Norton 360 Activation Issue, and SymLMTS.exe messed my computer up

Duis mollis, est non commodo luctus, nisi erat porttitor ligula, eget lacinia odio sem nec elit. Sed posuere consectetur est at lobortis. Vestibulum id ligula porta felis euismod semper. Donec ullamcorper nulla non metus auctor fringilla. Aenean lacinia bibendum nulla sed consectetur. Cras justo odio, dapibus ac facilisis in, egestas eget quam. Cras mattis consectetur purus sit amet fermentum. Morbi leo risus, porta ac consectetur ac, vestibulum at eros. Sed posuere consectetur est at lobortis. Etiam porta sem malesuada magna mollis euismod. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Duis mollis, est non commodo luctus, nisi erat porttitor ligula, eget lacinia odio sem nec elit. Cras justo odio, dapibus ac facilisis in, egestas eget quam. Aenean eu leo quam. Pellentesque ornare sem lacinia quam venenatis vestibulum. Curabitur blandit tempus porttitor. Sed posuere consectetur est at lobortis.

OK, I had a successful reboot, everything’s working normally.  Maybe the bulk of my OP is void now… oh well.  I need to go do a bunch of chores now, maybe someone will have posted in that time.

I followed most of it; I did lose the plot towards the end. However, sounds like its resolved. You should run luall and report the version of Norton 360 (main windows, help & support, about.

 

I suggest also that you install the zombie workaround. Post again if you continue to have problems.


Well my original problem, which was rather lost in that huge post, has not been solved.  Norton 360 thinks all of a sudden that it must have been running a trial version and ended up saying it was expired (when in fact I have a year's paid subscription ending this September), and keeps requiring me to activate it.  An attempt to activate it just results in the error during activation message.  The additional problem of my computer freezing or not loading anything is a product of an attempt at solving the trial version thing with SymLMTS.exe.  I can't try SymKBFix.exe because something is messed up with the Windows Installer.  Whether that's from SymLMTS.exe or not I can't say.   So, even though that strange problem with booting seems to be gone now (knock on wood), the activation issue still remains.

1 Like

Also, what exactly is this Zombie workaround? I’ve seen the phrase thrown around once or twice on these forums while searching for anyone else who had my problem, but I’ve never really looked into it.

Message Edited by AJP15243 on 07-26-2008 11:48 PM

I would like to help but I need for information. Kindly see my previous msg and advise.

 

When you try to activate what exactly is the mesage  (so far u said "error during activation message")?

 

Have you tried reinstallling Windows Installer. Check out this link it may be appropraite this link. Advise if successful.

 

You should also check your account with Symantec and advise us the result. Here is the link.

Message Edited by cgoldman on 07-27-2008 07:59 AM
2 Likes

I found luall.exe in the Symantec/Live Update folder, but when I ran it, it showed up in Task Manager for about 1-2 seconds, and then disappeared, with nothing else happening.  Repeated attempts yielded the same results.

 

The exact message is "Product Error" at the top, with "An error has occured during your activation." underneath it.  This pops up and replaces the part where it says "Activating Product" above Norton 360's progress bar, with a large friendly reminder to not lose my product key right above it.

 

I reinstalled the Windows Installer with your link, and am going to try running SymKBFix.exe after this post.

 

While I can't log into my Symantec account at the moment to double check (the file folder that my mom has the password in is buried somewhere in our study, and she's already asleep), I do remember that the last time I checked, our account said that we had an expired NAV subscription (left over from before we switched to 360), and a 360 subscription that is good until September 10, 2008.  My mom's Norton 360, despite a strange Live Update error, is working just fine (despite being version 1, upgrading to version 2 is still on the to-do list for her computer).

OK, SymKBFix.exe still didn't work. After I clicked the Install button, what looked like a small file extraction progress window opened for a moment, and then a Windows Installer error popped up, saying "The Windows Installer Service could not be accessed. This can occur if the Windows installer is not correctly installed. Contact your support personnel for assistance." Any ideas? I'm not familiar enough with Windows to guess exactly what this is.

 

I just checked my Windows Services (right-click My Computer > Manage > Services and Applications > Services > Windows Installer > Start service) and attempted to manually start the Windows Installer service (it's set to manually start), but I received an error saying that Windows "Could not start the Windows Installer service on Local Computer. Error 1055: The service database is locked." Is this normal, or is there something odd with my computer?

