Avast 2014: Can't Connect to Some Websites

[DontWannaPickUsername]

EDIT: With the Web Shield on, all connections with affected URLs fail except when IPv6 host resolving is disabled! See my post a little further down the page.

Up until about two weeks ago, my system was running fine. I was using Avast 8 and Windows 8 (x64).
Then, Avast 9 (aka 2014) was released. I downloaded and installed the update. Immediately, I started getting problems.
I was no longer able to view some websites, such as YouTube and the Avast forums. When I try to go load them, Google Chrome waits like half a minute before finally giving an ERR_CONNECTION_RESET error. I can't load the affected websites in Internet Explorer either. Other sites are unaffected. Avast doesn't give any errors, popups or other notification when those sites aren't loaded.
When I disable the Web Shield, everything works just fine, and all sites get loaded normally.
I have tried disabling all browser extensions in Google Chrome - that doesn't help. I've also tried disabling indivdual items in the Web Shield settings (such as "use intelligent stream scanning" or "script scanning") and I've tried lowering the heuristics sensitivity all the way to off - that doesn't help.
Finally, I uninstalled Avast, upgraded to Windows 8.1, and a few days ago I decided I'd check Avast again, to see if the issues were sorted out by now.
So I installed Avast 2014 again, and initially everything was working okay. Then, suddenly, the same connection reset errors started occurring again (perhaps due to a definition update or something?).

Can anyone help me? I've been a happy user of Avast for years now, but if this situation goes on much longer, I will permanently discontinue using Avast. From my point of view, this fancy new Avast version has been a disaster. I need to be able to access perfectly fine, not-malicious sites like YouTube! Hell, I couldn't even get to these support forums without disabling the Web Shield... please help.

PS: Could you (forum managers) do something about those god-awful captchas? I initially entered the wrong letters (they're freaking IMPOSSIBLE to decipher!!!), and the second time the forum system told me I had already submitted my post (wtf?)!

[Brawly51]

I originally posted my issue several days ago on a different thread.  To date I have had no replies, so I thought I would use the same description with this new thread.  Hopefully I have not violated any forum rules for doing so.  This new thread is similar in description to what I am experiencing.  I have had to completely uninstall AVAST PREMIER 2014 because of the following:

With the issues that I have been experiencing, I believe there are still incompatibility issues between Windows 8.1 and Avast Premier vs 9.0.2006.159.  I am basing this on a complete installation of Avast Premier, meaning every protection module installed.  It turns off Windows Firewall and replaces it with the Avast Firewall as well as install browser plugins which prevent site tracking and eliminates ads (Internet Explorer 11 indicates that the Avast plugin is not compatible).  All of these features in themselves I have no problem with.  Being an Avast user for many years, I trust that that the Avast protection modules are better than Windows.  Unfortunately, I am having issues where webpages fail to display properly, webpages take an excessive amount of time to load - or do not load at all.  The question becomes, how do I know that it is Avast and not something in the Windows OS, or interference from another program causing my issues?  The first thing I  did was to launch msconfig and turn off every application, but I still experienced issues with web browsing.  Secondly I completely uninstalled Avast Premier, rebooted and all of my problems disappeared - every one!  No jumbled webpages, no delay in loading, nothing.

I am of the belief that the issues could be resolved without having to uninstall Avast (I would prefer to have Avast, rather than use Windows Defender for example), and the answer may be in the Avast settings.  However I am not that familiar with the settings and their meanings to make the appropriate adjustments.  Can someone provide assistance to this issue.  My fear is, that unless Avast resolves these issues with an update to the program - preferably sooner rather than later, I may have to walk away from Avast... which would be doubly painful as I have the paid version!  Thank you!

[serendip80]

Try just turning off the Avast! Online Security toolbar in Internet Explorer. That seems to fix the problem for the most part, particularly if you close and restart IE or reboot your system. However, i notice that since doing so Bing! has become my IE home page, which i would never allow in 1,000,000 years! Now i have to do a full system scan to make sure something hasn't leaked in through IE - i generally use Chrome, which doesn't seem to have the problem.

