Hi all.
This is a very complex situation that I need to explain carefully. Bear with me and sorry for the long post.
I've been a NIS user for a long time. Never had major issues and always able to solve my our problems either through configurations or using tools provided by Symantec. Recently, I started having an issue I cannot resolve and had tried different approaches and even contacted Symantec directly. Here's what's happening.
I purchased brand new headsets called Razer Kraken 7.1 Chroma. These headsets install a program called Synapse 2.0. So far so good. NIS had some program trust issues but nothing much. When it asked to reboot, I did. When it finished loading all programs on startup, I got a warning from windows saying "nis.exe stopped working".
I immediately went to windows even viewe and found this:
- <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
- <System>
<Provider Name="Application Error" />
<EventID Qualifiers="0">1000</EventID>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>100</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2014-12-26T17:27:34.000000000Z" />
<EventRecordID>78743</EventRecordID>
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>Tosh-pc-TOSH</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
- <EventData>
<Data>NIS.exe</Data>
<Data>12.11.4.4</Data>
<Data>53f531a0</Data>
<Data>0Kraken71ChromaDevProps.dll</Data>
<Data>0.0.0.0</Data>
<Data>53bc9d43</Data>
<Data>c0000005</Data>
<Data>000057c6</Data>
<Data>1a24</Data>
<Data>01d021313c1a8c01</Data>
<Data>C:\Program Files (x86)\Norton Internet Security\Engine\21.6.0.32\NIS.exe</Data>
<Data>C:\Users\Tosh-pc\AppData\Local\Temp\0Kraken71ChromaDevProps.dll</Data>
<Data>7a265eef-8d24-11e4-9efe-00266c2779bc</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>
As you can see the program causing the application crash is 0Kraken71ChromaDevProps.dll, a DLL installed with Razer Synapse 2. I rebooted the system again to only see the error repeat. I then decided to attempt workarounds like uninstalling Synapse, installing it with NIS turned off (active protection and then all modules off), I made a fresh Norton removal installation, the whole deal. Took a whole evening doing this. Nothing worked.
I then contacted Symantec support and got a remote session with LogMeIn from a Symantec operator who performed the exact same tasks I did, even though I was telling him it wouldn't work. He did his job, nothing worked again and then before ending the session he said: "Just uninstall Synapse as it isn't compatible with NIS.exe". When I said this wasn't acceptable he just said to take the issue to Razer...
This is the quality of operators working for Symantec.
I then turned to Razer and explained the whole thing all over again. The support there asked me to delete the 0Kraken71ChromaDevProps.dll to see what would happen. Unfortunately the file is being used in many places and I can't just delete it. So, once more, I had to make a few workarounds and managed to delete the file and voilá, NIS didn't crash. But once I rebooted, the dll would be replaced and nis.exe crashed again. Worst of all, when deleting the dll file, the headsets stopped working correctly, so I guess it's needed anyway.
The Razer dudes took about three weeks to look into this, not being able to replicate the issue themselves. In the end, they too said the issue would be from Symantec. Full circle.
Our software team has investigated the issue and concluded that there is nothing wrong with Razer Synapse.
A quick google search pulls up a couple of similar cases with other programs.
We suggest you contact Norton as the program should not crash when scanning a standard dll file.
Thank you for contacting Razer Support and we hope you have a nice day!
So I had a 100$ headset hanging around because Razer and Symantec can't solve their own issues. I tried several times to make NIS trust the dll file but it still crashes anyway. The headsets are not eligeble for a refund as they work perfectly on the computers at the shop where I bought them. So either this is fixed or I need to just sell the headsets, losing money, or just change antivirus software, apparently.