Norton Family

[murray654]

Hi, I have 2 computers with Norton Safety Minder installed. On one computer there is no problem. On the other, if Norton Safety Minder is enabled, the browser freezes. Happens on Firefox and IE. Win XP Pro SP3 No other security product installed. I re-installed safety minder and it worked for 5 minutes. After logging off the windows account I was using, I logged back in, and the browser was freezing when Safety Minder is enabled.

[KatieQ]

Hi murray654,

It could be a compatibility issue.  Please check the link below where shows the security products that the program is not compatible with.

http://us.norton.com/support/kb/web_view.jsp?wv_type=public_web&ssfromlink=true&docurl=2009050814513... 

Thanks,

Katie

[murray654]

Hi KatieQ,

When I said I have no other security product installed - I meant other than NIS 2011 - thats not on the list, but norton safety minder is a norton product and so is nis 2011. You kind of expect them to work together.

Further developments:

I have had chat/remote support sessions with 2 Norton support people. The first one reinstalled the Norton Safety Minder. the other one did not do much before I was "transferred" to Engineering Support Team.

The Norton engineer tried to set all programs to allow in the firewall, and then tried to restart the computer with minimal applications running. The problem persisted.

After 2 hours I suggested to the Norton Engineer that I change my router. I am going to try that later.

Why do I now suspect the router? Because the router has two ports in bridge mode, and has hotspot software running on it. If Safety Minder works when I have another router, then I will then know that the original router is dropping packets needed for Norton Safety Minder.

... If that fails I can try do a fresh install of Windows XP and see if it works.

[murray654]

I have tested and the problem is on my router. Well, the router works, but either the bridge mode is to blame or the hotspot software.

Router is Routerboard RB750 running Router OS v4.11

I have bridged port 3 and 5. then I have a hotspot running on the bridged port.

So if you have a RB750 with 2 bridged ports running hotspot, then Norton Safety Minder will cause the browser to freeze.

I think I will post something on the Mikrotik forums and see if anyone has experienced this.

cheers,

Murray

[murray654]

Hi somebody in Mikrotik forums suggest adding the norton server to the walled garden (accessible from behind the hotspot).

/ip hotspot walled-garden
add dst-host=www.norton.com action=allow

 Does anyone know what host the Norton Safety Minder is trying to communicate with?

[SurferTim850]

I found out about this challenge from murray654 on the Mikrotik forum. The challenge may be the Mikrotik hotspot. It blocks all website and ports until the computer client logs in. I think Safety Minder may need to contact a Norton server before it will let the browser access the website. That may be putting the browser into a deadlock. Norton Safety Minder vs Mikrotik Hotspot.

No matter what URL the client enters in the browser, the client is redirected to a private localnet ip (normally 192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x) to login before any internet access (any port) is allowed, except what is specified in the Mikrotik hotspot walled garden. If the Norton server URL or IP that Safety Minder needs to communicate with could be entered in the walled garden, that would allow customers to use Safety Minder on public hotspot services like ours. Otherwise, as murray654 has stated, the browser deadlocks.

And I have also read somewhere on this forum that Safety Minder might have a challenge with private localnet ips. Is there a way to enter private localnet ips that are ok? Otherwise, there will only be another problem after this one is solved.

[KatieQ]

Hi murray654,

Norton Safety MInder is compatible with NIS 2011.

Please see if adding following entries as exceptions under your proxy settings helps:

onlinefamily.norton.com

o2comm.norton.com

Thanks,

Katie

[murray654 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Thanks Katie That helped.

I have inserted norton.com into the router "walled garden" (avoids inserting both entries) I also have symantec.com & symantecliveupdate.com to allow liveupdate without logging into the hotspot.

I also had to insert my local routers domain name into the norton safety minder web addresses to allow it to redirect people who are not logged in. Thanks to Tim for pointing out the problem with local addresses.

The way I did the second one was to name my router in the static dns entries on the router, and then insert the routers domain name into the norton online family allowed web sites allow list.

Now it works as advertised.