[julianmuller]

Not only with Windows 8.1. WebShield of Avast 2014 is doing "his job" in Windows XP and even Windows 7 in both 32 bit and x64 editions. Many web sites dont load (CHrome and Firefox) with webshield ON. When I disable it, They load. When I put web shield on, The pages visited before (when Web shield was off) load, but new ones no.

[DontWannaPickUsername]

Try just turning off the Avast! Online Security toolbar in Internet Explorer. That seems to fix the problem for the most part, particularly if you close and restart IE or reboot your system. However, i notice that since doing so Bing! has become my IE home page, which i would never allow in 1,000,000 years! Now i have to do a full system scan to make sure something hasn't leaked in through IE - i generally use Chrome, which doesn't seem to have the problem.

I'm seeing 4 Avast add-ons in the "Manage Add-ons" screen, and all of them are "incompatible" - so I guess they're not loaded and therefore cannot cause the problem.
Also, I normally use Chrome exclusively. And Chrome is just as badly affected as IE. I think your problem is different from what I'm experiencing...

Not only with Windows 8.1. WebShield of Avast 2014 is doing "his job" in Windows XP and even Windows 7 in both 32 bit and x64 editions. Many web sites dont load (CHrome and Firefox) with webshield ON. When I disable it, They load. When I put web shield on, The pages visited before (when Web shield was off) load, but new ones no.

Yes, you're right. The pages visited before the Web Shied was on do indeed load for me as well. I think because they're cached (still in your computer's memory, ready to be retrieved right away).
So, even though we're using different OSes, we're having the same problem. Okay, it's not the OS that's to blame...
And yet, most people do not seem to have this problem... I wonder what else is the same on both of our systems?
Hmm... can you tell me what kind of PC/laptop you have? This is a Lenovo IdeaPad Y500.
What network adapter you have? I have an Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230.
What router/modem do you have? I have a Huawei router/modem.

[CraigB]

The four add-ons you have in IE are for the browser protection component and will work if you untick " Enable Enhanced Protected Mode " which is ticked by default in win8.1, look in Tools/ Internet Options/ Advanced

[spicc99]

I also had issues after installing (free) Avast 2014.  On my laptop, it prevented me from accessing the internet.  On my desktop, it froze my PC and my desktop icons never got loaded.   Doing a system restore prior to the loading of (free) Avast 2014  on both my systems resolve the problem on both systems.  I'm running XP and have the ZoneAlarm free firewall.  Does anyone know if Avast is working on these problems and if so when a fix will be available and when can I safely download (free) Avast 2014?  (I had no problems with the prior release of Avast.)

[DontWannaPickUsername]

The four add-ons you have in IE are for the browser protection component and will work if you untick " Enable Enhanced Protected Mode " which is ticked by default in win8.1, look in Tools/ Internet Options/ Advanced

That's great, but unfortunately it doesn't solve my problem...
I don't really use IE anyway (normally I use Chrome all the time). I also wonder why they had to install 4 add-ons. Is one not enough?

I also had issues after installing (free) Avast 2014.  On my laptop, it prevented me from accessing the internet.  On my desktop, it froze my PC and my desktop icons never got loaded.   Doing a system restore prior to the loading of (free) Avast 2014  on both my systems resolve the problem on both systems.  I'm running XP and have the ZoneAlarm free firewall.  Does anyone know if Avast is working on these problems and if so when a fix will be available and when can I safely download (free) Avast 2014?  (I had no problems with the prior release of Avast.)

Wow, those problems sound pretty serious... they obviously did not test this release enough. I wonder if they rushed this update for some reason... maybe to get it out in time for Windows 8.1?

[DontWannaPickUsername]

Alright, I've found some interesting test results...

