lbubb, in fact, I think the problem is that SSL (Secure Socket Layer) is an encripted protocol that won't allow scanning.
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.
Stunnel now comes as an installer which installs Open SSL and Stunnel so now you just have to download the installer version from here
http://www.stunnel.org/download/binaries.htmlBesides this, eicar tests have their rules. I think this was discussed and posted in the past in this forum. Maybe it's not a problem of avast.