Jumping on this thread in case anyone comes up with an actual solution.
Using Avast! Internet Security, updated to 2014.9.0.2008 last Friday. Since booting up on Monday, Outlook will not send email. POP3/SMTP configuration, no SSL Windows 7, 64bit. After some tinkering, the offending module is the Webshield module. Turn Webshield off, email works as it should. Turn Webshield on, email is received, but not sent...a time out error is received by Outlook. I've tried adding my SMTP server to the exclusion list, and that changed nothing.
Pam, I don't suppose you've heard anything from the support ticket you filed, have you?
In searching around, it seems that Avast! have had issues with Webshield blocking email sending for quite awhile now. I don't recall ever having an issue with the old version software that I've had for the past year. Now, it's time to renew my subscription, but, with this issue, it's hard to want to actually pay money for the new subscription.
cheers,
..rob