Avast! blocking return receipts?

[b00sfuk]

I've found that Avast! is stopping the sending of the return receipt when mail is received.  I've tried this in both Outlook Express and Thunderbird and in both cases no receipt is received by the original sender.  In OE it seems to leave it in the recipients outbox.  I've tried relaxing the mail protection settings but that does not help.

Anybody else seen this - I've tried unistalling Avast! and trying another antivirus and it all works fine.  

[DavidR]

I've not heard of this were avast blocks emails, certainly not without displaying some warning window (virus, suspicious, heuristics, etc) saying why it would be blocked.

Check that messages aren't suppressed (silent).

If there are any warning messages then we might be more able to identify a problem.

You say the outbox is empty, did the email appeared in the sent items folder?

What is his OS?
What were his email account settings?

[Eddy]

Are you sure it isn't just the receiver not sending a confirmation? (blocking, not allowing return receipts)

[techie101]

boo,

I do not see why or how Avast would block the receipt.
An email "receipt" is usually a transparent marker sent with the email by the sender in the Html code.  The sender's server waits for you to acknowledge the message.  When you do, the server "reads" the marker and the sender has their acknowledgment.

The Recipient "keeps" the message in the Outbox ONLY if the message is not successfully sent.  

Spam filters and blockers can cause this to happen.

Since you have removed Avast, it makes it difficult for us to isolate the cause.

 

[peterfu]

Sorry Techie101, but thats not correct.

There exists two notifcation requests, one is the delivery receipt and the second is the read receipt. Both are part of the mail header, independent of the mail format.

The header for delivery receipt looks like:
Return-Receipt-To: <adress where to send return receipt>
and is usualy send automaticaly by the receiving mail server

The header for read receipt look like:
Disposition-Notification-To: <adress where to send read receipt>
and is usualy send by the mail client - depending on configuration of course

Neither the sending mail server nor the sending mail client waits for the receipt information. The mail stays as long in the OUTBOX till the mail client recieves a positive acknowledge of delivering the mail to the sending mail server - usual your ISP's mail server. The sucessful delivery of the mail to the sending mail server is controlled via SMTP in a direct handshake.

Back to the original problem:
I see no reason why avast should block return receipts or read receipts or no possibilty how this should be done by Avast. However some ISP's don't send return receipts any more because of spam problems and also read receipts are filtered out from some mail servers. This is a small conflict with the standards but offer you a little more protection against spams.  But this should be independent if Avast is used on client side or not.

br
Peter

[b00sfuk]

Thanks for al the feedback. I still have Avast! installed on another OS partition so I'll do some more testing - is there anywhere in Avast! that might give me any debug info?

I feel it must be something Avast! is doing as I have tried this scenario (with OE and Thunderbird as sending/receiving clients)

- Send email between 2 POP3 IDs of mine with return receipt ticked.
- Receive e-mail and say "yes" to receipt prompt.
- Client tries to send receipt - in OE is stays in outbox after failing and in Thinderbird it just disappears.  There is nothing in sent folder but I would not expect this as it does not do it in a working setup.
- Uninstall Avast!, install Nod32 and retry scenario (without changing anything else) and it works fine.

My first take was to see if anybody else had the same problem - from the feedback above it seems it might just be me so I'll do a lot more testing.  it could be a conflict with other software etc.  If I get some meaningful error emssages etc. I'll post back here.  I really want to stay with Avast! but this is a showstopper for me if I can't fix it.

Thanks again.

[peterfu]

That's strange  

Does it work if You send a mail directly from the account which want to send the read receipt ?

Staying in OUTBOX of OE means that OE is not able to transfer the mail to the mail server.

I have done now some tests by myself with OE and Avast and it worked perfectly.

br
Peter

[b00sfuk]

Just doing some more testing.

I' have a default Avast! install with just the option to "show detailed" enabled.  I receive an e-mail in OE with my POP3 account and get prompted for receipt.  Clicking on yes it tries to send receipt in the outbox.  It then times out.  If I untick al the options in "heuristics" it still times out.  If I pause the mail provider it also still times out but if I terminate it the receipt sends fine.  There are no messages in the Avast! log.

I am using BTOpenworld (UK) which use authenticated SMTP for sending and receiving so don't know if this makes a difference.  I've tried sending/receiving from the same account etc. with no change.

I'm a bit stuck for what to do now?  As it is just me I guess I might just have to give up on Avast!.  

[peterfu]

I've tried sending/receiving from the same account etc. with no change.

Does it mean that sending with that Account works fine ?

Have You tried to increase the timeouts in Avast and OE to 300 seconds.

I use also authentication.

br
Peter

[peterfu]

What Version of Avast are you using - sorry, this should be the first question anyway.
br
Peter

[b00sfuk]

What Version of Avast are you using - sorry, this should be the first question anyway.

latest 4.5.549

[peterfu]

thanks - there was an issue with authentication in prior releases.
br
Peter

[b00sfuk]

As a last try I uninstalled, cleared everthing and reinstalled 4.5.459 with typical install.  I disabled firewall and spyware tools and still had the problem.  

I'll keep checking back here but I guess I'll have to go elsewhere for the time being.  If I find time I might eliminate the last link, the ISP, and sign up a POP3 account with another one to test but that is a real long shot.

Thanks for your help.