Large 140 MB update using Live Update?

Norton Security | Norton Internet Security
1

I run Live Update (Norton AntiVirus 2010 version 17.9.0.12) once or twice a day to update new definitions. I run it manually so I can choose when to update because my dial-up connection is so slow. On 3/29/2012 when I ran Live Update it showed an update of approximately 140 MB. I have been running Live Update for several years and have never seen anything larger than about 12 MB so I assumed that it was a typo and much smaller. As it turned out it is 140 MB and because my connection disconnects so often (very noisy lines) I only got to about 41 MB before it disconnected. It is impossible for me to download anything over 50 MB or so without using a download manager so I will never be able to get this update downloaded. I update Norton definitions daily so I'm also not even sure what an update of this size is.

 

I downloaded Intelligent Update from North's website using my download manager and ran it so that it would bring everything up-to-date including what ever the 140 MB update is. It ran successfully and updated the definitions but every time I run Live Update it still tries to download the 140 MB update. As long as Live Update keeps trying to download this large update I can not update definitions. Downloading the Intelligent Update package took 10 hours and several restarts so it is not practical for me to download Intelligent Update everyday just to get the new definitions.

 

Hopefully, someone here either knows or can help me figure out what the update is and how to prevent Live Update from trying to download it.

2

hi

 

 

it s time for you too upgrade too norton 2012  it is free  too upgrade free too  norton 2012 go to  check  new  version  and hit down lode  and it sould start the upgrade

 

 

you are uesing  a vary old norton  am not even sure if norton 2010 is still support   but if it is that likey why you are seeing  Large updates  in norton 2012 the updates have got in better  and smaller

3

Hi snowstorm and thank you for your reply. I actually considered that it might be a newer product upgrade but I did not get one for 2011 (or prior years when I was using older versions) so I wasn't real sure about it. I also tried downloading and running the AutoDetectPkg.exe from the support section on this site to see if that was what it was but unfortunately, since I get my Norton AntiVirus through my ISP, it refer me to my ISP instead of telling me I need the upgrade and letting me install it. Same thing happens when I try to contact Norton Support. I'm not sure why they do not support it if purchased through an ISP? Ironically, the only Norton AntiVirus my ISP currently offers is 2010 either as a download or to order on CD so I'm not even sure if I install 2012 if my pin number will be valid to run it?

 

I guess I will just have too try downloading 2012 and see if it will install and run with my pin number. Do you happen know if I need to completely uninstall 2010 before installing 2012 or will the 2012 install take care of everything?

4

I just checked, Norton AntiVirus 2010 is still renewable on Norton's website under upgrades and renewals so now I'm not so sure that the 140 MB update, when running  Live Update, is an upgrade for AntiVirus 2012. It also explains why my ISP is still using 2010. Mine is renewed automatically through my ISP.

5

no need too un stall norton 2010 has norton norton 2012 will do that for you when it stat the upgrade all so if you ues norton toolbar a lot i would do a back up of some kind  but if you dont ues norton too bar  then that some in you can skip 

6
gkdiamond wrote:

I just checked, Norton AntiVirus 2010 is still renewable on Norton's website under upgrades and renewals so now I'm not so sure that the 140 MB update, when running  Live Update, is an upgrade for AntiVirus 2012. It also explains why my ISP is still using 2010. Mine is renewed automatically through my ISP.

Hi,

Before you do too many things please remember that you can have only one active security program on your system at a time. More than that will cause conflicts and will reduce your actual level of protection. If you are going to remove the program that you received from your ISP then you may need to use the removal tools provided by them to be sure that all of the bits and bytes are removed before you install a new program. Do that before you reinstall and upgrade NAV 2010.

We'll be here when you need us. Til then

Stay well and surf safe

7

Thanks and no I do not have any other active security programs installed.

 

Looks like an upgrade to 2012 is not free. An upgrade is treated as a new subscription plus any remaining time left on the old subscription is added to it. Plus I would no longer get the free yearly renewal that my ISP provides as part of my service. 

 

That is why in my previous reply I said that I do not think that the 140 MB update that my Live Update wants to download is an AntiVirus 2012 upgrade. It doesn't make sense that Live Update would download an upgrade that I haven't agreed to buy or try and Norton also knows that my ISP provides my AntiVirus. That is why they direct me to my ISP for upgrades.

 

My ISP does provide a link to Norton's website for completely uninstalling Norton AntiVirus Online using SymNRT so unless someone has a solution for my 140 MB update problem my only option will be to try uninstalling Norton AntiVirus and reinstalling it in hopes that the 140 MB update issue will some how get resolved.

