avast 4.7 and outlook express

[Mr. Greenie]

I have been using avast 4.7 for a few months. I've had to reinstall it once. Avast worked great for serveral months but lately it is interfearring with my outlook express 6.0. It is stopping me from sending mail out, receiving mail seems to be just fine. If I shut down avast my outlook express works fine. I don't have the mail protection wizard in start/all programs/avast/avast antivirus. It look like everything downloaded ok at the time but I'm not sure. How can I correct this problem? I've been doing google searches for 2 days now and would love to get avast and outlook express working together again. Thanks in advance

[DavidR]

avast doesn't stop you sending out email,it scans content and will alert you to infected traffic, but not block/stop.

What version of avast do you have ?
The latest is 4.7.844, check the about avast for details.

Do you have a firewall if so what ?
What is your Operating System ?
You only have the mail protection wizard if you don't have XP or other NT based OS.

What errors or warnings are you getting when you can't send email ?

What type of email is it, with attachments, large size, etc. or is it every outgoing email ?

[Mr. Greenie]

Thank you for the reply

It is the latest version 4.7.844
I use windows firewall. I've been usuing for long time and it did work with avast in the beginning months.
I do use xp with respect to mail protection wizard.
I've received different error messages as I seem to fix one error to only receive another. However, the main  error messages that I get are 0x800ccc78, 0x800ccc7d, 0x800ccc90. While trying to repair these messages I've also get 0x800ccc0e, 0x800420c8, 0x800ccc0d & 0x800ccc7c.
As you can see I've been going in circles trying to correct the problems. If I turn off internet mail  I'm able to send.

It is all outgoing email regardless of size, including replys.
I hope this info helps to solve this. Thanks

[DavidR]

Well these errors don't seem related to any avast errors.

When you try to send emails what is the full text of the error message or post a screen shot as these errors in isolation aren't very helpful.

[Mr. Greenie]

The message could not be sent because the server rejected the sender's e-mail address. The sender's e-mail address was .*********** Subject 'Re: maybe now', Account: 'pophm.sympatico.ca', Server: 'smtphm.sympatico.ca', Protocol: SMTP, Server Response: ******* Must issue a STARTTLS command first', Port: 25, Secure(SSL): No, Server Error: 530, Error Number: 0x800CCC78

The server responded with an error. Account: 'pophm.sympatico.ca', Server: 'pophm.sympatico.ca', Protocol: POP3, Server Response: '-ERR Cannot connect to POP server ************(********:110), connect error 10060', Port: 110, Secure(SSL): No, Server Error: 0x800CCC90, Error Number: 0x800CCC90


I deleted some identifing info but this is what I'm running into.

[alanrf]

Unfortunately, I suspect that avast is the cause of the problem here.

Since one of the server responses is:

Must issue a STARTTLS command first

then it is telling us that the server expects this mail transfer to be on a secure link.  It has also been reported before in this forum that sympatico.ca is now requiring email connections to be secure. 

It is unusual (but not unknown) for mail servers to use port 25 for a secure SMTP connection.  avast does not expect the standard port 25 to be used for a secure SMTP connection and does not gracefully get out of the way and prevents the connection from being made. 

You do not need to turn off the Internet Mail scanner completely but to make the sympatico.ca SMTP connection work you will need to turn off the scanning of outgoing mail completely (Internet Mail scanner > Customize > SMTP tab > uncheck "Scan outgoing mail").  This is not really a significant loss of functionality for you since the whole point of a secure connection is to prevent it from being scanned by anyone and anything (including antivirus programs).     

See this thread for an earlier discussion on this topic:

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=19223.msg162157#msg162157

[Mr. Greenie]

Thank you guys for trying to help me out solve this.

alanrf I've read the other form you linked here. Forgive my ignorance, but would stunnel work in my case? or
if I was to change isp solve the problem?

To what I have read port 25 is a standard smpt connection.

[DavidR]

Changing ISP could possibly resolve this but it is a severe option, if you have no other issues with sympatico, you would need to confirm if they used secure email also.

You are correct port 25 is for standard SMTP connections and for secure email communication SSL/TLS the usual (standards) port would be 587.

