AVG free 8, Outlook Express--can someone test this for me please?

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone out there using AVG free 8 and Outlook Express 6 could do me a favor and try something. Can you send yourself an e-mail, either to your own address that you have set up with OE or to a web based or other address you might have, and simply put only the word "test" (without the quotes) in the subject line and in the message body. Send that, and then a minute or two later, click on send/receive in your OE and see what happens.

I am experiencing something odd and I'm not finding the answer I got on the AVG free forum to be helpful at this point. Here is what I posted there:

"I decided to test my AVG e-mail scanner because the little window wasn't popping up at the bottom right corner of my screen when I clicked send/receive in OE and an e-mail came in. However, the e-mail did come with the AVG certification printed on the bottom.

I sent an e-mail to my OE address with the word 'test' in the subject line and the word test in the message body. I clicked send/receive shortly after and I received an e-mail which said it was from 'avgmail@localhost'. It had an attachment and the body of the message said:

"This is the AVG E-mail Scanner program.

I'm sorry to have to inform you that the message returned
below could not be delivered to one or more destinations.
The e-mail server has responded with the following error:

-------------------------------------------------------------------

DATA: 5.7.1 Message contains spam or virus : 25179:4061412272|B13B
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Your e-mail message is being returned to you in the next part of this
message. Try to send the message again.

Should you need assistance, please contact your administrator or your
Internet service provider.

You can also verify e-mail client's settings, for instance:
- whether your SMTP autentization has been configured
- whether you have provided correct SMTP server name"

I then tried to send the same thing to a gmail account I have. It never got past avg@localhost. I The same thing happened with a yahoo account. When I changed the subject line to read 'do not return', it was delivered successfully to the yahoo account. I was also able to successfully e-mail a link to a web page from my OE to a gmail address. However, when I tried with the word 'test' in the subject line, again avg@localhost stopped it with the same message. When I tried with the subject line 'do not return to sender', avg@localhost did not let it come through. I just sent an e-mail with the words 'wondering if my scanner is working' in the subject line to a yahoo account, and that one got through. I've also sent an e-mail FROM my yahoo account to the OE account being monitored by AVG, and that one had the word 'test' in the subject line and in the message body, and THAT one got through AVG's scanner no problem.

What is the avg mail scanner doing with regard to outgoing mail? I didn't think it had any spam filter capabilities. Are there certain words that would trigger it to not let mail go through, and if so, what are those words?"

My test e-mails are not getting past the avg@localhost, so they aren't even reaching my ISP's e-mail server. Other e-mail seems to be moving normally, it's just the words "test" and "return to sender" that seem to trigger avg@localhost not to let it get to my ISP server, although, as I said, if I send an e-mail to my OE account from a web based client with just the word "test" in the subject line, the avg scanner allows that through with no problem.

I have AVG set to scan both incoming and outgoing mail and to certify both.

Thanks!

 

I'm using OE 6 and AVG 8 and I just performed the test you requested. I sent a message to myself with the word test in the Subject box and in the body of the message. It came through normal.

 

Thanks for doing that.

Things have deteriorated with my AVG outgoing mail scanner. When I posted earlier, it was letting some stuff through. Now it's not letting anything through at all, so I've disabled the outgoing mail scanner.

I don't know why it would break like this when I haven't made any changes to my system, other than AVG getting its update. I'm a little annoyed, as I had been quite impressed with AVG free 8. I appreciate when things just work nicely and behave themselves without my having to constantly fuss and tinker and protect my system from my security software and all that...When I can chase the teenager off the PC I'll try a reboot. Sometimes that works wonders.

 

Reboot didn't help. Repairing AVG's installation didn't help. I realized that on Aug 21, I had deleted an OE identity from the root directory. It was an old identity I hadn't used in years and which I had deleted from within the OE interface itself years back, but that numbered folder was still there in Documents and Settings/Administrator/Local Settings/Application Data/Identities. I deleted the numbered folder from within the Identities folder and then I hadn't actually sent any e-mails since until I tried last night. Incoming mail was working just fine and I didn't think anything was wrong. Today I restored that folder, then rebooted. The AVG outgoing scanner is still stopping all outgoing e-mails. Actually, what it's doing is putting it in an attachment and returning it to me without it getting any further than avgmail@localhost, along with that message that the e-mail I just tried to send is spam or a virus.

If I shut off the outgoing scanner, the mail goes through just fine.

I've since removed that unused identity folder again, since it didn't make a difference anyway. Just taking up space.

That same day, I had also rebooted the computer and it didn't look like Windows shut down correctly, as when it started back up it went to the blue chkdsk screen, and then Windows loaded with no problem. Everything has looked fine since. That hasn't happened again.

So far, I'm looking at having to uninstall and reinstall AVG free 8, which I don't really feel like doing right away, especially since everything else seems to be OK.

I suppose that improper shutdown could have fractured the outgoing mail scanner in some way. If anyone else can suggest something less drastic than an entire uninstall/reinstall, I would sure like to hear it.

BTW, I'm using Windows XP Media Center Edition SP2 on the computer in question. OE6, IE7 is installed but Firefox is the default browser on that computer.