8
gkdiamond wrote:
My ISP does provide a link to Norton's website for completely uninstalling Norton AntiVirus Online using SymNRT so unless someone has a solution for my 140 MB update problem my only option will be to try uninstalling Norton AntiVirus and reinstalling it in hopes that the 140 MB update issue will some how get resolved.

I sympathize with your predicament because I also had issues with the LiveUpdate 140mb download recently. My problems however are not quite like yours as I do have a fast broadband connection but my older processor does not take kindly to massive downloads taking place while the processor is dealing with other requests.

 

It is my opinion that while Symantec continues to provide engine upgrades via LiveUpdate you are unlikely to find a satisfactory long term solution to your problem.

 

I have made suggestions to Symantec but even if they do decide that a change might help users with ISP provided software and dial up services or even users like myself with limited computer resources they are unlikely to make any immediate changes.

 

Please make your opinion heard by posting suggestions in the Product Suggestions section of the forum.

 

In there I have suggested adding an option to ......

turn on / off Automatically Download New Engine and also changing the description .....

Automatically Download New Version      to .......    Automatically Download New Major Release.

 

You may also wish to read my discussion Turn off Download New Version not working

gkdiamond wrote:
I downloaded Intelligent Update from North's website using my download manager and ran it so that it would bring everything up-to-date including what ever the 140 MB update is. It ran successfully and updated the definitions but every time I run Live Update it still tries to download the 140 MB update. As long as Live Update keeps trying to download this large update I can not update definitions. Downloading the Intelligent Update package took 10 hours and several restarts so it is not practical for me to download Intelligent Update everyday just to get the new definitions.

In my case the Intelligent Updater was not actually updating properly although it gave a completed message. I guess that was why the 140mb still showed in LiveUpdate. If you take a look at my report Error message running Intelligent Updater you will see the problem that I encountered. Symantec never acknowledged the issue or came up with any solution.

You may want to check your logs anyway to see if you encountered this or any other issues.

 

It has taken me a lot of time to research and find a way round Norton Automatic LiveUpdate and Automatic Scans shutting down my processor but the effort so far has been worthwhile.

 

I hope my comments are of some help and that you are successful in finding a solution to your particular problem.

 

Kind regards.

9

crisoco8722 thank you for your great reply and links, it helped to explain what the 140 MB update is. I was beginning to wonder if anyone else was seeing this update! So it is an update to my Norton AntiVirus 2010 Engine and not an upgrade to Norton AntiVirus 2012. That makes a lot more sense and also explains why Live Update didn't try to upgrade my 2010 version to the 2011 version last year. Apparently either there wasn't an engine update for the 2010 version in 2011 or they were small enough that they downloaded successfully through Live Update.

 

I did look at the Intelligent Updater log file after I ran Intelligent Updater and I did see the same or similar errors as you saw but I assumed that since Intelligent Updater encompasses so many versions that those errors are for other products and/or versions that are not installed on my system. When it gets to my product in the log file it updates the definitions so apparently Intelligent Updater does not include the engine update?

 

It would certainly help if Live Update told you what the update was when using it in manual mode (e.g.. "This is a definitions update" or "This is an Engine or Program update to version x.x.x.x").

 

If Norton would just modernize there Live Update download manager so that it is resumable (like HP, Microsoft and many others) my problem would be resolved. Or, if they would let me download the update from their website, instead of just referring me to my ISP or if they included the update in their Intelligent Updater (I'm assuming that they do not since running it does not update my 2010 engine).

 

I can see that uninstalling and reinstalling Norton AntiVirus 2010 will not help - Live Update will still want to download the engine update.

 

Not that it would help but Norton AntiVirus 2010 does not have the option to turn off 'Automatic Download of New Version' (or 'Smart Definitions') that you show in your other post. Also, in your other post you say "I want to run these independently either from the GUI Version Checker or some online download source that does not use LiveUpdate." What GUI Version Checker are you talking about?

 

So now I am stuck not being able to download definition updates daily. My only recourse is to download Intelligent Updater periodically (weekly, bi-monthly, monthly) until I figure out how to resolve this issue.

