Running an Acer Aspire 8735G with Windows 7 64 bit. When the PC is idle and starts to run a background scan, which itseems to do several times a day despite being set to weekly, my laptop freezes. Outlook becomes unusable, Chrome will not start and trying to start task manager leads to a white screen. I have no other AV running and when I de-installed the pre-installed version of McaFee I scrubbed it. This only happens when NIS is on a background scan so is related to that. I have version 18.1.0.34 installed and had this issue with the previous version as well.
I confirm it is NIS 2011. Yesterday, I uninstalled NIS, did another scrub of McAfee and then re-installed NIS and did all the upgrades. However, in the evening it did another idle time quick scan and the laptop was unusable with the same symptons as previously listed. Only action was to switch off to stop the scan and then all worked ok...until the next scan.
Several people on this forum have had the same problem. In my case it appears to be the Norton Insight background scan that causes my laptop to freeze. Nothing I've tried yet has solved the probelm. You may want to check out the following posts for more information:
MS Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2 NIS 2011 v. 18.1.0.37 HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS
Thanks for the input though reading the links you provided me with does not fill me with confidence in NIS! Hard to understand why Norton have not resolved, what is a long running issue. Anyway, I have disabled compressed file scans and will see if that makes a difference.
Running an Acer Aspire 8735G with Windows 7 64 bit. When the PC is idle and starts to run a background scan, which itseems to do several times a day despite being set to weekly, my laptop freezes. Outlook becomes unusable, Chrome will not start and trying to start task manager leads to a white screen. I have no other AV running and when I de-installed the pre-installed version of McaFee I scrubbed it. This only happens when NIS is on a background scan so is related to that. I have version 18.1.0.34 installed and had this issue with the previous version as well.
I confirm it is NIS 2011. Yesterday, I uninstalled NIS, did another scrub of McAfee and then re-installed NIS and did all the upgrades. However, in the evening it did another idle time quick scan and the laptop was unusable with the same symptons as previously listed. Only action was to switch off to stop the scan and then all worked ok...until the next scan.
Hi pinman,
Once again, can you confirm if you ran the McAfee removal tool I recommended? Doing a "scrub" of McAfee does not really tell me what you did. If you have not done so already you need to run the McAfee removal tool.
Also can you confirm your exact version of NIS? You can get this from Support > About. You mentioned a reference to version 18.1.0.34 in your first post. This is NOT an official release of NIS 2011. Had you run the BETA version of NIS 2011 before?
To clarify, if you were running or are running the BETA version of NIS 2011 then things will NOT work correctly until you go through some steps to remedy the situation. 18.1.0.34 was a BETA release.
I apologize to keep coming back on the question about running the McAfee removal tool and questions regarding whether you are running or have run the NIS 2011 BETA.
But these are very important questions and I would be remiss in not pointing these out.
If you have run or are running the NIS 2011 BETA then I can help you to get this cleaned out so that you can install the official release of NIS 2011. As it is, even if you installed the official release of NIS 2011 on to a computer which previously ran the BETA, there is likely to be problems unless the BETA was cleaned out properly first.
Yes, I ran the McAfee removal tool. I uninstalled NIS then ran the McAfee tool and then the Norton uninstall tool then re-installed NIS. I have version 18.1.0.37 of NIS 2011. I made a mistake on the version number in my first post.
I have also run a Malware scan but no infections.
Disabled quick scans in NIS but it still scans.
Disabled scanning of zip files.
Today, it has started 3 scans and each time it freezes Chrome, makes Outlook unusable as well as any other app' which may be running. It is even impossible to call-up task manager as it just chunters away on the hard drive and will do so for 10 minutes or more requiring a 'power-off' and restart.
Getting to the point where, unless I can find a solution to this issue, which appears to be common, I'll be asking for a refund on my 3 licences and using McAfee.
In addition to disabling full idle time scans [Settings | Computer Settings | Computer Scans | Idle Time Scans (Off)], you could try turning off the following features to see if this alleviates the problem:
Settings | Computer Settings | Insight Protection (Off) Settings | Computer Settings | Automatic LiveUpdate (Off) Settings | Miscellaneous Settings | Automatic Download of New Version (Off) Settings | Miscellaneous Settings | Idle Time Optimizer (Off) Settings | Miscellaneous Settings | Norton Community Watch (Off) Settings | Miscellaneous Settings | Special Offer Notification (Off)
I would recommend running a manual LiveUpdate once a day and running a manual full system scan about once a week while you're testing these settings to keep your threat protection up-to-date.
Unfortunately, I still haven't found a way to turn off the background Norton Insight task (Performance | Norton Tasks | Norton Insight) that runs automatically once a day, which just happens to be the task that seems to cause the freeze in my system. ______
MS Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2 NIS 2011 v. 18.1.0.37 HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS
From the main NIS window, please click on Scan Now, then Quick Scan. Once you start the scan please don't touch your computer and let it complete. Check to see if you still get the "freeze". It is very rare for a quick scan to cause a lockup. Most users who have reported this kind of problem, it occurs during a Full scan.
Note that if a full scan is interrupted in the middle the scan will stop and attempt to pick up where it left off the next time the computer is Idle. This is probably why you note this happening several times a day.
The next test is to click on Scan Now, then Full System Scan. This will emulate what occurs during an Idle scan except that since you have chosen to run it manually it will not stop running when you use the computer. Check to see if the "freeze" still occurs.
Since you have had NIS 2011 installed, have you run a complete system scan? If no full system scan has been run since install NIS will be more aggressive to ensure that this first scan runs to completion. Therefore we always recommend that you run a manual full scan one time after installation, after which the normal weekly Idle scan will kick in.