STunnel is fine for acting as a third party interface so avast can scan encrypted emails like SSL/TLS when secure communication is used. However, you would still be in the same position because of the use of port 25 for secure traffic, avast would still try to intercept it and scan it.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security

While an increasing number of client and server products can support SSL natively, many still do not. In these cases, a user may wish to use standalone SSL products like Stunnel to provide encryption. However, the Internet Engineering Task Force recommended in 1997 that application protocols offer a way to upgrade to TLS from a plaintext connection, rather than use a separate port for encrypted communications - this prevents use of wrappers such as Stunnel.

This is effectively what you are seeing, the ability to switch standard ports for encrypted traffic.

[Mr. Greenie]

Thanks DavidR, changing isp is not an severe option for me to do since sympatico announced they will start readin emails. (alittle invasive for my preferrences)Nothing like giving me a reason to change.

However, I would like to make sure avast will scan regardless which isp I end up using.

I do prefer avast over norton (my previous av) so I would like to try and resolve the problem if possible.

What I don't understand is why avast was working prefectly for serveral months and all of sudden I'm getting this problem? Thanks

[Lisandro]

However, I would like to make sure avast will scan regardless which isp I end up using.

avast shouldn't be influenced by the ISP... I have changed my ISP recently, I have emails on 4 different servers... no problem with scanning and avast.
Stunnel is needed only if the email server requires SSL communication (like GMail, for instance) 

[Mr. Greenie]

However, I would like to make sure avast will scan regardless which isp I end up using.

avast shouldn't be influenced by the ISP... I have changed my ISP recently, I have emails on 4 different servers... no problem with scanning and avast.
Stunnel is needed only if the email server requires SSL communication (like GMail, for instance) 

Was there something in the recent new version that could cause this problem?

[Lisandro]

Was there something in the recent new version that could cause this problem?

Which version are you using and which one you have before? I think there weren't significant changes on mail scanner to bring any trouble, really...
Sorry to ask again, but too many posts to read and mail scanner is not my knowledge are, but which is exactly your problem now?

[Mr. Greenie]

Was there something in the recent new version that could cause this problem?

Which version are you using and which one you have before? I think there weren't significant changes on mail scanner to bring any trouble, really...
Sorry to ask again, but too many posts to read and mail scanner is not my knowledge are, but which is exactly your problem now?

I'm using 4.7.844 now, I would have used the previous version from your site.

The problem I'm having is avast seems to be infearring with my out going messages only in outlook express.

The message could not be sent because the server rejected the sender's e-mail address. The sender's e-mail address was .*********** Subject 'Re: maybe now', Account: 'pophm.sympatico.ca', Server: 'smtphm.sympatico.ca', Protocol: SMTP, Server Response: ******* Must issue a STARTTLS command first', Port: 25, Secure(SSL): No, Server Error: 530, Error Number: 0x800CCC78

The server responded with an error. Account: 'pophm.sympatico.ca', Server: 'pophm.sympatico.ca', Protocol: POP3, Server Response: '-ERR Cannot connect to POP server ************(********:110), connect error 10060', Port: 110, Secure(SSL): No, Server Error: 0x800CCC90, Error Number: 0x800CCC90


I deleted some identifing info but this is what I'm running into

[Lisandro]

I'm using 4.7.844 now, I would have used the previous version from your site.

From THEIR site. I'm an user like you 

Must issue a STARTTLS command first ... Secure(SSL): No

Does sympatico use TLS encryption to send mail?

Server Error: 530, Error Number: 0x800CCC78
Error: 0x800CCC90, Error Number: 0x800CCC90

Did you Google this? I mean, the error numbers?

[Mr. Greenie]

I'm using 4.7.844 now, I would have used the previous version from your site.

From THEIR site. I'm an user like you 

Must issue a STARTTLS command first ... Secure(SSL): No

Does sympatico use TLS encryption to send mail?

Server Error: 530, Error Number: 0x800CCC78
Error: 0x800CCC90, Error Number: 0x800CCC90

Did you Google this? I mean, the error numbers?

I don't know for sure what they use and yes I've been googling error codes for 3 days now. As I stated earlier, I seem to be at a point where I'm going in circles. Thanks