10

I just went to the Norton Update Center webpage and I noticed that under the 'Update Me Now' button there is an option "Choose My Product Manually (For advanced users)" which I did not notice yesterday. I clicked on it and it lets me select a product and then my version [Norton AntiVirus 2010]. I clicked continue and the next page tells me a product update is available (it also shows a picture of AntiVirus 2012). It tells me to click on continue to install an updated version of Norton AntiVirus. Without scanning my system I don't know how it could know that my 2010 version needs an engine update so this must be the 2012 version. This is very confusing. I clicked on continue and downloaded the file: NAVDownloader which must be the installer. I will run it later this evening to download Norton AntiVirus 2012. Hopefully it will accept my pin number as valid and also renew yearly even though my ISP is still only offering the 2010 version.

11
gkdiamond wrote:

crisoco8722 thank you for your great reply and links, it helped to explain what the 140 MB update is. I was beginning to wonder if anyone else was seeing this update!

Hi gkdiamond.

Glad you found my explanation helpful. I cannot guarantee that what you were seeing was an engine update. Only Symantec will be able to confirm that for definate. In my case it was definately an engine update.

gkdiamond wrote:

So it is an update to my Norton AntiVirus 2010 Engine and not an upgrade to Norton AntiVirus 2012. That makes a lot more sense and also explains why Live Update didn't try to upgrade my 2010 version to the 2011 version last year.

If Symantec didn't try to upgrade your 2010 they may not have introduced an upgrade facility via LiveUpdate at that time. I can only tell you what happened with the recent 140mb download which in my case was an update for the 2012 Norton Internet Security engine.

gkdiamond wrote:

I did look at the Intelligent Updater log file after I ran Intelligent Updater and I did see the same or similar errors as you saw but I assumed that since Intelligent Updater encompasses so many versions that those errors are for other products and/or versions that are not installed on my system. When it gets to my product in the log file it updates the definitions so apparently Intelligent Updater does not include the engine update?

I think this may well be correct but if LiveUpdate is still showing a large file still to download then that may well be the engine update.

gkdiamond wrote:

It would certainly help if Live Update told you what the update was when using it in manual mode (e.g.. "This is a definitions update" or "This is an Engine or Program update to version x.x.x.x").

 

Why don't you suggest this in Product Suggestions?

gkdiamond wrote:

If Norton would just modernize there Live Update download manager so that it is resumable (like HP, Microsoft and many others) my problem would be resolved.

This was probably happening with me here anyway when it kept being aborted (see the screen shots showing subsequent downloads and what was remaining) but like you say there was nothing there to confirm it.

gkdiamond wrote:

Not that it would help but Norton AntiVirus 2010 does not have the option to turn off 'Automatic Download of New Version' (or 'Smart Definitions') that you show in your other post. Also, in your other post you say "I want to run these independently either from the GUI Version Checker or some online download source that does not use LiveUpdate." What GUI Version Checker are you talking about?

I was referring to the main GUI that pops up when you click the notication area icon.

In the 2012 version it is under Support / New Version Check.

I have this link inserted into AlertBox in Firefox to inform me when a new version (new major release) is available.

gkdiamond wrote:
I just went to the Norton Update Center webpage and I noticed that under the 'Update Me Now' button there is an option "Choose My Product Manually (For advanced users)" which I did not notice yesterday. I clicked on it and it lets me select a product ...... I will run it later this evening to download Norton AntiVirus 2012. Hopefully it will accept my pin number as valid and also renew yearly even though my ISP is still only offering the 2010 version.

Choosing the product manually is the same as the New Version check link above from the GUI.

You can of course use www.norton.com/nis12 which in my case will download directly the 2012 version engine ......

NIS ESD 19.5.1.2 EN.exe

You should note however that this is not the latest engine. Running LiveUpdate will bring down the latest engine if you use this link and then all the definitions will have to be downloaded as well.

The Update Centre seems to be the best place to go for the latest product.

The same applies to Intelligent Updater. This will not be as up to date as LiveUpdate. As you say it is all very confusing.

 

I hope it will accept your pin and then hopefully another major hurdle will be over. It should do. Good luck.

12

Thought I would post my outcome for anyone who may be having the same problem in the future and come across this thread.

 

I downloaded the "update" to my AntiVirus 2010 and installed it and as suspected, it was an upgrade to Norton AntiVirus 2012 with a 15 day trial period. ISPs do not provide product numbers and the software did not give me an option to enter my pin number so I downloaded and ran Norton's removal tool to completely uninstall Norton AntiVirus on my computer.

 

As a side note, during the download of the upgrade the Norton download manager errored out twice. No reason given, and my computer was even still connected to the Internet the first time. The second time my Internet connection did get dropped. The download manager is suppose to be resumable but it was not (at least not for me). I lost 5 1/2 hours of downloaded data. The third time I used my own download manager which worked great on the same server even with several disconnects and restarts. Norton's Download Manager (NAVDownloader.exe) is a very simple download manager, I would avoid using it if you can.