Message Edited by AJP15243 on 07-27-2008 12:38 AM
Message Edited by AJP15243 on 07-27-2008 12:39 AM

1 Question: What is the version of Norton 360. Goto the Norton Main Windows, goto to Help & Support, goto About Norton 360, advise version:

 

1 Answer: My version is xxxxxxxxx

 

2 Question: Please clarify. What Norton product was installed prior to installing Norton 360.?

 

2. Answer. None/I had installed Norton xxxxxxx

 

3. Question: Where did you get the Norton 360 that you are installing from?

 

3. Answer: CD/download from Symantec, other details

 

4. Question: Why can you not upload your screen shots and provide a link in your msgs?

 

4. Answer: [short answer please will do].

 

......................................................................................................................................

 

When you get an error, you need to reboot your computer and then continue. If you have not done this, you need to start again. A database may be locked if it is in use. But this is not the only reason. It is not relevant to comment further until I know whether you have rebooted between events, or whether you tried the same fix more than once. If you have not rebooted then the process that failed may well be holding a database or program open.

 

.......................................................................................................................................

 

A zombie process, is where you run an application and after use, close it. Except that the process has not completely closed because if you look in Windows Task Manager it continues to run. It will do no harm to apply the zombie workaround now. Just follow the link I provided in message no 3, and reboot.

 

........................................................................................................................................

 

To run luall, clcik Start button, click run, type luall, return

 

........................................................................................................................................

Have you consider uninstalling Norton 360, following the recommended procedure laid down by Norton Removal Tool and reinstalling Norton 360 v2?

 

 

Message Edited by cgoldman on 07-27-2008 10:18 AM
[edit: shortened long lines of . for better thread formating.]
Message Edited by Allen_K on 07-27-2008 03:40 PM

1. I have Norton 360 v2.3.1.4, it also says that my "Initial Subscription Length" was 15 days (so it sees my Norton 360 as a trial version here too, which isn't true because we purchased the year's subscription)

 

2. I just checked my Symantec account, and I was mistaken, it wasn't Norton AntiVirus that I had previously installed, it was Norton Internet Security.

 

3. We bought the $60 Norton 360 upgrade (from Norton Internet Security) for 3 PCs online and downloaded the installer. No boxes/physical products involved.

 

4. Originally I couldn't because my computer was hanging/freezing after running SymLMTS.exe even after I tried rebooting. My computer seems to be responding more or less normally now (besides Norton 360 still considering itself an expired trial version). It did have an incomplete boot this morning (as in only about half my programs and such loaded with Windows, and I couldn't start any new processes), but I rebooted and it's working fine, for now. So if I need to now, I could upload my files because now that my computer is functioning properly I can actually access them.

 

 

I admit, I did not reboot between installing the Windows Installer hotfix and trying to run SymKBFix.exe, that might have been my problem.

 

I see what you mean by zombie process, I've seen that before quite a bit in different programs, I guess I just didn't know the terminology for it. I'll go ahead and apply the zombie workaround now, and if that doesn't do anything, I'll try running SymKBFix.exe, and I'll make sure to reboot when appropriate.

 

I used Run to execute luall, but it had the same results as manually finding and executing it. It opened in Task Manager for a second or two, and then disappeared, with nothing else happening.

 

I have considered using the Norton Removal Tool, but I haven't used it yet because it seemed like there are other solutions out there. However, if it isn't a particularly arduous process, and has a good chance of solving my problem, I'm willing to try it sooner than as a last possible option.

 

Sorry if I haven't given all the information needed or seen what I need to do.  I'm not very familiar with Norton problems to know what I need to do to solve them, as I've never really had any problems until now. 

Message Edited by AJP15243 on 07-27-2008 11:51 AM

1. Your product is in trial I believe until you enter a valid product code, which I presume you were supplied with when you purchased the upgrade.

 

2. The trial is not going to pick up any prior subscription because you have none as far as Norton 360 is concerned.

 

3.

4. good.

 

The luall note was for information purposes only and intended to make life easy for you to use it again. It has no difference how you run it.

 

The point is you did have a prior product and you may have been best advised to have run the NRT appropriate to NIS first before installing Norton 360. I am not saying you should have but simply that it may have helped. If you remove NOrton 360, you could run the NRT appropriate to NIS and the NRT for Norton 360. I dont think you have anything to loose to try reinstalling.

 

What happens when you try to activate now?

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. I'm positive that we entered in whatever product codes (which I have in my Symantec Account and in our confirmation e-mail printouts) when we first installed Norton 360, because it has worked just fine for most of the time, except for the few occurences when this activation issue crops up.

