Avast premium security concerns with Mac OS Catalina

[john.constable]

In May this year I purchased Avast Security Pro, with a two year subscription, and used it apparently without problems until upgrading to Catalina in November, after which I began to experience frequent but only occasional and from my perspective random problems with Safari, and other browsers. The live tab would without any pattern or apparent cause refuse to load a new page. Other tabs would appear to work, for a while, but no new tab could access the internet. Switching to another browser did not resolve the problem.

Frequently, though not always, the browsers would refuse to quit. Relaunching the browser after a force quit did not resolve the problem: the relaunched browser could not access the internet. Disconnecting from the internet and reconnecting did not resolve the problem.

At this point I would try to restart or shut down the Mac (MacBook Pro 15 inch, Mid 2014), but it would not restart or shutdown, hanging at some point after the Finder quit. The Finder could not be restarted, and it was necessary to use the power off button to close the Mac down for restart. This is of course not a pleasant experience.

On restart, which was slow, Avast would sometimes relaunch automatically and present its window, suggesting, I suppose, that it had been open at the time of the crash.

This very inconvenient problem recurred many times, several times a day, and after careful examination of the situation, and a process of elimination, I realised that Avast was not interacting well with Catalina. I don't presume to judge where the problem lies.

I switched off all shields in Avast, and the situation seemed to improve (the machine was stable for some hours). This was good, but rather than make a longer experiment I uninstalled Avast and resorted to another security product, which I have used now for two days without any problems whatsoever, a length of time during which I would have expected the browser/restart problem to have recurred two or three times at least had Avast been running.

When I read that Avast (or Apple) have resolved this problem I may reinstall Avast, but not before.

[ondrej.kolacek]

Hello,

regarding the "web stops working on Catalina" issue, unfortunately there is no solution for this yet. We are not able to reproduce the issue, we assume it has to be some kind of interaction with something or it needs a specific configuration/environment to manifest.

Please if this is happening to you, send us support package (https://support.avast.com/en-ww/article/Submit-Mac-Security-support-file) mentioning the issue. Additionally, please if you are able to reproduce it and are willing to help to fix this, contact me at ondrej.kolacek <at> avast.com . There are two possibilities of what can be done:
1) we can provide you with instructions how to gather additional information about the system at the moment the issue is manifesting and how to send it to us so that we can hopefully identify and fix the issue
2) we can use professional remote support solution https://www.logmein.com/ to access your computer under your supervision to do the data gathering from 1) for you, as well as to do some more analysis which is not really possible to do automatically.

We apologise for the issue.

Kind regards,
Ondrej Kolacek

[hmb1]

I am adding this message to the thread simply to make Avast aware that I too have experienced exactly the same issues described by the OP on my two MacBook Pros running Avast and MacOS Catalina. The problem so severely interfered with my ability to use these computers productively that I came very close to wiping their hard drives and reinstalling everything... until "on a hunch" I uninstalled Avast Security and found it resolved all the problems I was experiencing. It was only after I realized Avast was the cause of these problems that I discovered this forum thread on the topic.

Unfortunately I cannot help Avast diagnose the root cause of the problem by leaving it installed so that diagnostics can be run. As I mentioned, the current version of Avast Security for MacOS has serious problems that will render a Mac unusable. However, the problem is so severe and reproducible that I expect Avast's software team should be readily able to do testing on any of their own Macs. I should point out that, based on my experience, the problem does not manifest itself immediately following MacOS startup. Additional to the symptoms posted by the OP my experience was:
- inability to access web sites would occur a variable period of time after MacOS startup - sometimes it would happen only after an hour or so of continuous use, but sometimes it would happen directly after waking the Mac from a sleep state
- although a access to a web site from a new browser tab or from a link within an existing browser tab would be blocked, any browser tabs that were already open would usually still be able to successfully refresh its page
- when the symptoms started in one browser application, it would not be possible to circumvent the problem by using a different browser because web access on the different browser would be immediately blocked
- when access to web sites on the internet became blocked, then access to all web servers on the local network (even by specifying their IP address) would be blocked
- when access to web sites on the internet became blocked, internet applications using other IP ports (such as mail servers) would still be accessible
- to confirm what the OP also mentioned - temporary resolution of the problem required a forced restart/shutdown of the Mac using the power button. The system problem created by Avast was so severe as to block the normal MacOS shut down and restart processes.

