Norton Internet Security / Norton AntiVirus

[JimtheESL]

It seems like every time my PC isn't shut down properly, or there is a power interruption, all of the Norton Identity Safe data becomes unusable, and I have to create a profile again.  It asks me for the location of the IDDStore.dat file, and even when I point the computer to it, it says the data isn't found.  If I were to copy and paste all of the data to another USB flash drive when I know it is all working 100% and just store it, would it be possible to later use that backup?

[AllenM Norton Fighter]

Hi JimtheESL,

Welcome to the Norton Community. Can you tell us your exact version of NIS? You can get this from Help > About or Support > About. The version number will start with 16, 17, 18, etc. Please give us the entire number.

Also what version of Windows do you have and is it 32 or 64 bit?

You can make backups of your Identity Safe data by going to Settings > Web Settings > Identity Safe > Backup Identity Safe Data. It can also be restored to a previous backup by clicking on Restore Identity Safe Data. There will be a Configure button to the right of these selections.

I am concerned that you may have some errors on your hard drive. It could be that Identity Safe data is getting corrupted during power down because the file is still opened by NIS but I don't think that would cause the problem so routinely. (I have tested improper shutdowns on my test laptop and never saw this happen).

To be safe you should run a chkdsk c: /r. Windows will inform you that it cannot run this check until the next restart and ask if you want to schedule the check. Answer Yes to this and reboot your computer.

Let us know if chkdsk reports and/or corrects any errors on your hard drive. If you miss the report on screen at the end of chkdsk you can pull up the results by looking in the Windows Application events after you log back onto your computer. Please see the following Microsoft KB articles for information on how to pull up the Windows events:

Windows XP: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/snap_event_viewer.msp...

Windows Vista / Windows 7: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Open-Event-Viewer. You can also just type the word "events" in the start menu search box.

Then expand Windows Logs and look under Application events and search for the time frame in which chkdsk was run and look for any errors or warnings.

Hope this helps.

Best wishes.

Allen

[JimtheESL]

I'm running Norton Internet Security 2011 version 18.1.0.37 with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.  I'll try the chkdsk and get back to you.

[JimtheESL]

The only warning message I see in the log from the timeframe of the chkdsk is this:

Windows detected your registry file is still in use by other applications or services. The file will be unloaded now. The applications or services that hold your registry file may not function properly afterwards.

[SendOfJive Norton Fighter]

Hi JimtheESL,

The message you see is from the Event VIewer (not chkdsk) and is a known minor glitch that Windows reports when Norton closes at system shutdown.  It is not a serious issue and is fixed in the 18.5 patch that will be re-released in the near future.  It is unrelated to your issue.

[AllenM Norton Fighter]

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JimtheESL wrote:

The only warning message I see in the log from the timeframe of the chkdsk is this:

Windows detected your registry file is still in use by other applications or services. The file will be unloaded now. The applications or services that hold your registry file may not function properly afterwards.

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Hi JimtheESL,

Did you happen to be at your computer when chkdsk was running and at the end? Did you notice any errors being reported?

Did you pull up the Windows Application events? If you don't see any warning or error message events, look for an informational event with a source of "Wininit". Highlight that entry and it should give an indication that chkdsk was run. If you don't see any errors or warnings in that same general time frame that it would indicate that no problems were found during chkdsk.

Though I do not see this behavior when I test improper shut downs of my test laptop, there is always a chance something can become corrupted when this occurs. I would highly recommend that you do two things:

1. Invest in a UPS system. You can get a relatively low cost unit which has software control so that if commercial power goes down it will perform a graceful shutdown of Windows.

2. Do periodic backups of Identity Safe as I suggested earlier so that you can recover the data when needed.

Best wishes.