 

2. Would this just be some strange program error, caused by any number of issues or conflicts?  Such as, possibly, something that is left over from NIS that NRT could fix?

 

I did the zombie workaround successfully.  I don't really care about those side effects since I don't use Backup anyway.

 

Activating still gives the same error as before.

 

I also tried the SymKBFix.exe after the zombie workaround and reboot.  The same Windows Installer error came up.  Just for kicks, I rebooted, tried installing the hotfix again, rebooted, and tried SymKBFix.exe again.  Same error.

 

I think I'll try using the NRT for NIS, and then uninstalling Norton 360 and using the 360 NRT, and then reinstall 360.  I'll wait for you to see if there's anything else I should try first, though. 

2 Likes

1. I am unclear how this can be, because I thought you indicated that the Symantec account only had details of your prior product.

2. I think all things are possible, some are more probable than others.

3. Indeed.

4. To be honest, I cannot keep referring back to your first msg because it is too long. I may be lossing it. Can you just run through what exactly happens when you try to activate. What are you asked for and what do you supply (do not give us the exact product code or anything) just say what you do.

 

5. Acutally, I would unwind in the reverse order of installation. I.e. remove Norton 360, NRT Norton 360, NRT NIS.

 

You should redownload the trial version from the link in message no 3 here

I didn't see where you had a chat session regarding this situation; did you only correspond with our Customer Support team through email? It might be a good idea to use the Chat feature, and out Customer Support team can remotely access your system to troubleshoot the issue. You can enter the chat session through the Help & Support section of Norton 360. Thanks!

AJP15243 - I know your pain! I went through the Norton 360 Activation woes a couple of weeks ago. It evoked feelings of “Road Rage” that heretofore had only been directed towards Microsoft Products! But I found a solution!

 

I had purchased my retail version Norton 360 3-license pack from a STAPLES office supply store. A couple of months into the 1-year suscription, my XP-SP2 machine Norton 360 lost its memory that it was a valid “paid for” subscription, and reverted to a “Trial-Version”. I did not find a solution in time and ended up Uninstalling and Re-Installing the software.

 

Later, a couple of weeks ago, my VISTA Norton 360 copy lost its license memory and reverted to “Trial-Version”. This time I happen to notice the “Support” link on the program’s main window. From there, I was able to launch an automatic analyzer program. It detected an “Activation issue” and proceeded to fix it, or so it said. After rebooting, the “Trial-license” problem was still there :-(. Several failed repeated attempts later, I was about to give up and re-Install the software. Then I happened to advance and “Continue” on in the support section and noticed some activation problem issues with answer links listed. THE FOLLOWING FIXED MY VISTA MACHINE!

-----------------------------------------------

Days remaining for Norton 360 subscription unexpectedly changes to “Expired”

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/custserv.nsf/0/9192587f79156ee665257252000fefc8?OpenDocument&seg=hm&lg=en&ct=us

1. Start Norton 360.

2. Click My Account.

3. Click Renew Subscription.

4. Select I have already purchased a subscription. Please check my subscription status.

5. Click Next.

6. Click Next.

Norton 360 connects to the Symantec server and checks your subscription status.

7. After the summary window appears, click Finish.

Your Norton 360 subscription expiration date should now be correct.

-----------------------------------------------

If your product information was truly uploaded and registered when your software was originally installed, this should do the trick!

 

Good Luck!

 

Jack

 

btw: Most experts say you should only have 1 Anti-virus program installed on a machine. They sometimes take each other out or otherwise mess up your machine. I noticed that you’ve got AVG Free 8.0 running along with your Norton 360 product. Don’t know about Norton Internet Security also being installed.   On my XP machine, I’ve got the following Running OK with Norton 360: Spybot S&D (Don’t like the TeaTimer though - easy to make a mistake & push the wrong button), WinPatrol, Ad-Aware, Process Guard (Norton 360 launches SO MANY different sub-programs - it becames a pain when using this watchdog utility), Process Explorer (I like it better than running the Windows Task Manager!!!).

 

(Now if I could just figure out why Norton 360’s ‘ccSvcHst.Exe’ process is leaking memory like a sieve! Windows is always complaining about Virtual Memory running low! To add insult to injury, there are two instances of this program running - one a service and the other an application! - The Process Explorer Utility shows this!)

