No activity logged

Archive
1

I just installed Norton Family Online yesterday.  My son went online this morning.  I got 6 emails about attempts to visit a blocked site, and an email that the Safety Minder plug-in is disconnected or disabled.  I signed in and found no activity logged.  My son's avatar shows the little green icon.

 

Obviously, the program is working on some level because I received the emails.  Unfortunately, I can't figure out what lead to the blocking, because I don't know what the sites are that he visited.  All he remembers are a couple of the games he was playing.  He's 8 and just clicks on any link that looks interesting, which is why I installed Norton Family Online.  It's kind of useless without the activity log.

 

As for the email about the Safety Minder plug-in, that one's a mystery.  I have both Explorer and Firefox, but he would have been using Explorer and he doesn't have a clue what a plug-in is.  I'm going to log into windows under his name and see what happens if I try to go to sites in blocked categories.

 

Norton Safety Minder Version 2.3.0.18

Windows 7

2

Since I probably won't get any response, I went ahead and tried to re-install Safety Minder.  Big mistake.  Now it doesn't block anything, in addition to showing no activity.  And yes, I checked that it was enabled in both IE and Firefox.  And yes, my child is shown on the account.  And yes, his computer is shown on the account.  And yes, the little paw icon is there and enabled.  I don't know what else to try since I don't see that anyone else has gotten a solution either.

 

 

3

Hi CandaceF,

 

For the plug-in message, please check the browser(s) that your child uses to see if the Norton Safety Minder add-ons is enabled.  You can find it by clicking Tools -> Manage Add-ons in IE. 

 

After you have the Norton Safety MInder add-ons enabled, please let us know if you get any activity logged or not.

 

As for blocking facebook website, the program records the website was accessed by the children if children visit facebook via https://www.facbook.com. The program was designed to encourage the communications between parents and children.

 

 

Thanks,

Katie

4

"For the plug-in message, please check the browser(s) that your child uses to see if the Norton Safety Minder add-ons is enabled.  You can find it by clicking Tools -> Manage Add-ons in IE.

 

After you have the Norton Safety MInder add-ons enabled, please let us know if you get any activity logged or not."

 

Umm, my last message stated that the add-on was enabled in both IE and Firefox.  There has been no activity logged since I originally installed, despite the fact that I have gotten some emails regarding blocked sites.

 

 

"As for blocking facebook website, the program records the website was accessed by the children if children visit facebook via https://www.facbook.com."

 

I don't get what you are trying to say.  I went to the NOF settings and there are 27 categories checked off to be blocked.  One of the categories is "Social Networking".  Stupid me for assuming that "Social Networking" included Facebook, Twitter, etc.  And stupid me for assuming the "blocked" meant...well, BLOCKED!  FYI, I later went and specifically added facebook.com and twitter.com to be blocked and it worked.  I tested the addresses and they were both blocked and I received emails.  Unfortunately, this means that the categories I chose to be blocked don't work; you can only block specific addresses.  Just to be certain, I tried another category.  Are you supposed to be able to view porn even though your program claims it will be blocked?

 

"The program was designed to encourage the communications between parents and children."



Despite the condescending nature of your remark, I will reply.  I do communicate with my child.  Unfortunately, it's hard for an 8 year old to understand why internet sites have ads that look like children's games, but turn out to be porn, scams, etc.  He clicks on a picture and it redirects to another site, then he calls me over to fix it because he doen't know what he did to make the browser redirect.  He doesn't WANT to go to those type of sites.  I want to block them so he doesn't get off the site he intended to be on. 

 

Norton claims that the program can block certain categories and also log activity.  It does neither.  I was hoping for a solution, but it sounds like you're telling me the program is intentionally made this way "to encourage the communications between parents and children."

 

5

Do not bother replying to that. That is a pre-defined message that these guys are catering around all over the place. Check other threads, no matter what the issue, you will find the exact reply everywhere.