After running a test (namely chrome://net-internals/#tests) on an affected URL (http://www.youtube.com/) with and without the Web Shield on I got some curious results:

WITH WEB SHIELD ON

• FAIL - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Don't use any proxy - ERR_CONNECTION_RESET (-101) - 42007ms
• FAIL - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Use system proxy settings - ERR_CONNECTION_RESET (-101) - 44296ms
• FAIL - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Use Firefox's proxy settings - ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND (-6) - 1ms
• FAIL - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Auto-detect proxy settings - ERR_CONNECTION_RESET (-101) - 44266ms

• PASS - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Don't use any proxy + Disable IPv6 host resolving - 481ms
• PASS - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Use system proxy settings + Disable IPv6 host resolving- 2845ms
• FAIL - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Use Firefox's proxy settings + Disable IPv6 host resolving - ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND (-6) - 2ms
• PASS - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Auto-detect proxy settings + Disable IPv6 host resolving - 2770ms

• FAIL - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Don't use any proxy + Probe for IPv6 host resolving - ERR_CONNECTION_RESET (-101) - 42005ms
• FAIL - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Use system proxy settings + Probe for IPv6 host resolving - ERR_CONNECTION_RESET (-101) - 44326ms
• FAIL - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Use Firefox's proxy settings + Probe for IPv6 host resolving - ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND (-6) - 4ms
• FAIL - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Auto-detect proxy settings + Probe for IPv6 host resolving - ERR_CONNECTION_RESET (-101) - 44261ms

WITH WEB SHIELD OFF

• PASS - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Don't use any proxy - 1019ms
• PASS - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Use system proxy settings - 1204ms
• FAIL - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Use Firefox's proxy settings - ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND (-6) - 6m
• PASS - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Auto-detect proxy settings - 3322ms

• PASS - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Don't use any proxy + Disable IPv6 host resolving - 567ms
• PASS - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Use system proxy settings + Disable IPv6 host resolving - 2709ms
• FAIL - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Use Firefox's proxy settings + Disable IPv6 host resolving - ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND (-6) - 14ms
• PASS - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Auto-detect proxy settings + Disable IPv6 host resolving - 2891ms

• PASS - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Don't use any proxy + Probe for IPv6 host resolving - 893ms
• PASS - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Use system proxy settings + Probe for IPv6 host resolving - 3273ms
• FAIL - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Use Firefox's proxy settings + Probe for IPv6 host resolving - ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND (-6) - 2ms
• PASS - Fetch http://www.youtube.com/ - Auto-detect proxy settings + Probe for IPv6 host resolving - 3032ms

With the Web Shield on, all connections fail except when IPv6 host resolving is disabled!
Avast devs, please fix this!

[DavidR]

You can try a manual program update from the avastUI as version 9.0.2007 is now available, see http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=138753.0, for more information.

[DontWannaPickUsername]

Well, thanks for the advice... I did update as soon as the update became available and for a little while the problem was solved. But today it returned... I really think it's because of a faulty streaming update.

[REDACTED]

I'm not sure if you guys managed to fix this problem, I was having this problem. I went on a hunt today and saw that in the firewall logs the pages were being stopped by the port scanner.

Apparently on the sites that I had been visiting they had been scanning my ports, and Avast automatically block's the IP of that site for a period of 5 hours.

If you turn off port scanner then turn it back on you will be able to get into the site again, for now I have disabled it with no problems to report.

Good Luck.

[DavidR]

For a topic that is almost a year old, that program version would have been updated, if it was an issue with the program it is long gone and any fix would be in the later program version.

I would advise starting your own new topic rather than breath life into an old one, relating to an older program version. In that if you can give more specific details about the problem, websites you are unable to visit, avast version and build number, etc.

[REDACTED]

Thanks for this!

[REDACTED]

For a topic that is almost a year old, that program version would have been updated, if it was an issue with the program it is long gone and any fix would be in the later program version.

I would advise starting your own new topic rather than breath life into an old one, relating to an older program version. In that if you can give more specific details about the problem, websites you are unable to visit, avast version and build number, etc.

Sorry David, but it is still a problem in the current version of Avast. It is exactly as described above, but this is how I fixed it.

Buzz