I started googling Norton 360 problems and I am having the same problems as everyone else, but it is now much worse after contacting customer support. My Norton 360 stopped working, I didn't really notice it at first until my internet stopped working. I was really confused because my internet works with the rest of my devices (laptop, Ipad, . . .). I spent hours trying to figure it out with no luck. I thought perhaps a Windows 7 update caused the problem. After what I thought of might have been a problem with the update, my computer would keep rebooting itself. So I opened it in safe mode and restored the computer back to before the update. It worked fine until I went to use the computer the next day. Same issues. I thought perhaps the automatic update re-updated itself. Went back on in safe mode to an earlier time when the computer worked fine and restored it. Realized Norton 360 was not working, decided that was probably part of the problem. Contacted Norton customer support, which seemed to be techs from India. I used my ipad to use the online chat and they had me put the computer in safe mode with networking. Internet worked fine. They did a remote session and used the Norton Removal Tool, did a reboot so of course I lost the remote session and when the computer rebooted, nothing was fixed and I had lost contact with customer support. I contacted them again via online chat with my ipad, I got a different tech and explained to them who was helping me in hopes they could reconnect me to the first guy. He said he could take care of the problem, so he is asking me all of the stupid questions the first guy did. Then customer support calls me and we start doing a remote session in safe mode with networking. He tells me to hang up the phone and if I needed to I could communicate with him I could through the remote session. He starts making changes and then does a reboot. Computer reboots itself, internet is still not working. Again I lose contact with the tech but I stayed on with the second online chat tech. I put it in safe mode with networking and now the internet does not even work in safe mode with networking. This guy doesn't even seem to care to want to help me and basically says that without internet access, he can't do anything and that I would need to take my computer to get fixed to take care of the internet problem. A lot of the issues with Norton 360 that I have found online show that Norton 360 is responsible for the internet not working. At this point, it is hours into it and no progress. I decide to give up and just want to restore the computer one last time so that it was functioning normally again and to reverse anything the techs did in their remote sessions. Now, I can't even do a restore. Whatever the second guy did, majorly screwed up my computer. I decided I better stop trying to fix it myself and have given it to a professional. After two days of trying to figure it out, he is stumped. The last update he gave me, he said he was going to try to recover all the stuff saved on it, but it didn't look good for the computer. He said everything he tried, every step forward ended up putting him 2 steps back. My computer is a Dell and is about a year old. I chose close to the most powerful one at the time with 1.5T for storage and tons of memory and all that stuff. It was around $1,000. My question now is, what do I do. The tech believes Norton 360 is to blame. I agree and more so, customer support is to blame because my computer was still working before they got their hands on it. How do I go about getting reimbursed for my losses? Is there a way to fix it? Is there a service center? What are my options?
I'm not glad that you're suffering a similar problem with Norton 360, but at least I don't feel so alone in the fight with the pc...
Good luck with a fix!
Andy.
Nothing I've read definitively points to N360 being the problem. Now that N360 is uninstalled and you're still having problems qualifies that.
Have you power-cycled your modem, router, and any switches/hubs?
If that doesn't clear the problem:
Start|Run...|msconfig|Startup|uncheck everything; reboot.
When your computer has been rebooting, does it do so from a BSOD?
(Start|Computer|right-click|Properties|Advanced|Startup & Recovery|disable automatic reboot after a crash)
Open Computer Management in Admin Tools; check your Windows Event Logs for errors and STOP codes.
If you aren't getting BSODs but your computer is spontaneously rebooting, your power supply is suspect.
With some few machines, automatic liveupdate disconnects the internet. Turning off automatic liveupdate and running it manually seems to be a workaround.
There have been some Norton products just recently that have just quit working. I don't know if it is as the result of a Windows update or a Norton one.
Doing a system restore frequently breaks Norton. System restore does not put everything back the way it was, and a lot of Norton gets lost in the process.
Several things can cause a bootloop. Norton could have removed an infected but necessary file, Microsoft has an automatic reboot that will continue to try to boot the machine, even when it can't, failing to keep hardware updated can cause similar issues as well. Some malware changes the internet settings to proxy, which is relatively easily corrected. Power supply problems, over-heating, loose cables, any numbers of things can cause this.