6

@ SkyKnight - I figured as much...some employee with no knowledge of the product, entering keywords from my post into their "answer" database and regurgitating whatever it tells them.  I replied more out of frustration, and maybe a little hope that a more knowledgeable employee might get the message and offer a real solution. :smileywink:

7

HI CandaceF,

 

Thanks for the message.

 

For the plug-in issue, I think we were writing the posts (your post  stating the add-on was enabled) at about the same time, so I didn't see your latest update when I posted mine.  I'm sorry about that. 

 

You are right about facebook should get blocked if the category of "Social Networking" is blocked.  But I think the issue here is not about category of facebook or it's on the block list or not.  It's if a user accesses facebook with http or with https.  As you know the forum can be viewed by the children who try to tamper the system, so it kind of prevents me from elaborating what I want to say.  If you'd like to know more about his, please send you a private message, so we can discuss more about this.

 

I'm sorry for the misunderstanding.  I can see why you feel this way after reading your further comments about the program encouraging communications.  I was just trying to explain the approach of the program.  If you have any additional thoughts on this matter, please let me now.

 

We are checking into this issue with no activity logged.

 

Thanks,

Katie

 

 

 

 

 

8

As for the facebook issue, I tested it by typing in every possible address combination and it let me through every time.  That's when I put a specific block on "facebook.com" only, and it worked for http, https, etc.  Like I said, facebook itself is not really an issue.  My son has no interest in facebook yet.  The greater issue is that NOF is not blocking the categories that I have checked off in the settings.  The other example of this that I gave earlier was that I was able to access a porn site, even though it should have been blocked.  And I'm not talking about being tricky and trying to look for loopholes in the program.  I typed "xxx.com" in the address field just to see what would happen and I got a porn site.

 

Maybe I'm going at this the wrong way, going into detail about what has gone wrong.  This is a quote from NOF about it's features: 

 

"An easy-to-read activity report shows you at a glance ALL the web sites your kids visit, or attempt to visit. You can visit the sites your kids have been to and block specific sites or types of sites."

 

You said the activity report problem is being looked into, so I'll have to wait on that.  I discovered how to "block specific sites" when I found the facebook problem.  So, that just leaves the "types of sites" feature.  Tell me how to do that.  (Aside from checking off the little category boxes, as I believe I have stressed that this has not worked.)

9

Hi CandaceF,

 

 

The NOF team has corrected the issue with logs no long available.  If you are still experiencing the issue, please let us know.

 

 

 

Thanks,

Katie

10

Guess again.  No activity shown.  On the up side, the program now seems to be blocking porn.  On the down side, I was able to submit my son's full address and phone number to the Discovery Store, even though I specifically blocked transmission of that data in his settings.  I guess it's a good thing I do talk to my child, because I'm quickly losing faith in your product as a back-up.

11

Hi CandaceF,

 

Thank you very much for the update.  The NOF team started to investigate the issue further immediately and corrected the issue.  Please check again and it should work this time. 

 

 

Thanks for your patience.

 

 

Thanks,

Katie

12

Latest update.

 

Working

1. Category blocking

2. Activity logs

3. Email notifications

 

Problems

1. Still able to transmit full address and phone #

2. Got an email notification that Safety Minder has been disabled (which it wasn't)

13

I just installed Norton Family Online yesterday.  My son went online this morning.  I got 6 emails about attempts to visit a blocked site, and an email that the Safety Minder plug-in is disconnected or disabled.  I signed in and found no activity logged.  My son's avatar shows the little green icon.

 

Obviously, the program is working on some level because I received the emails.  Unfortunately, I can't figure out what lead to the blocking, because I don't know what the sites are that he visited.  All he remembers are a couple of the games he was playing.  He's 8 and just clicks on any link that looks interesting, which is why I installed Norton Family Online.  It's kind of useless without the activity log.

 

As for the email about the Safety Minder plug-in, that one's a mystery.  I have both Explorer and Firefox, but he would have been using Explorer and he doesn't have a clue what a plug-in is.  I'm going to log into windows under his name and see what happens if I try to go to sites in blocked categories.

