Norton Mobile Security

[Astartes]

I recently installed Mobile Utilities as well as Security on my HTC EVO Shift. I have auto-sync turned off, but ever since I installed these two apps, my email has been auto-syncing quite frequently. My phone still shows auto-sync as disabled. This tells me that one of the two apps is overriding the phone's settings. The question is, where can I control this in the settings for whichever app is causing this problem? I have looked everywhere!

Thanks in advance!

[Andmike]

Hi Astartes.

Welcome to the Community.

I am as surprised to hear of your problems as you probably are to have them!  I also have Norton Mobile Security (NMS) and Norton Mobile Utilities Beta (NMU) on my phone and I have Auto-sync turned off and my email does not auto-sync.   Have you installed anything else recently?

Have you tried uninstalling NMU for a while to see if the issue continues?  If it does you could then try uninstalling NMS for a while to see if it still happens.  That should pin down which if either of the apps is the cause.  Have you checked when the syncing is going on to see if the auto-sync is still nominally turned off?

As I am grasping at straws here may I also ask how you know that the email is auto-syncing, how frequently it is happening and whether it happens though Wi-Fi or 3G or both.

I look forward to your response with interest.

[Astartes]

Thank you for your response.

I have not installed anything else recently, and I haven't installed very many apps overall.

I know that my email is auto-syncing because the number of unread messages changes without me opening the mail app. Then I open the mail app (without syncing) and it shows the time that it last updated.

The time between syncs seems to be quite random. It synced at 12:11, 12:39, and 12:50. I was able to catch my phone while it was auto-syncing, and I quickly looked at the auto-sync settings. Auto-sync had not been temporarily disabled, and all of the setting were as I left them. The auto-sync setting for my mail is to sync every 2 hours (but it is disabled), so if auto-sync had been temporarily enabled, then it would sync according to this schedule.

I unistalled NMU, and it still auto-synced. Then I uninstalled NMS, and it no longer auto-synced. I reinstalled NMU, and it seems to not be auto-syncing, but I want to give it more time before I say for sure.

So, it looks like NMS is the source of the problem. If it starts auto-syncing again with only NMU installed, then I will retry the experiment over a longer periods of time (the course of a day). All of the auto-syncing occurrences happened over 3G. I will soon be testing it on Wi-Fi.  Also, it doesn't seem to have affected auto-syncing for anything else (Facebook, news, weather), but it is possible that they would auto-sync, given more time.

[Andmike]

Hello again Astartes.

Thanks for the interesting feedback.

Have you got "Background data" enabled (i.e. ticked) under accounts and sync?  I am wondering if it is merely the message numbers that is being updated rather than the actual emails.  If so the email package might consider that to be "background data".  Purely a guess.

What are you using for email?  I use gmail and I'm not aware that I have an option to auto-sync every 2 hrs.

[Astartes]

My mail app is just called "mail", and I believe it is the HTC mail app (here is a link to an image of the icon - it is in the second column, second row). This app shows when it was last syncd (or synced?). Also, I have confirmed that it is an accurate reflection of my actual inbox.

I do have  "Background data" enabled because, upon instillation, NMS notified me that I have to enable it in order for it to work. This does give rise to the possibility that it may be caused by something other than NMU or NMS because enabling background data opens the way for all apps to operate in the background. However, I have never has this problem before, even when background data was enabled, and I have not installed any other apps since.

[Andmike · Accepted solution]

Hi Astartes.

Thanks for that feedback.  

It looks to me as if this is a specific HTC app.  Having had a quick look around I see that a lot of people have had problems with the HTC mail app syncing properly in the past.  This makes me wonder if it has recently been updated and that this "fix" maybe causing the issues you are seeing.

I still can't work out how NMS would cause your mail to be synced when you have "sync" switched off.  However the real test is if over an extended period with just NMS removed it does not sync and with it returned then the syncing starts again.  So my suggestion would be to try an extended test with just NMS being removed/reinstalled.  If such an extended test points clearly to NMS then I think you may have to collect some logs and pass them to Norton for a more in depth investigation but we are not there yet.

On a slightly different track do you have the Norton Anti-Theft plugin installed?

Good luck.

[Astartes]

I did have the anti-theft plug-in installed with NMS (I have since uninstalled due to testing).

It recently auto-synced again, only this time it was after exactly two hours. I have never had a problem with the HTC mail app. It does make sense, though. I do recall some apps updating when I downloaded NMS and NMU (I probably should have mentioned that, but it didn't occur to me). It seems that it may just be coincidence, and the Norton apps are not at fault.

I will continue to observe in order to be sure of the cause of this problem, and I will post here when I have more conclusive information.

Thank you for all of your help, Andmike. 

[Andmike]

I suspect that your mail app is overriding the sync functionality as you have told it that you want it to sync every two hours.  However we will be very interested to hear the result of your investigations, so do keep us informed.

Good luck.

[erik_carlstrom]

Just thought I'd chime in to help clarify.  I think the problem here is around what AutoSync is.  AutoSync is used to synchronize your Google account as well as a few settings within your phone including the Gmail app.  Since your phone isn't using the Google default Gmail app, but the Mail app any connectivity will not be covered just by AutoSync.  Background data is what allows an app to be able to connect while in the background.  Does that make more sense?