 

On my ISP's website I noticed that the Norton AntiVirus available for download was dated 3 months after when I had installed it in 2010, so I downloaded and installed that version. It turned out to be Norton AntiVirus 2011. After installing it, I ran the Intelligent Updater that I had downloaded the week before to bring the definitions up to date (except for the last 7 days). When I ran LiveUpdate instead of the anticipated update being relatively small it was 177 MB. I was worse off than with my 2010 version!

 

The first time I ran LiveUpdate about 50 MB downloaded before getting disconnected (restarting LiveUpdate showed 126 MB of updates left to download). I left LiveUpdate downloading overnight and restarted it in the morning (the connection had dropped out during the night). This time it showed a 167 MB update to download, only 10 MB less than the original update. Unless Norton released a large update over the 4 hour period that LiveUpdate ran it did not make sense. Over the next 3 days, every time I would get the updates down under 100 MB they would go back up. At first, I thought this might be happening if more updates were being found as the product and engine was updated to new versions. On the third day, I could see from the 'View Summary' option the only updates left to download were 2011 Virus Definitions and yet the updates still keep going back up to 140+ MB. They would go down on subsequent LiveUpdate restarts and then mysteriously go back up. Then looking at the stats I had been keeping I realized what might be happening. It looked like when LiveUpdate ran into the next day instead of resuming from where it left off it would start over on the next restart. So, yesterday (Saturday) I started LiveUpdate at 6:30AM and ran it all day, restarting it on disconnects until I finally had all available updates downloaded. LiveUpdate is now updating daily updates.

 

It appears that there is a bug in the LiveUpdate download manager if it crosses over a 24 hour period during the update. Also, I do not know why Intelligent Updater would not update the virus definitions in AntiVirus 2011 or why it would not update the 140 MB update to my AntiVirus 2010 that started the problem in the first place.

13

Less than 2 months (see my posts above) since the large definitions update and now LiveUpdate has a 150MB definitions update. I run LiveUpdate everyday, usually several times, so my definitions are up-to-date so I don't see how there could be a 150MB definitions update. Large updates like this have not occurred in the last 5 years [on my computer] and now 2 in less than 2 months. Other than guessing, does anyone know what is going on? I have the Automatic Download of New Version option turned off which should not really matter anyway since my Norton AntiVirus is provided through my ISP. I have AntiVirus Online 2011 (18.7.1.3) currently installed.

 

After the first restart of LiveUpdate I was down to 104MB left. After my second disconnect at 12.28PM, I should have been down to 71MB on the second restart but instead LiveUpdate went back to 151MB. In my post above I said there appeared to be a software bug at the crossover (12:00AM) from PM to AM. It now appears that the bug also applies to the crossover (12:00PM) from AM to PM.

14

I've been having the same problem (or activity, if not really a problem) from time to time for the last several weeks, and nobody yet knows why or what's happening.  Some members suggest that I upgrade to NIS 2012 and that is supposed to stop the unusual large liveupdate size.  I do not do this since should not be necessary.  So far, no big problems, just the inconvenience every few weeks of a large liveupdate.

15

Hi gkdiamond,

 

There are things I want to point out. First, running the Live Update depends on your connection type. All the updates are being transferred from the Symantec Server down to your Norton product. The medium being used for that is through internet connection. So since you are using a dial up connection, no chance for you to finish the complete download in just a SINGLE process. If Norton requires you to have the 140MB definition updates,  you can get it but you have the run the LIVE UPDATE over and over until you have completed it. For instance, the first live update would give you 41MB. The next time you'll be running it, LIVE UPDATE would not start again with 140MB but it's approximately 100MB. In short, you can complete the 140MB updates if you will run the LIVE UPDATE for 4 times. It's pretty hassle on your part but it really works.

 

Hope this post somehow helps you. Thank you for choosing Norton!!!

 

NOTE: The upgrade of the product is still up to you. But you also need to consider the capability of your connection :)

 

 

16

Thanks for your reply g_cafe_c. I do not believe that upgrading to NIS 2012 will stop the large live updates because crisoco8722 (see 1st page) also had this same issue and he is using NIS 2012.

 

Yes, definitely an inconvenience, a big inconvenience for me. Not only the 9 to 10 hours of babysitting the update but also having to avoid the crossover times. I hope it stops soon, as I said it does not really make sense because my definitions are always up-to-date. It seems like Norton's LiveUpdater is updating every virus definition even though they are up-to-date.