 

Norton Safety Minder Version 2.3.0.18

Windows 7

14

CandaceF,

 

Thanks for the update.  I'm glad to know the log issue has been resolved.

 

For the two issues that you are experiencing:

 

1.  I assume you have the address and phone# added to the Personal Information Protection field under the child's Profile online.  What program(s) do you use and what do you do  that the information get transmitted online?

 

2. What exact message you get?  Is the Safety Minder disabled message or the plug-in for Norton Safety Minder get disabled (as you mentioned in earlier posts)? How often does it happen?

 

 

 

 

Thanks,

Katie

 

 

15

I'd like to butt in here and say that I have just noticed that no activity has been logged for my children for the past 3 days (17-19 April). I have been receiving email notifications and know that some sites have been blocked, generally ads etc, (although I obviously can't say if ALL unwanted sites have been blocked) but there are no activity logs for the period. The last activity was my daughter this past evening (i.e. yesterday, 19th April) up to about 8.15pm BST. I will not be able to check if logging is now happening again until this coming evening. Obviously this is concerning. I do have backup protection at the DNS but this is not as comprehensive as this product and crucially does not provide logging (I want to know what my children have tried to access even if it was unsuccessful).

At what time did the engineers think they had fixed the problem?

16

1.  I assume you have the address and phone# added to the Personal Information Protection field under the child's Profile online.  What program(s) do you use and what do you do  that the information get transmitted online?

 

Yes, it's in the profile.  I tested it on the Discovery/Animal Planet site.  I chose an item from their shop and went through their checkout process.  Every piece of information went through and I stopped when it got to giving credit card info.  I also put the address into the directions section of Google Maps and it transmitted.  NOF did block me when I tried to get directions by putting the address into mapquest.com. 

 

2. What exact message you get?  Is the Safety Minder disabled message or the plug-in for Norton Safety Minder get disabled (as you mentioned in earlier posts)? How often does it happen?

 

Hi Candace,
Norton Safety Minder on Jimmy's Room  used by Jimmy has been disabled. Therefore, Norton™ Online Family cannot monitor the Internet activities of your children. Go to your child's computer and restart Norton Safety Minder.
For more details, do the following:

  1. Go to  onlinefamily.norton.com
  2. Click Member Sign In, type your email address and password, and then click Sign in.

This is an automated message from Norton™ Online Family. Please do not reply to this email. If you would like to disable automatic notifications for this type of event, please visit the "Notify" area on the "Settings" page and uncheck the options.

 

This email was time-stamped 5:11 pm.  I still received the appropriate emails, time-stamped 5:12, 5:14 and 5:14, and got blocked when I tried to visit certain sites.  Also, the acitivity at that time showed on the logs.  So, the emails about being disabled are luckily wrong...just an annoying glitch, I hope.

 



17

Hi tvc3000,

 

The issue was corrected today, so you should be able to see the activity logs when the child uses the PC tonight.

 

 

Thanks,

Katie

18

CandaceF,

 

1.  I'll report the issue to QA team, so they can test this out.

 

2. Around 5:11PM, did you reboot the PC?  What I've heard is it has happened to a user whose PC takes a quite long time to reboot.  When NSM checks for service and it is not ready yet, the program sends out the alert message.  However, Norton Safety Minder checks service every 5 minutes, if it is down for some reason, the service will be restarted again automatically.

 

 

Thanks,

Katie

19

Yes, I had just turned on the computer. It starts up pretty quick, but I may have started IE before everything was running. I’ll just disregard any “disabled” messages if everything else seems to be working.

I hope the address/phone thing gets resolved soon. I’m going to test out some kids game sites tomorrow to see if they let me give out an address or phone# in a chat scenario. (First I’ll put fake info into the “personal information” section for test purposes.) I’ll put any additional findings in a new thread, as this one is getting a little long. Plus, I think I can safely mark the original log problem as solved. (And keep my fingers crossed.)