Intermittent internet disconnections

[kant.lavar]

So earlier this morning I elected to switch back to Avast from Bitdefender. I uninstalled Bitdefender using their uninstall utility, restarted, then installed the free copy of Avast, restarted again. I don't have any other security software running beyond Windows' built-in firewall. And now, every couple of hours, my network connection cuts out for a few seconds. I'm running an up-to-date copy of Windows 10 and am on a LAN cable.

[Asyn]

- Which version of Avast Free..?
- OS..? (32/64 Bit..? - which SP/Build..?)

[kant.lavar]

Avast Free version 19.4.2374 (build 19.4.4318.451)
Windows 10 Home 64-bit version 1809 (build 17763.437)

[Asyn]

First, be sure to get rid of all remnants of your prior installed AV(s)..!!
-> https://support.avast.com/article/11/

Then:
1. Download Avast Free Antivirus: https://files.avast.com/iavs9x/avast_free_antivirus_setup_offline.exe
2. Follow instructions: https://www.avast.com/uninstall-utility (Run this tool for all prior installed Avast versions..!!)
3. Reinstall Avast with the downloaded installer from point 1.
4. Reboot.

[kant.lavar]

That is exactly what I did for my initial installation of Avast. I used the Bitdefender uninstall utility, rebooted, downloaded and installed Avast (though I do note that I used the default online installer hosted on Cnet and not the offline installer), then rebooted again.

Is there some difference between the online and offline installer?

[kant.lavar]

Downloaded uninstallers and offline installer.

Ran Bitdefender uninstaller. Rebooted.

Attempted to run Avast installer, got switched to safe mode.

Safe mode won't accept my Microsoft account password (which will be a whole other drama, I'm betting).

Rebooted into standard mode, ran Avast uninstaller there. Rebooted again.

Installed Avast from offline installer. Shutting down for the night as the issue can take several hours to recur and it's already midnight. Will monitor and update as appropriate.

[mchain]

Try Safe Mode with networking.

[schmidthouse]

Downloaded uninstallers and offline installer.

Ran Bitdefender uninstaller. Rebooted.

Attempted to run Avast installer, got switched to safe mode.

Safe mode won't accept my Microsoft account password (which will be a whole other drama, I'm betting).

Rebooted into standard mode, ran Avast uninstaller there. Rebooted again.

Installed Avast from offline installer. Shutting down for the night as the issue can take several hours to recur and it's already midnight. Will monitor and update as appropriate.

As you stated Safe Mode wasn't an option.
You could also check Registry for any Remnants of previous Security software.

[mchain]

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=do+you+need+an+internet+connection+to+log+onto+microsoft+account%3F&t=ffab&ia=web

[kant.lavar]

Try Safe Mode with networking.

Tried that, didn't work. For some reason my computer was not connecting to my network when restarted in Safe Mode.

In any case, I haven't had any issues tonight with my network connection after a couple of hours of playing The Division 2. This weekend will be the real acid test and honestly as long as I can keep a solid network connection I'm content.