Mega spam with this new version!

[tacomodo]

With the latest update to Avast I now get flooded with "Internet connection timeout elapsed" dialog boxes.

This is in connection to bittorrent downloading.

Has anyone come up with a solution to this?

If I can't turn it off, then Avast has to go. Why was this suddenly introduced now?

[RejZoR]

Turn off what exactly? If you're using BitTorrent,leave some spare bandwidth for upload,otherwise you flood the line and you'll get very long response times.

[DavidR]

I can't see the connection between this and your subject title what, 'mega spam?'

A little more information may help us to help you.

What update, e.g. what version of avast are you using?
What is your firewall? - have you allowed ashWebSv.exe access to the internet?

[szc]

With the latest update to Avast I now get flooded with "Internet connection timeout elapsed" dialog boxes.

This is in connection to bittorrent downloading.

Has anyone come up with a solution to this?

If I can't turn it off, then Avast has to go. Why was this suddenly introduced now?

Spam ? I don't see either how word SPAM (and above all, it's Mega Spam) can ever be related to the message "Internet connection timeout elapsed"...

[Vlk]

Some program (typically a P2P app) must be using port 25, 110 or 143 (the mail protocol ports) to download files. Therefore, an uknown protocol is used on the connection and the avast Mail Scanner shows the timeout message as it doesn't receive what it wants...

[tacomodo]

Sorry I was a bit unclear about this.

By megaspam I mean 20+ dialog boxes popping up in my taskbar whenever I have a torrent on for download.

This morning I woke up and had a whole lot of these timeout dialogue boxes in my taskbar. I didn't think much of it, and just clicked them all away. Then after a few minutes (might have been an hour even) a whole load of them appeared again. This was like 20. This happened a couple more times until I closed my bittorrent program.

Now this is something new, because I've had the exact same torrent, and the exact same client going for some time now, and it just recently appeared after a program update.

I am using 4.6 Home edition. I haven't changed any settings what so ever, besides merging the two icons in the tray when I first installed it.

I'm not expert on this, I can only imagine - maybe torrents try to connect to a lot of peers. Some of these eventually times out, or just takes a whole lot of time. Does Avast monitor these connections and wait for x amount of time before popping up a dialogue box?

Either way, this is something new. I haven't changed a thing except clicking on update avast. It's extremely annoying when you get 3 pages of connection timeouts on your taskbar and it has to go, one way or another.

[Vlk]

If you look at the message box more carefully, you'll see that there's a name of an EXE file in it. This is the program that is making the connection.

[tacomodo]

Yes, and that is how I know it's the torrent downloading.

[lukor]

Yes, and that is how I know it's the torrent downloading.

Great, now you know it. Let us know the process name too.

[tacomodo]

bitcomet.exe

That is what all the dialogue boxes say.

[vojtech]

You need to configure the mail scanner to ignore connections from this program - insert this line to file Avast4\DATA\avast4.ini under [MailScanner]:
IgnoreProcess=bitcomet.exe

[tacomodo]

Great, thanks.

If it's the mail scanner, I think I'll just turn it off all together.

One thing, though - Can I safely turn off "Internet Mail" and "Outlook/Exchange" if I still have "Web Shield" on and I only use hotmail and gmail?

[Lisandro]

One thing, though - Can I safely turn off "Internet Mail" and "Outlook/Exchange" if I still have "Web Shield" on and I only use hotmail and gmail?

Hotmail is not a pop3 email service (unless you pay for pop service), it is web based (so the Internet Mail provider doesn't directly protect it). Web based email is simply your email being viewed in the same way you browser the internet. The pages (that display your email) are downloaded into your Temporary Internet folder, just like regular web pages and displayed on your browser screen.
The Standard Shield will scan your files (as they are downloaded into your Temporary Internet folder) when sensitivity is set to High. You can round this 'problem' using 3rd party applications to download the Hotmail messages through the pop3 server (PopHotmail, for instance).

Gmail uses SSL (Secure Socket Layer) connections and avast mail scanner doesn't support SSL (Secure Socket Layer) connections. But take a look here: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=10428.0 to see how to set up secure email with avast!. Since SSL/TLS e-mail is encrypted and decrypted in the client, external virus scanners (including avast!) can't read or scan it. The solution is to pass e-mail in and out un-encrypted from your client (Outlook Express, Thunderbird, ...) to a proxy program (Stunnel) that does the actual ssl or tls encryption/decryption of the pop3/smtp e-mail and communicates directly with the ISP server on the appropriate ports. Another drivers (OpenSSL) are need as a library of encryption/decryption routines.

[tacomodo]

Great explanation!

Last question. What does "Internet Mail" scan if not html based?

[Lisandro]

Last question. What does "Internet Mail" scan if not html based?

Internet Mail provider is used to protect the e-mail processed by other mail clients than MS Outlook or MS Exchange. In other words, the 'normal' email clients (Outlook Express, Eudora, Netscape Mail, Mozilla Mail, IncrediMail, Thunderbird, Pegasus Mail, etc.) that uses POP3/SMTP/IMAP protocols.