 
Message Edited by KYJack on 07-30-2008 01:12 PM

Many thanks for your informative answer. I too have been very impressed by the way the Help & Support works, especially the link to their knowledgebase which worked much more helpfully than searching on the support website which always produces an overkill.

 

<<  if I could just figure out why Norton 360's 'ccSvcHst.Exe' process is leaking memory like a sieve!  >>

 

Be assured that Symantec are beavering away on this -- it is a very known problem and with NIS 2009 coming up they want to fix it. If you have not, do a search here In this Community on [ccSvcHst.Exe] and you'll see what I mean!

Yup, once I starting accessing the 'Support' Link, it because very convenient.  Still, it's hard to break the habit of doing the Google search thing!

 

Glad to see they're working on the 'ccSvcHst.Exe' problem!  I was starting to think it was some kind of government backdoor spyware logging program! (Since my earlier post - 16 hours ago - Virtual Memory used by the program has increased over 300mB! - will have to reboot soon!).

 

 

Sorry about the late response, I was busy working during the week, and I'm exhausted after work, so I haven't looked at this for a while. Replying to cgoldman first:

 

1. My Symantec Account has details for my previously installed product (NIS) and details for my currently installed product (360). I've had a fully purchased 360 product for some time now, and it is just for some reason all of a sudden "losing it's memory" as some people have put it, and reverted to an expired Trial Version.  I have never, ever had a trial version of ANY Norton product of any kind on my computer, so I didn't have a trial version previously and then purchased an upgrade to full later.  We were renewing our NIS subscription, but Symantec offers upgrade options when renewing, so we upgraded straight into a fully activated, year's worth subscription of Norton 360 at that point (which was September 2007).

 

4. I don't blame you for not following that God-awful original post. When I click Activate (from whatever redundant location within 360), it opens another window and says "Gathering data, please wait...". Then it proceeds to have a progress bar with "Activating your product..." right above it, and above all of that is a large reminder to not lose my product key. Then, all of that goes away, and it is replaced by "Product Error", and below that says "An error occurred during your activation." and the Help & Support Center prompt pops up. I don't enter any information or do anything apart from initially clicking Activate.

 

5. I'll try uninstalling in that order if my problem isn't fixed by what some of these other people offer.

 

I have a Norton 360 v2 executable that downloads and installs it from the website, but that may not work if our Extended Download Service (that was purchased when we bought our year subscription) has run out. From what people say in that Trial version link, one can download the trial version and enter a product key to activate it, so I assume I'll have to do that if I can't install it some other way.

 

 

Now to Tony Weiss:

 

I have not done a chat session, as I had seen a lot of people complaining about the quality of the support through the chat sessions. Also, about remote access, my system's not entirely stable right now still. Whenever I boot up, it seems there's a random chance that either it will boot normally, or when Windows loads, it will not start ANY programs in the system tray, and only some of those programs' executables are running in Task Manager. If this happens, I also cannot start any new programs, and the ones that have already started don't respond to any input from me. For a quick comparison of the magnitude of what doesn't load, I normally have about 50 processes running after a normal boot, but after one of these botched boots, I only have 30 processes running. I'm also just a bit leery of someone else controlling my system (a common feeling among computer users, of course), but I guess if nothing else works, I'll try it.

 

 

Now to KYJack:

 

Sounds like your issue is exactly the same as mine! Did uninstalling/reinstalling 360 on your XP machine fix the problem? I would like to know, as that seems to be my next step.

 

I've tried two of the analyzer programs (SymLMTS.exe and SymKBFix.exe), but have had problems with both. SymLMTS.exe told me that not all components were active, and told me to reboot, although this caused some weird, still-occuring problems with booting my computer which I mention throughout this thread, and expound upon in my original post (if you can brave that convoluted post). SymKBFix.exe wouldn't even run, because something is messed up with the Windows Installer. I tried running SymKBFix.exe after SymLMTS.exe, so I suspect that the Windows Installer error might be due to whatever SymLMTS.exe did to my system. Of course, my original activation problem persists, with Norton 360 believing it's an expired Trial version when it should still have a bit over a month left on it as a FULL version.

 

I looked at the instructions for what fixed your Vista machine, and tried following those on mine. Sadly, the only options that I can click on under Norton 360's My Account link is "Access Norton Account" and "Activate Norton 360" (which leads to the same activation error that every other Activate link leads to). "Renew Subscription" is grayed out along with every other link under My Account.

