Norton Safety Minder crashes, not blocking sites

Carya · ‎03-28-2012

i have been using Norton Safety Minder for over a year on a Windows 7 computer and it had been working great. Recently, I think a new version was downloaded and I don't think it's worked since. At startup the yellow box with the black paw appears in the system tray, but it blocks prohibited sites only occasionaly. When it is failing to block sites, if I put the mouse on the sys tray icon and click on it, it disappears. Checking the Task manager, I can see that the process has disappeared. Please help me get it working again.

P.S. I should mention that I've already tried uninstalling and re-installing NSM. No luck. Do old, unused Norton components cause this problem? I've read about something called the Norton Removal Tool that cleans up the components that are causing problems. I think this computer used to use Norton antivirus or internet security.

KatieQ · ‎04-09-2009

Hi Carya,

Do you receive the message that Norton Safety Minder has been disabled at Manage Activity -> Alerts when you see the process is disappeared in Task Manager? Norton Safety Minder checks the process. If the program sees it's down, NSM will restart the process in 5 minutes.

Do you have Norton 360 or Norton Internet Security installed on the PC? If so, there is a way to prevent the process get deleted manually.

Thanks,

Katie

Carya · ‎03-28-2012

I did notice that after a while the process seemed to be restarting, however, it is not working correctly since the update- much of the time it isn't blocking anything at all. I'm not using any other Norton products, but I think when the PC was new it had a Norton antivirus program which I used during the 1 year free subscription.

I looked at the log and didn't see a report that NSM was disabled.

[EDIT] - I looked at Manage activity:Device list and saw 1 alert that said :

The Norton Safety Minder service is not running. This could be caused by a problem with the program, or else a user might have shut down the Norton Safety Minder service. Please restart the computer.

There was only 1 alert, but NSM had gone down several times during my testing. Does it take a few minutes for the crash to be reported? When I saw the crash I was restarting the computer, so maybe that is why it was not reported.

[END EDIT]

If there are other Norton components on the PC, can they make NSM act erratically?

KatieQ · ‎04-09-2009

Hi Carya,

You said "NSM had gone down several times during my testing". Can you please tell us why you think it was down for several times? What did you see that made you think it had been down several times?

Thanks,

Katie

Carya · ‎03-28-2012

I was able to visit sites that should have been blocked and that were blocked a few weeks ago. I noticed that when I was able to visit supposedly blocked sites, if I clicked on the NSM icon in the systray, it would disappear and the process would be gone when checked in task manager. Are there any steps you can recommend to get this fixed?

KatieQ · ‎04-09-2009

HI Carya,

You mentioned earlier that you don't have Norton security product installed on the PC. What security product do you have currently?

Thanks,

Katie

Carya · ‎03-28-2012

Avast antivirus

KatieQ · ‎04-09-2009

Hi Carya,

Avast is not compatible with Norton Safety Minder.

Thanks,

Katie

Carya · ‎03-28-2012

I don't understand.

I've been using these 2 together for 2 years on 2 computers and it suddenly fails on 1 of the computers due to incompatibility? Did you change something in the last 2 weeks that made them incompatible?

How do I test for compatibility?

What about your earlier comment about having other Norton products installed that are not currently being used? You have not mentioned that since your 1st post despite me asking about it.

A web search reveals that these 2 are incompatible because all web traffic is blocked unless Avast's web shield is turned off. For example, this comment:

I'd like to also suggest that you list incompatible, partially compatible, and compatible av products. For example, Avast is compatible with the web shield disabled. That would make the chart at https://www-secure.symantec.com/norton-support/jsp/help-solutions.jsp?docid=20090508145137EN&lg=engl... more useful.

Found here: http://community.norton.com/t5/Norton-Online-Family/compatible-antivirus/m-p/290828/highlight/true#M...

My web shield is already turned off and my problem is not lack of web access.

KatieQ · ‎04-09-2009

Carya,

Please check out the link below for documentation on the subject.

https://www-secure.symantec.com/norton-support/1.6/jsp/help-solutions.jsp?docid=kb20090508145137EN_E...

Since you mentioned that you have used the program for a while and it was working, so at first I didn't think other security product might have something to do with the issue.

Our QA team has tested the products in the list above and seen the compatibility issue. If you want to make sure the version of Avast is really compatible with Norton Safety Minder or not, please check the doc for details and/or uninstall Avast TEMPORARILY for testing purpose, then test Norton Safety Minder again to see if it still works.