Use disk defragmentation tools and also run check disk on all drives just to see if their are any folder errors or Bad sectors that may cause the prob.(Its really rare for Bad Sectors to cause such prob. though)
I would not recommend the use of many registry cleaners unless the user is very familiar with the registry. One wrong deletion of a file and you can have a useless computer or other programs that don't work afterwards. Thanks.
Regarding AllenM's comments of 11-25-2010, I've disabled full idle time scans on my laptop [Settings | Computer Settings | Computer Scans | Idle Time Scans (Off)], so it can't be a half-finished idle full system scan that causes my system to freeze. I tracked the times when my system became sluggish or unresponsive, and when I checked the list of Norton background tasks (Performance | Norton Tasks), those times almost always corresponded to the last completed time of the Norton Insight task.
You've probably figured this out by now, but you can manually trigger an idle full system scan (i.e., instead of waiting for the next weekly or monthly scheduled time) by going to the list of background tasks (Performance | Norton Tasks) and clicking on the Play icon next to the Idle Full System Scan task name. The task will start as soon as your system goes into idle mode and should pause immediately after you do anything to bring your system out of idle (e.g., by moving your mouse). You will know that the idle full system scan has finished when the status of the task changes from "Incomplete" to "Complete". To abort the idle scan at any time, click the Stop icon next to the task name.
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MS Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2
NIS 2011 v. 18.1.0.37 HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS
I do want to make sure that Pinman has run at least one manual full system scan since installation of NIS. NIS is pretty aggressive to make sure that at least one system scan has been completed in it's entirety.
An Insight scan can also be triggered manually in the same way.
I've seen all manner of system "lockups" on the forums. Some are caused during a full system scan, others during an Insight scan as you mentioned. Some are caused by scanning deep into large compressed files.
There are all manner of potential possibilities which can cause this symptom.
I manually triggered both a quick scan and then a full scan and let them run their course. At the end of them both the Laptop was stable and no issue. HOWEVER, after the full scan had completed it locked-up/froze again after 30 minutes or so. Norton reported 'background tasks in progress' via the pop-up window and the laptop had to be turned off as it was again unusable. Looking in history, I see that the task it was carrying out was Norton Community Watch feedback and there are 35 entries for this action, all pending, and all timed at 18:13 on 27th November 2010! ( Internet connection was active). Prior to the 35 entries is an entry for high disk usage by system32 Svchost.exe. This is timed at 18:00.
Thanks for the update. Can you confirm in NIS history if the FULL scan completed and what the results were?
Also, can you attach a screen shot of the first couple of events following the succcesful completion of the FULL scan? You can do this by highlighting the entry in history and click on "More Details" near the bottom right. When the next window comes up you can hit Alt + Print Screen on your keyboard. Then bring up MS Paint application and hit Ctrl + V. this will paste your image into Paint. Then save to your desktop as a JPG file.
You can then attach to your post by clicking on the symbol at the top of the reply editor. Browse to your image(s) and click Insert.
Be sure to blank out any IP addresses (if present) before attaching the images to your post.
You could try turning off the seven NIS features I mentioned in my previous post of 25-Nov-2010, particulary the Norton Insight Protection and Norton Community Watch. Turning off the Insight Protection will not disable the Norton Download Insight protection which checks downloaded files for infections, but it should prevent Norton from trying to connect to the Symantec servers during your daily idle Quick scan and looking for the latest virus signatures in the cloud that are not stored on your local hard drive. If you keep your local virus definitions up-to-date by running a LiveUpdate at least once a day then turning off Insight Protection while you're testing your system shouldn't be dangerous.
I have Norton Community Watch turned off but for some reason it still starts up daily and runs for a total of 1 second. Reactivate also reported that Norton Community Watch runs daily for a few seconds even though this feature is disabled on his machine (see Norton Community Watch Submitting When Disabled WFT).
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MS Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2 * NIS 2011 v. 18.1.0.37 * IE 8 HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS
Certainly turning OFF Community Watch is harmless but I share the concern if this is causing this sort of lock-up. This is why I am interested in seeing the events in NIS history surrounding this activity.
This should not happen and if Community Watch or Insight is causing the issue then it should be looked into and if there is a bug in NIS then it should be resolved.
Ideally, one should not have to turn off these features to prevent problems like this.
I do not recommend turning OFF Insight Protection unless it proves absolutely necessary as this does somewhat lower the level of protection. It is not a matter of "how much" it lowers protection but the fact that it does at least somewhat lower the protection.
Pinman reported that he believes Community Watch might have been the trigger. I would recommend that this be disabled first and then if the lockups still occurs we go from there.
Pinman I would recommend manually triggering an Insight scan by clicking on Performance from the main NIS window and then click on Norton Tasks on the left hand side. Find the Norton Insight entry in the list and click on the Play button just to the left. See if this causes any lockup issues.
I did some more forensics on this and reached some conclusions.
Running Norton Insights, using the method you described DOES cause the system to lock-up. The laptop is undoubtedly being 'locked-up' due to excessive disk activity caused by NIS. I ran insights for around 20 seconds at which point the system started to become unstable and when trying to close NIS I just got the 'not responding' message. Opening, eventually, task manager I tried to close the Symantec service framework and, expecting 'Access denied' I got a windows message that Symantec service framework not responding'. I notice that there are two instances of this process in task manager, both are ccSvcHost.exe*32, one in the system and one in the user..Not sure if that is normal.
Every lock-up from NIS, after running processes during idle is proceeded by a high disk usage warning in the history.
I have disabled insight and will see if that provides a fix but I'm not confident it will.
Here are the snapshots from full scan and a typical idle process. Both resulted in lock-ups
symbol at the top of the reply editor. Browse to your image(s) and click Insert.