[ondrej.kolacek]

I am adding this message to the thread simply to make Avast aware that I too have experienced exactly the same issues described by the OP on my two MacBook Pros running Avast and MacOS Catalina. The problem so severely interfered with my ability to use these computers productively that I came very close to wiping their hard drives and reinstalling everything... until "on a hunch" I uninstalled Avast Security and found it resolved all the problems I was experiencing. It was only after I realized Avast was the cause of these problems that I discovered this forum thread on the topic.

Unfortunately I cannot help Avast diagnose the root cause of the problem by leaving it installed so that diagnostics can be run. As I mentioned, the current version of Avast Security for MacOS has serious problems that will render a Mac unusable. However, the problem is so severe and reproducible that I expect Avast's software team should be readily able to do testing on any of their own Macs. I should point out that, based on my experience, the problem does not manifest itself immediately following MacOS startup. Additional to the symptoms posted by the OP my experience was:
- inability to access web sites would occur a variable period of time after MacOS startup - sometimes it would happen only after an hour or so of continuous use, but sometimes it would happen directly after waking the Mac from a sleep state
- although a access to a web site from a new browser tab or from a link within an existing browser tab would be blocked, any browser tabs that were already open would usually still be able to successfully refresh its page
- when the symptoms started in one browser application, it would not be possible to circumvent the problem by using a different browser because web access on the different browser would be immediately blocked
- when access to web sites on the internet became blocked, then access to all web servers on the local network (even by specifying their IP address) would be blocked
- when access to web sites on the internet became blocked, internet applications using other IP ports (such as mail servers) would still be accessible
- to confirm what the OP also mentioned - temporary resolution of the problem required a forced restart/shutdown of the Mac using the power button. The system problem created by Avast was so severe as to block the normal MacOS shut down and restart processes.

Thanks for the info; it seems to match with some of the other info we have gathered. Based on this, it is likely that turning off Fileshield component should prevent the issue from reoccurring (but probably won't fix it if it has already manifested, the computer should be restarted first).

Unfortunately while the problem is severe and reproducible for some users, it seems to either depend on some specific configuration, software used or network environment present, as although we have several dozens of users of Avast AV with Catalina in the company plus dedicated stress and ongoing test running machines, we can not reproduce it. Please consider sending us support package (https://support.avast.com/en-ww/article/Submit-Mac-Security-support-file) if this is occurring on your computer (while mentioning this issue) or contact me at ondrej.kolacek <at> avast.com if you are willing to perform some further diagnostics.

We apologise for the issue and are doing what we can to resolve it. Thanks for the help.

[hmb1]

Thanks for the info; it seems to match with some of the other info we have gathered. Based on this, it is likely that turning off Fileshield component should prevent the issue from reoccurring (but probably won't fix it if it has already manifested, the computer should be restarted first).

Unfortunately while the problem is severe and reproducible for some users, it seems to either depend on some specific configuration, software used or network environment present, as although we have several dozens of users of Avast AV with Catalina in the company plus dedicated stress and ongoing test running machines, we can not reproduce it. Please consider sending us support package (https://support.avast.com/en-ww/article/Submit-Mac-Security-support-file) if this is occurring on your computer (while mentioning this issue) or contact me at ondrej.kolacek <at> avast.com if you are willing to perform some further diagnostics.

We apologise for the issue and are doing what we can to resolve it. Thanks for the help.

Thank you for the followup. Since I'd already assumed Avast Security was no longer compatible with MacOS Catalina, I moved on to a software solution from another company so I won't be of any help in diagnosing why Avast Security doesn't work properly.

[jk171505]

I have experienced EXACTLY the same problem. Uninstalling Avast was the only solution, as turning off all possible options in Avast settings didn't help... Any solutions for this problem?

[Asyn]

I have experienced EXACTLY the same problem. Uninstalling Avast was the only solution, as turning off all possible options in Avast settings didn't help... Any solutions for this problem?

See Reply #18 from Ondrej.

[Steve347]

is there any update on this issue as Im experiencing the same issue?