 

I know that AVG may be interfering with Norton 360, although it's odd that if this activation issue is caused by AVG's interference, why is it so random, and why did you get it? I wouldn't mind deactivating AVG's antivirus, since Norton does that, but a couple of other AVG tools are handy that I'd like to keep active (like it's active Anti-Spyware, the Link Scanner that scans all those Google searches I do to make sure the sites are safe, and the Resident Shield that monitors copied and opened files for malicious behavior). Does Norton 360 have any of those, I wonder? I guess Norton's Phishing Protection may be the same as Link Scanner, but I don't know about any of the other stuff. If Norton 360 covers all the same stuff as AVG 8.0 Free, I should probably just get rid of AVG. I also use Spybot S&D, WinPatrol, and ThreatFire for active security, along with Ad-Aware 2008 Free for additional scanning. I'd like to use Process Explorer, but SecuROM on some of my games have flagged that program for some reason as harmful software and won't start with any existence of the file on my computer (as in it doesn't even need to be active, it just needs to EXIST).

 

 

Also, for everyone's benefit, here are the results from SymLMTS.exe that I ran last weekend (if the SKU's are needed, tell me, wasn't sure if they were unique or not like the Serial Number is):

 

Current SKU:[Removed]
Family SKU:[Removed]
Media SKU:[Removed]
Serial Number:[Removed]

LM Version:1.9.2.84
System Uptime:9785 seconds
Time Since Last Wake:0 seconds
Result Code:2
Error Code:12296
Previous Error Code:0
Run Count:1
License Type:0x00000000
Cached License Type:0x00000010
License Attributes:0x00000000
Cached License Attributes:0x00401021
Remaining Days:0
Cached Remaining Days:0
Full Activation: N/A

 

Apparently this detects that I have no activation (last three lines), so I'm not sure if it was just reporting that information as part of it's programming or if it identified that as a problem.

Message Edited by AJP15243 on 08-02-2008 11:45 AM

AJP15243

 

Since you can't access that "Renew Subscription" link, I guessing that your setup is bad sick and that an uninstall/reinstall is in order, per the Norton experts!

 

On my VISTA machine, it took several attempts using the Licensing Troubleshooter followed by rebooting after each attempt, before I actually tried that "Renew Subscription" stuff! (Also double-check your system date!)

 

Yes, the uninstall-reinstall procedure worked on my XP machine! However my setup appears a little simpler than yours. I originally installed/re-installed my Norton 360 V2 on a clean machine with no other Norton products, rather than performing an upgrade from V1/NIS.

 

I agree that AVG is probably not causing your activation problem, since I and others have experienced the same licensing issue. I suspect that a couple of months ago, either a bad Symantec software update or server crash caused something to break with their licensing mechanism! Maybe SymLMTS.exe got confused by the prior Norton version!  Who knows!  Just guessing here!

 

I know that I used the Norton Removal Tool, but I don't remember all the steps involved! In the following link, have a look at 'Wake2' uninstall procedure (his 2nd posting) for an idea of what steps may be involved.

 

Reinstall Norton 360 Problem
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20377787-Reinstall-Norton-360-Problem

 

Anyhow, follow 'cgoldman' comments for the correct uninstall/reinstall script procedure. The procedure in the above link may be overly complicated!

 

Good luck!

 

Jack

 

Ironically, KYJack, that's the website I first went to thru Google, but couldn't find my problem there!  So I came here, but that link does have a point or two such as uninstalling LiveUpdate and deleting the Symantec Shared folder that I didn't think of.

 

Since I've quit my summer job now, I have some time to actually devote to fixing this issue before heading back to college.  This stupid activation issue has caused a cascade of so many other problems, namely my botched booting problem and the Windows Installer problem (thanks to SymLMTS.exe).  That Windows Installer problem has prevented me from solving another problem too. A program I have called Starry Night (stargazing software) no longer displays it's deep sky objects (nebulae, galaxies, etc.).  Apparently the newest version of QuickTime (version 7.4) causes this error (it uses QT to display optical wavelength and/or false color images of these deep sky objects).  The solution is to uninstall QT v7.4 and install v7.3.  My research turned up the fact that I have to use QT's own uninstaller program (not Windows Add/Remove Programs), but QT Uninstall won't work because I get the same Windows Installer error as I have mentioned before!!!

 

Anyway, I'm going to try to find time tomorrow to wipe Norton 360 from my computer and reinstall it.  I'll still need to solve all the damage that SymLMTS.exe caused to my system if this doesn't fix it (assuming it fixes the activation problem).  Thanks for all the help so far, everyone!