Windows 7 x64 home premium sp1, NIS 20.1.0.18 I will describe what I experienced and ask if this is normal: I was trying out a software and wanted to flex my awareness by modifying its firewall rules and monitoring its activities. What I experienced was a non-rhythmic near-continuous stream of message alerts via the system tray. The message itself reveals nothing. The logs reveal less than that. Turning on ‘Silence Mode’ defeats the purpose of monitoring, since the logs show nothing. Outside of that, the message alerts also do something I deemed odd. When they appear (often), they ‘steal’ the focus from the web browser window. IOW, I’m browsing, reading and scrolling via the web broswer and the message alert appears. Immediately, the focus is transfered to the message alert popup window. I have adjusted my mouse accessibility settings to focus on whichever window the cursor hovers over. Once the message alert steals the focus, I have to click on the broswer to retake the focus. This behavior of the monitor rule message alerts, in addition to the lack of information, makes the monitor rule worthless and useless. Another strange aspect also arose. After I was done using the software for the session, the message alerts continued unabated. When I responded by modifying the firewall rules to ‘block’ the software, that had no effect on the message alerts. When I exited the program and ensured it wasn’t ‘running’, the message alerts continued five to ten minutes after. Was NIS just processing the backlog of queued access requests? Am I using the monitor rule incorrectly? Am I expecting more than it was supposed to deliver, like maybe an address the software program is calling out to?
Windows 7 x64 home premium sp1, NIS 20.1.0.18 I will describe what I experienced and ask if this is normal: I was trying out a software and wanted to flex my awareness by modifying its firewall rules and monitoring its activities. What I experienced was a non-rhythmic near-continuous stream of message alerts via the system tray. The message itself reveals nothing. The logs reveal less than that. Turning on ‘Silence Mode’ defeats the purpose of monitoring, since the logs show nothing. Outside of that, the message alerts also do something I deemed odd. When they appear (often), they ‘steal’ the focus from the web browser window. IOW, I’m browsing, reading and scrolling via the web broswer and the message alert appears. Immediately, the focus is transfered to the message alert popup window. I have adjusted my mouse accessibility settings to focus on whichever window the cursor hovers over. Once the message alert steals the focus, I have to click on the broswer to retake the focus. This behavior of the monitor rule message alerts, in addition to the lack of information, makes the monitor rule worthless and useless. Another strange aspect also arose. After I was done using the software for the session, the message alerts continued unabated. When I responded by modifying the firewall rules to ‘block’ the software, that had no effect on the message alerts. When I exited the program and ensured it wasn’t ‘running’, the message alerts continued five to ten minutes after. Was NIS just processing the backlog of queued access requests? Am I using the monitor rule incorrectly? Am I expecting more than it was supposed to deliver, like maybe an address the software program is calling out to?
neigh-ho-ma wrote:
Windows 7 x64 home premium sp1, NIS 20.1.0.18 I will describe what I experienced and ask if this is normal: I was trying out a software and wanted to flex my awareness by modifying its firewall rules and monitoring its activities.
Hi neigh-ho-ma:
If you are using NIS v. 21.1.0.18 (not NIS v. 20.x) and have the Smart Fiirewall setting for Advanced Events Monitoring turned ON (Settings | Network | Smart Firewall | Advanced Settings | Configure | Automatic Program Control | Configure | Advanced Events Monitoring), please see slee2's thread here. There appears to be a bug in the NIS v. 21.x firewall, and the only solution I've seen so far is to either turn OFF the Advanced Events Monitoring or downgrade back to NIS 20.x as instructed here.
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MS Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2 * Firefox 25.0.1 * IE 9.0 * NIS 2013 v. 20.4.0.40
HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
I am using the latest, NIS 21.1.0.18.
And the firewall(s) are on automatic.
It was just this one program under Program Rules which I had modified from Auto to Monitor (other than Allow or Block).
You didn't provide a link to a description of the bug you mentioned.
Should the alert message steal focus from the current window? I don't experience alert messages much. and when I do get them, I usually respond. Since the monitor alert messages are of a different purpose, they should not have the gravitas of stealing focus and demanding a response.