Avast Free 5.1.889 Web Shield blocking all pages

[fivedollaryobet]

Just did a fresh install after rebuilding my rig and Avast 5.1.889 Web Shield is blocking all URLs.  I've reinstalled (with the removal tool) in Safe Mode and normal and I've tried granting Avast and the Avast service permission in the firewall but still no dice.

Here are my system specs from Speccy:
MS Windows 7 64-bit
CPU - Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600  @ 2.40GHz
RAM - 16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 533MHz (7-7-7-20)
Motherboard - Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. P43T-ES3G (Socket 775)
Graphics - NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450
Hard Drives - 59GB FM-25S2S-60GBP1 ATA Device (SATA)
         488GB Seagate ST3500830AS ATA Device (SATA)
Optical Drives - LITE-ON DVDRW LH-20A1S ATA Device
Audio - Realtek High Definition Audio

-J

[AdrianH]

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[CraigB]

Look on the "Summary" page of the Avast GUI, is the "Network Lock" set on or off?

There is no network lock in the free version

[fivedollaryobet]

I don't see the "Network Lock", where on the Summary page is it located?

[CraigB]

fivedollaryobet, which firewall are you using ?

[fivedollaryobet]

Just the standard Windows firewall.  I tried turning it off but still got the same issue.  The only way I can get to any page is to disable the Web Shield.

[CraigB]

Dont' add or change any setting's in the windows firewall for avast, it's not needed.
Go to program's and feature's and double click avast, when you get the popup scroll down to repair and click, when finished reboot.
If that still has not cured your problem go back to program's and feature's again and click avast but this time scroll down to change and when the interface comes up untick behavior shield and click ok, once that done reboot again, please reply back to here with your result's.

[fivedollaryobet]

No joy :-(

Did the repair and rebooted, same thing... no web pages until I shut off the web shield.  Then followed the second step to turn off the behavior shield, rebooted and same issue.

It can't be a FW issue and I don't think it's an install issue.  At this point the only thing left to check on my box would be the registry.  Does the uninstall program clean out all of the registry settings?  If not I'm thinking it may be time to do an uninstall and a lot of "F3 - Next" with regedit.

[CraigB]

Alright the next step is to download a fresh copy of the latest avast and the removal tool and save, delet avast via program's and feature's and reboot into safe mode(tap f8 while rebooting) then run the removal tool and reboot again, now run ccleaner if you have it and the registry cleaning part of it too, now reinstall avast (finger's crossed)

[DavidR]

No joy :-(

Did the repair and rebooted, same thing... no web pages until I shut off the web shield.  Then followed the second step to turn off the behavior shield, rebooted and same issue.

It can't be a FW issue and I don't think it's an install issue.  At this point the only thing left to check on my box would be the registry.  Does the uninstall program clean out all of the registry settings?  If not I'm thinking it may be time to do an uninstall and a lot of "F3 - Next" with regedit.

Have you used avast before ?
If so what version and build, crucially did it work ?

The behaviour shield has no impact on this problem, certainly not at a level of internet connection.
Do you use a proxy to connect to the internet ?

The win7 firewall has outbound protection disabled by default, so if you didn't enable it then it isn't or shouldn't be an issue.

By a fresh install, was this with a Retail copy of wun7 or a Recovery install back to factory install as this can come with a pre-installed AV ?

[fivedollaryobet]

Uninstalled completely (Add/Remove Programs and reboot, aswclear and reboot, then removed everything "avast" from the registry and rebooted and then a fresh install but still getting the same issue.

Right now I'm leaning towards the 5.1.889 update with 64bit systems.  I think I've eliminated just about every other culprit unless anybody has any ideas.

[DavidR]

I asked some more questions and my comment about fresh install relates to your system rebuild (as you already said how you installed avast). For me I was wondering if this included a fresh install of the OS, including format, etc.

[fivedollaryobet]

DavidR here are my responses...

Have you used avast before ?
If so what version and build, crucially did it work ?

Yep, been using it on several build for years.  This computer has had it installed for about 2 or 3 years through several rebuilds.  Not sure of the versions, but I do have all of my computers set to automatically update and I update all of them manually once a month just to be sure.

The behaviour shield has no impact on this problem, certainly not at a level of internet connection.
Do you use a proxy to connect to the internet ?
Nope, no proxy, just a DHCP assigned address from my Netgear router.  I also have it set as the DNS and Gateway.

The win7 firewall has outbound protection disabled by default, so if you didn't enable it then it isn't or shouldn't be an issue.

By a fresh install, was this with a Retail copy of wun7 or a Recovery install back to factory install as this can come with a pre-installed AV ?
Full retail copy of Win 7 Professional.  It's a custom built rig and I added a new SSD HD and moved the 500Gb to the D drive.  Reformatted both drives as NTFS as part of the Windows install.

[DavidR]

I'm not too familiar with routers having only just gone on to broadband recently, but any hardware firewall that some have generally only have an inbound checking function.

Presumably this is on all browsers ?
-  also see Cause for apparent Web Shield blocking internet connection, http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=57443.0.

If the above doesn't help - Can you try manually setting your browser to use the avast web shield proxy, Localhost port 12080, see image for firefox 3.6.13.

[fivedollaryobet]

Yep, that fixed it!

Evidently it had to do with the TEMP and TMP environment variables being set to d:\windows\temp instead of c:\windows\temp.  I changed them back to c:\windows\temp and rebooted and everything looks like it's working again.  (I moved them to try and reduce as many R/W's on the new SSD as possible). 

It's weird because I didn't delete the c:\windows\temp directory, I only changed the environment variables to point to the same directory structure on the HD instead of the SSD so if Avast is looking for %SYSTEMROOT%\Temp the directory still exists. 

Thanks for all of your help guys!  I really appreciate the quick responses.