Firewall spontaneously shuts down

[MAG]

Hi,
Do Lukor or Logos (or anyone else) have any advice for us on what it's best to do until this isue is sorted? I'm no computer expert, but a silent firewall that is so silent that it doesn't tell you when it turns itself off doesn't seem very secure.

Might it be best to turn the AIS firewall off and just use the XP firewall? Would it be best to have both turned on (can AIS firewall stopping affect XP firewall)?
Thanks.

[Lisandro]

The Status Bar should alert you that the firewall is off.

[MAG]

Thanks, I'll check that next time it stops (I can't recall the tray icon ever showing that the firewall was off when the user interface showed "Service Stopped", but I'll look out for that next time too).

[Hermite15]

...and windows security(or action) center should alert you too (assuming you have Windows firewall disabled)...

[MAG]

Well, it's happened again, and if I open the avast user interface it says "service stopped" on Summary and Firewall Settings, but:
1) the avast tray red ball icon doesn't alert me of this (and monitoring of firewall is checked on status bar under settings)
2) windows security centre doesn't alert me either - in fact it says avast internet security firewall is currently ON when the avast user interface says Service Stopped.

Very puzzling, but unless I open the avast user interface every few minutes I won't know if the firewall is running or not.

Unless anyone has a better idea I think I'll turn off the AIS firewall and go back to the XP firewall plus avast antivirus until this is sorted (which is where I was before I upgraded to AIS. I can't really complain too much though - I had years of excellent and trouble-free protection from Avast 4 before I upgraded).

[Lisandro]

MAG, did you use any other 3rd party firewall before AIS?

[MAG]

Yes - I had Comodo for a while, then uninstalled it and went back to XP only, then AIS (I haven't had any firewall problems until this release (5.0.507) of AIS though).

Also when I first got this machine (about 4 years ago) it had McAfee internet security pre-installed- I removed that after a couple of months.

I think Avast's idea of a silent two way firewall is great for people like me who are computer novices, and I hope this issue can be sorted.(Comodo may well have been a good firewall/HIPS - but it seemed mainly designed to make me feel technically inadequate by asking me questions I couldn't answer!)

[Hermite15]

I'm still running CIS 4 off and on. And it's almost no problem to switch back to AIS firewall, almost because there's an issue, not related to CIS >>> removing the firewall component is okay, adding it leads to no firewall service, and a dead firewall interface. I started a thread somewhere about that. The only way out is to uninstall AIS and reinstall it completely.

[Lisandro]

MAG, try removing leftovers of McAfee.
This article provides the steps to remove SecurityCenter from your computer.
http://ts.mcafeehelp.com/faq3.asp?docid=71525
Also for direct download: http://download.mcafee.com/products/licensed/cust_support_patches/VSCleanupTool.exe
and http://download.mcafee.com/products/licensed/cust_support_patches/MCPR.exe (2007)

Sometimes, McAfee won't be completely removed if, before, you do not uninstall Avast, including the use of its "Uninstall Application" if necessary (www.avast.com/eng/faq-install-uninstall-avast.html).

[MAG]

Thanks for the suggestion Tech. It looks like it may get a bit complicated, but I'll try it if Lukor doesn't come up with anything after he's reviewed the mdmp files that qqwerty and I uploaded.

I don't know much about these things, but it seems to me there's a bit of a trail to 5.0.507 installation. Before that all my Firewall Activity Log entries said the firewall had configured some application or other to access the network. After that all they say pretty much is that avast UI.exe has been configured to access the network.

(Of course it could be a McAfee fragment the 5.0.507 is sensitive to n previous versions weren't)

[qqwerty]

I also don't see any notification when the firewall shuts down - I have firewall monitoring checked in status bar settings but the orange avast ball icon stays orange, and windows doesn't alert me either. I wouldn't know it has stopped if I didn't open up the user interface manually to check. I assume the reason the windows security center doesn't pop up is because I also have windows firewall enabled, but I don't want to disable it as I'd be left with no software firewall at all when avast stops.

McAfee has never been installed on my machines. Before switching to Avast Internet Security I was using AVG Free antivirus with Zonealarm free firewall.

I don't know much about these things, but it seems to me there's a bit of a trail to 5.0.507 installation. Before that all my Firewall Activity Log entries said the firewall had configured some application or other to access the network. After that all they say pretty much is that avast UI.exe has been configured to access the network.

(Of course it could be a McAfee fragment the 5.0.507 is sensitive to n previous versions weren't)

I have this issue as well - Avast wasn't remembering that it had already cleared avastUI.exe to access the network, so everytime I opened up the avast interface I would get a notification that a new rule had been set. I turned off notifications for newly created "allow" rules to stop the popups, but I can still see it's re-allowing it all the time if I check the activity logs. I only have this issue on one of my machines, while the firewall shutdown problem affects both. 5.0.507 was the first version of avast I installed.

[MAG]

qqwerty,
I think I may have stumbled on a simpleton's workaround for this (for me at least). I'm not currently aware of any reason why I need to allow unsolicited incoming connections, so I:
-set AIS firewall to Stop Permanently
-set windows XP firewall to Don't Allow Exceptions
-restarted computer
-set AIS firewall to Public profile (so that it is hopefully monitoring outgoing still, which XP doesn't).

Since then I've had no more firewall stops (touch wood).

No doubt some things won't work with this config, but hopefully Lukor will find out what the problem is before that's too much of an inconvenience.

[REDACTED]

I get this right now. Firewall is shut down and won't restart. It says Service Stopped, if I click start it says 'shield unreachable'. I have never had any other antivirus or firewall, I upgraded from free to internet security.
I have the changes pass worded and if I click to show the logs it says files not found.

How can I fix this?

[Hermite15]

I get this right now. Firewall is shut down and won't restart. It says Service Stopped, if I click start it says 'shield unreachable'. I have never had any other antivirus or firewall, I upgraded from free to internet security.
I have the changes pass worded and if I click to show the logs it says files not found.

How can I fix this?

start a new thread, this is a March 2010 one.