and outgoing, 465), servers, etc.  On both Windows 7 and Windows 8 laptops, I cannot send or receive mail when Avast is set to "scan SSL connections" in the Mail Shield.  My choices are either to revert to non-SSL on Thunderbird or to untick the "Scan SSL connections" box in the Mail Shield settings on Avast.  I tried importing the Avast security certificate to Thunderbird, but that made no difference (and I had never received any warning that the "mail server certificate is invalid" as described here on the site one contributor to this thread recommended: http://www.avast.com/faq.php?article=AVKB91#artTitle ).

There is simply no other reasonable conclusion but that Avast SSL mail scanning does not presently work properly with at least some SSL accounts set up on Thunderbird.  I hope Avast acknowledges this problem and commits to identifying and correcting its source.

Many thanks.

Please enable debug logging in avast Settings/Maintenance, simulate the problem and then send me the log file C:\ProgramData\AVAST Software\Avast\log\Mail.log by mail.

[zdub]

Got mine working by following the export/import certificate dance. I am an IT guy and this was anything but straightforward; I pity the average home user who encounters this issue.  I am amazed that Avast expects people to

1) FIGURE OUT the cause of this problem. Thunderbird puts up a generic SMTP error. Even an experience googler will find it VERY difficult to attribute the problem to Avast.

2) FIX the problem by first finding the appropriate avast page and then going through the convolutions necessary for fixing it.

You'd think that Avast would have understood this and provide both an alert upon installation and an easy to follow solution.

[brzl frbr]

Every time I turn on mail guard and try to get onto Thunderbird 3.1.10 on OS X 10.6.8, I get the following message:

An error occurred during a connection to pop.att.yahoo.com:995.

You have received an invalid certificate.  Please contact the server administrator or email correspondent and give them the following information:

Your certificate contains the same serial number as another certificate issued by the certificate authority.  Please get a new certificate containing a unique serial number.

(Error code: sec_error_reused_issuer_and_serial)

I am not a high-end enough user to know how to handle certificate conflicts. From the posts I see around these forums, this is pretty widespread. Please help.

[vojtech]

Got mine working by following the export/import certificate dance. I am an IT guy and this was anything but straightforward; I pity the average home user who encounters this issue.  I am amazed that Avast expects people to

1) FIGURE OUT the cause of this problem. Thunderbird puts up a generic SMTP error. Even an experience googler will find it VERY difficult to attribute the problem to Avast.

2) FIX the problem by first finding the appropriate avast page and then going through the convolutions necessary for fixing it.

You'd think that Avast would have understood this and provide both an alert upon installation and an easy to follow solution.

Hello,
avast imports the certificate automatically it it finds Thunderbird folders. Could you please check if your installation matches the pictures?

[vojtech]

Every time I turn on mail guard and try to get onto Thunderbird 3.1.10 on OS X 10.6.8, I get the following message:

An error occurred during a connection to pop.att.yahoo.com:995.

You have received an invalid certificate.  Please contact the server administrator or email correspondent and give them the following information:

Your certificate contains the same serial number as another certificate issued by the certificate authority.  Please get a new certificate containing a unique serial number.

(Error code: sec_error_reused_issuer_and_serial)

I am not a high-end enough user to know how to handle certificate conflicts. From the posts I see around these forums, this is pretty widespread. Please help.

Please post to MAC forum:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=5.0

[stduc]

FINALLY - fixed it - I now have Thunderbird working with SSL

In addition to following these instructions

http://www.avast.com/faq.php?article=AVKB91#artTitle

I had to delete the existing certificate in Thunderbird and then import the one I exported

For some reason in certmgr when I exported the ceritifcate it delete it from the store at the same time! I had to re-import there too

All is good at the moment! But what a faff - what a lot of time spent and if your not an IT guru - what hope have you? Please peeps at Avast - DO SOMETHING TO FIX THIS!

[stduc]

In addition - if you sync to another machine - your laptop for example - you have to re-do the certification in Avast every sync - grrrrrrr

[wolfkell]

happened to me too on a brand new windows 8 asus fresh factory install using latest avast 8.0.1483

but i want to note a few other items i also discovered in a weekend troubleshooting process before following a hunch that avast port/ssl might be worth looking into.

turning on 'inbound mail scanner' not only threw the certificate dialog which worked for only that session if i accept the exception 'permanently' and the mail stops downloading after that session.  but that same "on" setting also caused elements on my keyboard to stop working incl. the touchpad clicker and the arrow keys.  deleting the exception, using TB 995 SSL and turning off 'scan inbound mail' in settings released the grip avast had on my keyboard and allowed my SSL port: 995 email to download properly. 

it took my whole sunday to figure this out, so not too confident i should bother to take the additional steps to import the certificate/exception per steps http://www.avast.com/faq.php?article=AVKB91#artTitle (if i must do this everytime i change or setup a new machine - at least past versions would provide user info/option to change ports to enable SSL scanning etc.)  specially, if scanning mail isnt that critical or advisable if AV programs detect and stop viruses as soon as they try to execute and the risk of allowing an AV to delete or quarantine virus could result in the whole email folder (your inbox) to disappear.

i'd like to 2nd all of these sentiments:
-There is simply no other reasonable conclusion but that Avast SSL mail scanning does not presently work properly with at least some SSL accounts set up on Thunderbird.
-I had to delete the existing certificate in Thunderbird to get this working
-Got mine working by following the export/import certificate dance. I am an IT guy and this was anything but straightforward; I pity the average home user who encounters this issue.  I am amazed that Avast expects people to 1) FIGURE OUT the cause of this problem. Thunderbird puts up a generic SMTP error. Even an experience googler will find it VERY difficult to attribute the problem to Avast.

[Arcanum]

Problem has been solved spontaneously for a few days, then now the same story... Yesterday it has'nt got any matter, from today afternoon Thunderbird has timed out again (no message trafic, it's blocked) until I ticked out SSL scanning.

[Arcanum]

I haven't changed any setting neither before it worked, nor today.

[Neil Parks]

Problem has been solved spontaneously for a few days, then now the same story... Yesterday it has'nt got any matter, from today afternoon Thunderbird has timed out again (no message trafic, it's blocked) until I ticked out SSL scanning.

Ditto.

[merganser]

I had the same issue after updating my mom's computer (Vista OS) to Avast on the 9th - her email is Sympatico. I tried the fixes suggested and nothing worked. This morning I went to Bell Canada to double check the settings needed for POP3 thinking that perhaps Bell had made changes.

The issue was with the 'Incoming' settings. When I had originally installed Thunderbird, it took me two days to figure out the settings needed to make Sympatico work since Thunderbird was not able to do it automatically; and, of course, I had an older version of Avast.

For incoming mail settings, Bell recommended 'Yes' for'SSL required' which would set the Port to 995; however, I had to set it to 'None' which changed the Port to 110. Today, I returned to that recommended setting for 'Incoming' and this solved the problem with accessing Sympatico mail through Thunderbird.

I would recommend that users having this issue go back and double check their providers recommended settings for their Incoming email in POP3. It is possible you had to originally ignore those settings when you first set up you POP3 mail accounts in Thunderbird.

Just wanted to pass along that tip.