The repair outfit you took it to should have been able to check hardware related items, and reboot the machine using a BCD disc, the recovery discs for your machine, or Knoppix. Failing to boot is not quite the same thing as dead in the water. You may need a more advanced repair person.
Thanks for the advice. The tech I used seemed to know his stuff. He also researched the problem and was getting the blue screen as reported by others having issues with Norton. I don't know what exactly what he tried to do to fix it, but he also got on with Norton support and was not able to get anything accomplished. Norton just tried to put the blame elsewhere and couldnt deliver a solution. I am really disappointed in Norton/Symantec, no resolution to my issue, couldn't get any real help, customer support useless and difficult to understand the foreign reps and their heavy accents, even worse, no refund or compensation for having to pay someone else to fix a problem caused by their program. I guess, I expect too much, I would think a company should either fix the problem or refund my money.
To resolve the problem, my tech backed up all my documents, videos, pics, etc and completely uninstalled and re-installed Windows 7, which he upgraded from home to professional. He put back all of my personal stuff and I got the computer back yesterday, everything is working great. No more Norton, which just makes me feel better. Didnt have Microsoft Office before, so he upgraded that for me along with a few other programs. Overall, my tech, was a god send and fixed the problem Norton was basically unwilling to do. In a way, I suppose I should thank Norton for offering an inferior product and inferior customer support, since now I am better off. I suggest to anyone using Norton to stop, uninstall it, stop paying for an inferior product when there are better ones out there that are free and dont cause so many problems. Knowledge is power, so educate yourself as I was completely oblivious before all of this happened. Find a computer geek and make a new friend.
Let's apply a little critical thinking to this situation:
Literally millions of people use this product every day, with no problems. I myself have used it for more than 20 years and it's worked great the whole time. I'm a senior IT leader, so I've seen it work great at the enterprise level for many years as well.
Norton is regularly ranked the best security software in the business, by the major independent testing labs.
Today's computers are complex systems, involving many different software products trying to do many different things. Some of them may even be trying to do the same things...at the same time. All of them rely on the operating system. And each of these represents an opportunity for a conflict.
In your original post, you obtained your own empirical evidence that (1) the problem started with a Windows update; (2) the problem went away when you rolled back the Windows update; (3) the problem reappeared when Windows reapplied the update.
In extensive troubleshooting, assisted by Norton representatives, you were apparently told what your own experimentation had already demonstrated: that it wasn't a problem that Norton can solve on its own, because the proximate cause of the problem was something that Microsoft did to the operating system.
In spite of this verdict from the professionals, which agrees with the evidence of your own testing, your conclusion from this is that Norton's product is "inferior" and you need to change to a different security product.
That's certainly your right, and I wish you luck that they, too, don't prove themselves "inferior" the next time a Microsoft update temporarily breaks something. I'll let the logic of that speak for itself.
After researching various posts on the web, this looks like an ongoing Windows 7 IE 9.0 32 bit conflict versus Norton 360. My Windows XP IE8.0 laptop is running fine with Norton 360 Premier (I’m using it now). Ironically, when IE9.0 32bit was frozen, I could still browse on IE 9.0 64 bit and Chrome. However, when Norton 360 stopped working I shutdown my computer. Ironically the resource pig aspect of Norton prompted me to upgrade from my Intel Duo Core to the Intel I7 Quad Core. Norton still bogs down my Quad core killing videos and freezing IE when it kicks off a pulse or live update. Very annoying. It’s the price we pay I guess for the best (?) protection. A wise man once told me the following: "… There’s Good, Fast, & Cheap. You can only have two and never all three… ".
Hi R2J1,
Norton apparently stopped working after you performed the System Restore operation. That is not unusual, since System Restore does not change the whole system back to an earlier time. System Restore often breaks Norton because some of its files are suddenly no longer there after the restoration. It is typically the case that Norton will need to be removed and reinstalled after a restore operation in order to make it whole again. So the reason that Norton stopped working can be explained by the restore operation, and may not have been directly related to the other issues that were already manifesting prior to your contacting Norton support, such as the loss of connectivity and the reboot loops. It sounds like your system was already in trouble before you performed the System Restore operation and the cascade of events which followed.