After about 2 months, I'm having problems with the Norton Firewall again. Here's a link to another (closed) topic about this problem : https://community.norton.com/en/forums/smart-firewall-will-not-re-enable-available-options-are-faded.
I'm not going to try anything anymore that I already tried a dozen times or more.
I am just going to use my pc (without the firewall, although I'm paying for it) and when I get attacked or if I get a virus, I'll just sue Norton for not providing the protection I'm paying them for. I advice everybody with this problem to do the same.
Many people think they should disable the Windows Firewall Service when using a third party AV product. The AV products can still use some of the Windows Firewall api's to function. If you were not seeing problems before, a change in the Norton product that needed one of those api's may have caused the issue with the Norton firewall failing to run normally.
BUT : I think the problem may be solved! After almost 12 hours and several restarts, Norton firewall is still holding up!
Although contacting support 3 times in the past didn't help at all for this problem, I contacted them again. They tried a couple of things on my PC and what finally did it was enabling (part of) Windows Firewall. I always had it off and everything worked fine, but seems like now it was the problem. So here's the exact settings they changed :
Go to Control Panel, select System Management, select Services. In the Services-window, search for Windows Firewall, right click it, select Properties and in the window that opens, set it to start Automatically. Then apply the changes, close the windows and reboot.
Let's hope I translated that right, because my PC's in dutch. Lol... I hope this works for all who are affected by this problem.
Some extra info : If I completely remove everything Norton-related and then reinstall, Norton seems to work just fine, even after updating it. However, when I reboot my PC, the problem immediately returns. I noticed this 3 times up to now.
It was that update that suddenly made my firewall work again (turned my norton into version 22.14.2.13) but I was happy too fast. After restarting my PC, my firewall is disabled yet again. So... back to square one :-(.
And as I stated, it seems like not only the firewall is down, but also the automatic updates. I have to check for updates manually all the time.
BTW : you were right about the 2 Norton services. One is the system, the other one is for the user. But still... an average cpu usage of 20% really seems like a lot to me. I play graphically intense games that don't even use that much :-S. It is really starting to annoy me because I constantly see a blue (busy) circle next to my mouse pointer. I never had this before.
I never said an update resolved the problem for me. I don't know what did. Note my comment 4 posts before the one you refer to where I say "as far as I know", because it just worked all of a sudden without me doing anything.
Noted. But my point was that the issue was resolved for you at that time.
I manually did an update about 3 hours ago (for some reason my automatic update is not working either) and the firewall is now enabled again. Yes, this time it IS an update that fixed it ;-).
There was a product update noted by Rags. And sometimes after an update that actually changes the version number, it is advised to restart your system a couple of times to get things all settled in. Was this the update you just received? ie Was there a patch that you had to apply? If so, when your product was restarted, it may have settled the firewall issue you were seeing.
I never said an update resolved the problem for me. I don’t know what did. Note my comment 4 posts before the one you refer to where I say “as far as I know”, because it just worked all of a sudden without me doing anything. I just suppose it was an update.
And my post may be the first about the problem returning but it seems to me like at least Rags is having the problem too and so are probably others.
I know you don’t work for Norton and I wasn’t attacking you so sorry if it came across like that. I just asked you as somebody who participated in the fora who seems to know more about all this than me.
I never got any feedback from the info I provided to Sunil btw. I never heard anything from anybody.
On that note : I manually did an update about 3 hours ago (for some reason my automatic update is not working either) and the firewall is now enabled again. Yes, this time it IS an update that fixed it ;-). This does prove there is a problem with Norton and I still think it’s sad that they don’t communicate about this. Even if it’s just to let users know there is a problem and they’re working on it. That would be enough for me and I’d totally understand things can go wrong, but it’s not fair leaving paying customers in the dark like that.
FYI ... the only vague glimpse of hope might be a new version which appeared yesterday, but I am not at all optimistic. Now why can't a professional at Norton rather than an amateur forum-poster inform you of this?
See https://community.norton.com/en/forums/announcing-norton-2214213-update-windows-0 listed a the top of the list of threads
It's nice to have it confirmed that Norton really doesn't give a flying f*k about its customers, by them not adressing this issue.
In that other thread, you noted that a Norton update resolved your issue. https://community.norton.com/en/comment/7868661#comment-7868661 If everything has been OK since then, and has now started up again, your post is the first I have seen about this occurring again.
