Identity Safe Won't Login

Norton Security | Norton Internet Security
1

I have been using Identity Safe, withNorton Antivirus / NIS ver 15 for about a year now.. However today, when I rebooted my PC, and then tried to login to identity safe from IE7, it won't let me login.. says "the password provided is incorrect".  Just to check, I clicked on the password hint (which I know I set), and it says "error retrieving password hint"  (Note: Prior to this reboot, I had identity safe logged-in, and was using it for about a week without a reboot.)

 

I don't want to reset the master if I can help it.  I do have a backup .NPM file but it is from Nov 2008!

 

If I go direclty through NIS.. and click on Tasks & Scans, and try to login that way.. same problem.  If I try to click on the "Manage Identity Safe Profile".. it just shows what the link is about: "blocks online identity theft...". but doesn't let me edit the profile settings.

 

Could this problem be caused by a virus?  Or have you ever heard of this happening before??

 

Any help would be appreciated.

2

As I haven't had any suggestions from anyone on this forum as to my problem with the password.. I am still unsure if it was caused by a virus or a Norton bug introduced via the LiveUpdate downloads, or I had added too many items for Identity Safe to remember so it 'crashed' (or something else). 

 

In case you are wondering.. I DO know what the password should be (I login to identity safe at least once or twice a week).. so that is why I can't figure out why it won't let me do it now.  (Yes, I have rebooted... several times.. and yes, I checked to make sure the caps-lock is off).

 

Here is my configuration:

Vista Business

Norton Internet Security/Norton Anti-Virus 2008

IE7

 

 

So I am left with a couple of choices:

  • Should I reset the master password, and then restore my backup .NPM file for identity safe from Feb 2010.
    • Should I upgrade to the free Norton 2010 version.
    • If both... which should occur first.

 

My questions are:

  • Right now I can't get access to any of the Identity Safe settings, because I can't login to identity safe.  (so unfortunetly, I can't do another back up before I have to reset!!)  So if I change the master password, I am assuming I will be able to get to the settings area, and it will allow me to restore my previously backed-up Feb2010 .npm file?
  • If I restore the backup identity safe information.. will it include my old login.. meaning will I be left in the same position, where the identity safe login password has been restored?
  • If I upgrade to the 2010 NIS version.. will it retain all of my current identity safe information?, and also the identity safe login passord.. or will it require me to set up a new one?
  • Is it better to upgrade to 2010 first?  Then if I am still having problems.. do the restore .NPM file?
  • If I do upgrade to NIS2010.. will it recognize a .NPM file made by NIS2008?
  • (And lastly.. Is there a limit to the number of logins you ask Indentity Safe to remember?)

 

Thanks for any suggestions!!!

SunnyOz27

3

Hi SunnyOz27

 

Welcome to the Norton Community. First, regarding the possibility of malware. It is possible but if this is the only problem you are having it is unlikely to be caused by that.

 

I have also never heard of a size limitation on the ID safe data.

 

You seem quite savvy so I am not being as detailed as I normally do. :smileyhappy: By all means if you need more details on anything below, please let me know.

 

Two distinct possibilities are that there is a problem with the NIS installation or that the ID safe data has somehow actually become corrupted.

 

I would recommend that you run a chkdsk /r on your C drive to make sure there are no hard drive errors causing this. If this finds problems and corrects the ID safe issue, then you can skip down to the section to just do the upgrade to NIS 2010.

 

Before we continue on, in your first post you mentioned that your NPM data was from Nov 2008, then in your last post you mentioned Feb 2010. Can you confirm which one it is? If it is from Feb 2010, have you added a lot of passwords since then?

 

If the NPM file is from Feb 2010 and you are not concerned about losing passwords you have added since then I would first try to reset the ID safe and restore from your NPM.

 

If you cannot afford to lose those passwords then...

 

First I would recommend doing a manual backup of your ID safe data. Please see the following post for the location of the ID safe data file. Please NOTE that you may have to take ownership of some directories since Windows tends to block some directories in this area.

 

http://community.norton.com/t5/Norton-Internet-Security-Norton/Identity-Safe-Login-Location/m-p/153677/highlight/true#M77039

To upgrade to NIS 2010:

 

Next we really should get you upgraded to NIS 2010. NIS 2010 can read the 2008 version of ID safe so as long as the ID safe data files are not themselves corrupted it should be able to read the data.

 

You can download the full version of NIS 2010 from here.

 

Please make note of your NIS product key from your Norton Account. You may need this later when you install NIS 2010. Your current product key will work for NIS 2010.

 

I would normally recommend running the Norton Removal Tool at this point but we can try to forego that for the moment and try a conventional uninstall of NIS 2008 and install NIS 2010. We can come back to the removal tool later if we need to.

 

Please disconnect yourself from the Internet and uninstall NIS 2008 from control panel.

 

Then install NIS 2010 using the full version you downloaded earlier. Connect back to the Internet and run Live Update repeatedly (rebooting as requested) until it reports that there are no more updates.

 

See if ID safe now works. If not, you will probably need to restore the NPM file from Feb 2010.

 

Please let us know how it goes.

 

Best wishes.

Allen