Author Topic: What is this strange systray icon??  (Read 14928 times)

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aleph

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What is this strange systray icon??
« on: December 01, 2005, 07:57:53 PM »
I occasionally get a systray icon that looks like two pieces of mail and a blue light but can't find any documentation about it.  I cannot left or right click it, but if I hover over it it gives me an IP address -- and not IP addresses that I would have any reason to be connecting to.  What is this, what does it mean?  I assume it's part of avast! because it showed up after installing.  Help please!

thanks.

Offline szc

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Re: What is this strange systray icon??
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2005, 07:59:29 PM »
There are many threads explaining this icon. It is your avast! mail scanner, and it shows that icon when it's scanning e-mails

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=8881.msg73352#msg73352
« Last Edit: December 01, 2005, 08:03:17 PM by S.Z.Craftec »
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Offline alanrf

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Re: What is this strange systray icon??
« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2005, 09:58:56 PM »
If the icon is only showing up at times when you are running your mail client then it is, most likely, just showing the connection to your mail server (or servers). 

Are you noticing the icon at other times? 

aleph

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Re: What is this strange systray icon??
« Reply #3 on: December 02, 2005, 11:09:03 AM »
Alanrf --

Yes!  It shows up at other times with IP addresses that do not at all correspond to my mail servers!

S.Z.Craftec -

Sorry, couldn't find any of them with searches or by self-scanning. :(

Thanks,
f

Offline Lisandro

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Re: What is this strange systray icon??
« Reply #4 on: December 02, 2005, 11:58:48 AM »
Yes!  It shows up at other times with IP addresses that do not at all correspond to my mail servers!
You can enable or disable this icon into Internet Mail and MS Outlook avast providers.
See 'Advanced' tab of settings the option 'Show tray icon when scanning mail'.
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Offline alanrf

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Re: What is this strange systray icon??
« Reply #5 on: December 02, 2005, 12:16:20 PM »
Tech,

the user is reporting that the icon shows up when not using the email client.

Why are you telling the user how to hide the fact that something on their system may be sending out emails without their consent?
« Last Edit: December 02, 2005, 12:28:34 PM by alanrf »

Offline Lisandro

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Re: What is this strange systray icon??
« Reply #6 on: December 02, 2005, 02:56:36 PM »
Tech, the user is reporting that the icon shows up when not using the email client.
Isn't it running in background, not properly closed? Is it listed into Task Manager (ctrl+alt+del)?

Why are you telling the user how to hide the fact that something on their system may be sending out emails without their consent?
I'm not trying to hide nothing. I does not intend nothing but help. I haven't second intentions.
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Offline szc

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Re: What is this strange systray icon??
« Reply #7 on: December 02, 2005, 06:51:20 PM »
It could mean that your mail checking utility is occasionally checking for incoming e-mails. That's how they work. I have POP Peeper and it does its job exactly the same way. Same thing is with PopTray and many other third party mail checking / anti-spam utilities.

What is your mail notification program if you have one ? I don't mean, mail client, but mail checking utility which occasinally checks for e-mails... depending on the interval you set (IE. to check for mails every 3 minutes, or every 5 mins etc.)

Cheers !
« Last Edit: December 02, 2005, 06:57:12 PM by S.Z.Craftec »
MB: GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD3H Intel 7 Series  - LGA1155, CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K - Quad Core, 3.40GHz (3.80GHz Max Turbo), CPU COOLER: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO Direct Heat Pipe R2, RAM: 16 GB Kingston HyperX Blu DDR3, VIDEO CARD: Galaxy GeForce GTX 560 Ti - 1GB, GDDR5, POWER SUPPLY: Corsair Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 - 750 Watts, HD: Seagate Barracuda - 2TB, 7200RPM, 64MB, SATA 6Gb/s

Offline Lisandro

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Re: What is this strange systray icon??
« Reply #8 on: December 02, 2005, 06:57:16 PM »
It could mean that his mail checking utility is occasionally checking for incoming e-mails. That's how they work. I have POP Peeper and it does its job exactly the same way. Same thing is with PopTray and many other third party mail checking / anti-spam utilities.
Very good observation indeed... could be this...
Anyway, it would be easier if users come back to their original threads and follow the help we're trying to give them.
Thanks, Sasha.
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Offline alanrf

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Re: What is this strange systray icon??
« Reply #9 on: December 02, 2005, 09:22:55 PM »
Mmmm ... maybe.

However the user has reported (twice) that the IP addresses showing up are not related to mail servers of the user.  Poppeeper and other such services to not connect to mail servers other than those set up by the user.

Offline szc

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Re: What is this strange systray icon??
« Reply #10 on: December 02, 2005, 09:37:31 PM »
Also user never said what is exact IP he saw... could it be that all he saw was 127.0.0.1 by any chance ? Some more info from his end would be greatly appreciated because this looks to me like nothing but shooting in the dark.
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Offline alanrf

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Re: What is this strange systray icon??
« Reply #11 on: December 03, 2005, 04:40:16 AM »
A question that maybe someone can answer.

Whenever I do a hover over the avast "blue light" all I ever see is a server name and never an IP address, even though for some of my mail servers I use a psuedonym for localhost (set up in the hosts file) avast always shows that as "localhost". 

I see a number of users here reporting IP addresses showing up when they hover over the "blue light".  What makes avast display differently? 

Sorry, I did not mean to highjack this thread but it is slightly relevant while we wait to hear back from aleph.   

Offline oldman

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Re: What is this strange systray icon??
« Reply #12 on: December 03, 2005, 07:28:05 AM »
I believe programs such as MSN messenger can be set up to check your mail without your client being open. I don't have a msn or hotmail account so I don't know what is displayed (hovering over the icon)when mail is downloaded from there. (numeric or letters). I do know mine is letters, smtp.xxxxx.xxx for uploads and pop.xxxxx.xx for downloads.

But until more info is posted, all we're doing is guessing.

Offline alanrf

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Re: What is this strange systray icon??
« Reply #13 on: December 03, 2005, 08:58:50 AM »
MSN/Hotmail and Yahoo are special cases since, to most users, they do not publish a POP3 mail server. 

Most of the "tray resident" utilities like Pop-peeper work by using POP3 connections to read the list of email being held on a user's mail server.  There are other utilities that work for MSN/Hotmail and Yahoo by performing a HTTP screen-scrape to get the list of messages held on those servers.

Offline szc

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Re: What is this strange systray icon??
« Reply #14 on: December 03, 2005, 12:18:39 PM »
A question that maybe someone can answer.

Whenever I do a hover over the avast "blue light" all I ever see is a server name and never an IP address, even though for some of my mail servers I use a psuedonym for localhost (set up in the hosts file) avast always shows that as "localhost". 

I see a number of users here reporting IP addresses showing up when they hover over the "blue light".  What makes avast display differently? 

Sorry, I did not mean to highjack this thread but it is slightly relevant while we wait to hear back from aleph.   

The different thing could be easily because those users are using Windows 98/96/SE/ME. If you remember in their settings instead of those names of pop3 and smtp pserver names, it says 127.0.0.1

Of course avast! performed those changes to be able to intercept those mails, therefore check them before they  do any harm (of course if some of those mails/attachments are of malicious nature)

I believe that's the number he always see.

As I already mentioned before, lack of information from his side will keep us wondering... why people never post some basic information about their systems prior asking those questions ? If we have enough time to spend helping them (again, for free), why don't they take some time to help us ? If they help us a bit in the beginning, then we can help them much more and much faster... until then, I guess it's his Windows 98/ME and 127.0.0.1
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