Extra info : I see 2 Norton Security services running in taskmanager. The are constantly using an average of 20% of my cpu!!! Is that normal? Doesn't look normal to me
This is totally normal. If you check the username for the process, you will see one of the Norton processes is for System, which is the actual real time protection features, and the other is for the user that is logged in. This second process is for the UI elements and task bar icon.
@peterweb : I remember you from the other fora. Did you ever find out what the problem is and how to fix it?
I am not a Norton employee, so I would have no way of knowing that information, as I was not affected by the issue. I see employee Sunil_GA contacted you about gathering logs. Did you ever get any personal feedback from that process?
I believe, as you say - "nobody posted anymore" because most users simply gave up, and not that they had any resolution to the problem. And who can blame them for giving up?
Believe it or not, the earliest report I have seen on this specific unresolved matter goes back to March of this year !!!
If you've read all the countless threads you'll have noticed that one user makes a very observant remark about the 'total radio silence' from Norton. How true! Another mentions that not even multiples of thousands of affected users would have any impact on Norton. So I assume their client-base must be in the multi millions. Another user wisely reminds us that ... all of these forums are a very shrewd way for Norton to deflect and avoid direct contact with their customers. Correct again..
(After all, they are a business, and this reduces their costs dramatically. Why give any support when users themselves can fumble around blindly trying to supoort one another?)
I just pity all those poor users who see a familiar reassuring icon in their system tray and have wrongly assumed that all is well. Ignorance really is bliss.
FYI ... the only vague glimpse of hope might be a new version which appeared yesterday, but I am not at all optimistic. Now why can't a professional at Norton rather than an amateur forum-poster inform you of this?
Well, .......you already know the shameful answer to that.
(The update is supposed to cure another problem, and a very minor one that I haven't even experienced, i.e. a missing right-click context menu on individual files/folders.)
It's ver. 22.14.2.13. In fact I have just this moment depoyed it only on one UN-affected machine. (It's unaffected because it's XP).
I'll see tonight if it has any bearing on the critical issue, instead of just the trivial matter it's intended to fix.
I hope you have some luck with it even if I don't.
P.S.
The problem that Norton have made for themselves is that as they become less supportive and less communicative, the anger and hostility of users increases. So naturally, they have to duck down even further into their radio silence. And so it goes on........ I believe I also read somewhere about users taking legal 'class action' against Norton on other matters. I wish them every possible success.
It's nice to have it confirmed that Norton really doesn't give a flying f*k about its customers, by them not adressing this issue. No response to my post, no public announcement about the problem, no solution... NOTHING! They have been accepting my money for all these years but when there's a problem they're just leaving you in the dark. I have 523 days left on my subscription. If I cancel, I guess I probably won't get a refund?
Extra info : I see 2 Norton Security services running in taskmanager. The are constantly using an average of 20% of my cpu!!! Is that normal? Doesn't look normal to me.
@peterweb : I remember you from the other fora. Did you ever find out what the problem is and how to fix it? Since nobody posted any more, I guess it was solved although I don't see that in the fora. I see the post from Bruce_Fishon as a solution but... not for me. I have one intel process and that's active, so...
Threads are closed automatically by the forum software after 30 days with no new posts. There is no censorship here. This just helps insure that any posts in a thread are using current information, such as product versions. Before this forum feature, we would have a user posting in a two year old thread where the Norton version was nothing like the current version.
Well said Gery!
(Just responding to Gery with some admiration and encouragement for his stance.)
BTW that wasn't the only topic/thread that was mysteriously closed (Another one suffered the same suspicious fate - https://community.norton.com/en/comment/7849171#comment-7849171).
(The last [very old] symptom that I am aware of was thet Norton pops a notification warning that "The firewall is disabled", then offers to fix it, then states that it HAS fixed it. But of course, actually it still remains completely disabled.)
Oh and incidentally, it isn't just the spyware/malware risks that are of concern. It's also that without the firewall being operational it's hard to block all of the intrusive snooping of the operating system itself, which phones home at frequent intervals. (For just one example, Windows Installer calls microsoft with the details every time you install new software.)
Since Norton themselves clearly don't GAF .....Can I please ask, does any user here know :
Are threads automatically or manually closed?
If closed manually, who is responsible?
What is the justification for, and what are the rules that govern the closing of a thread?
I can see no just cause for closing threads that are critically important to so many affected users, and yet those same threads still remain unaddressed and unresolved.