Allen

[JimtheESL]

Yes, I was at the computer when the chkdsk was running and when it finished.  It said  "clean volume," so I assume there were no errors.  There is nothing in the logs.   I noticed something different this morning regarding Identity Safe.  I shut my computer down normally last night.  When I turned it on this morning, I saw that I had the same problem as I described in the first post.  My Identity Safe data cannot be found, according to NIS 2011.  Luckily, I made a backup of the data yesterday, so I restored it.  But, it seems this problem is occurring more and more frequently now.

[huwyngr Norton Fighter]

Jim,

A longshot -- you don't have a Solid State Hard (SSD) drive in your computer do you?

I ask because I was checking for some information on them yesterday and it seems that some models from at least one leading name in memory are subject to "spontaneous" data corruption during use .....

[AllenM Norton Fighter]

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JimtheESL wrote:

Yes, I was at the computer when the chkdsk was running and when it finished.  It said  "clean volume," so I assume there were no errors.  There is nothing in the logs.   I noticed something different this morning regarding Identity Safe.  I shut my computer down normally last night.  When I turned it on this morning, I saw that I had the same problem as I described in the first post.  My Identity Safe data cannot be found, according to NIS 2011.  Luckily, I made a backup of the data yesterday, so I restored it.  But, it seems this problem is occurring more and more frequently now.

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Hi Jim,

This is very unusual. Do you have any other symptoms that would point to files getting corrupted? If there were some sort of issue with the hard drive which is causing this I would expect to see other problems as well. What is the chance that it could hit your ID safe data each time and nothing else?

This also does not sound like a problem that would be caused by NIS so I'm at a bit of a loss at this point.

Can you try to reproduce this with specific testing. Rather than having to wait until the next time you normally shut your computer down or you lose power or something do you have time to do computer shut down tests to see just how reproducible this is?

NIS 2011 version 18.5.0.125 has just been released to live update for the English version. Can you check your version from Support > About again and see if you have this new version yet? If not try to run live update manually and you should pick up the new one. You probably need to reboot after running live update and you might need to run live update another time or two to get the new version as I believe there is more than one stage required to get the new version.

See if this makes any difference. You can do more computer shut down tests to compare results of both versions of NIS (18.1 and 18.5) to see if there is any difference. NOTE that 18.5 is being deployed in a phased manner so you may not receive this yet.

Another thing to try if the above does not yield some solid results.

• Make a fresh backup of your ID safe from Web Settings > Identity Safe > Backup Identity Safe Data.
• Plug in a USB flash drive to an available USB port on your computer. Log out of ID safe. Then click the Configure button next to Identity Safe Setup. NIS will ask you if you want to store ID safe data on your computer or the USB flash drive. Choose the USB flash drive.
• Type in the desired password and Password hint. Make sure and use the same password that you already use on your current ID safe data profile.
• Choose NO when asked if you want IE passwords imported.
• Restore your backup ID safe data from Web Settings > Identity Safe > Restore Identity Safe Data. Verify all the login passwords are present.
• Log back out of ID safe.
• Now from this point on NIS will give you a choice which profile you want to log into provided that your USB flash drive is plugged into your computer.

Now you can do some more testing and when you find that you cannot log into your LOCAL profile (stored in the normal location on your hard drive), you can try to log into your portable profile on the USB flash drive.

If you can log into your portable profile on your USB flash but NOT your local profile then we know something is going on that is hardware specific and not NIS.

If you cannot log into either of the two profiles (local or portable) then we have narrowed the problem down to being something with NIS.

Note: do some testing to verify if the problem only happens for a profile in which you are current logged into when the computer is shut down. E.g., if your local profile becomes corrupted if you shut down your computer while logged in, does the same thing happen when you are logged into your portable profile?

Would you mind doing this testing? This will tell us for sure where the problem lies.

Hope this helps and please let us know how it goes.

Best wishes.

Allen

[JimtheESL]

Before I try those things, I will say that I have always stored the Identity Safe Data on a USB flash drive.  I've never stored it locally on the hard drive.  Could this cause the problem?  Also, I noticed that I still have version 18.1.0.37 despite running LiveUpdate, restarting, and running LiveUpdate again.