Norton 360 v.2 & Manic Hard Drive mania!

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by ‘widget’ are you referring to the 2.1 add-on pack?

the widget link can be found on one of my threads. also, i am still having the same problems as you with the ‘constant scanning’ thing…please let me know what you’ve found out regarding this (setting scans to manual doesn’t seem to help any more) it seems to do as it pleases…

I wonder if this might the same problem that I've seen in N360 V1. The symptom looks similar, at least superficially. Except, in my case, the problem disappeared when I upgraded to V2.

 

The problem I was seeing was something to do with background cleanup. There are 4 files called CUsomething.log (CU for cleanup?) in c:\program files\norton 360\log: CUInternetPageViewHistory.log, CUInternetSearchHistory.log, CUInternetTempFiles.log, CUWindowsTempFiles.log. When the N360 background cleanup engine went into its manic state, I could see it continuously writing to one of these log files. The log file wouldn't keep growing because the cleanup engine limits its size to 4 MB. But you could see its time stamp being updated.

 

So look at these log files. If you see one of them whose last modification time is constantly being updated to the current time of day, you are seeing my problem.

 

Well, have any of you tried the Live Chat feature on support?

 I did last night, tired of the HD churning on my Vista (upgraded last summer) machine since installing 360V2 about a week ago.

 After a brief wait, I got a nice guy (Indian I presume?) named Dillip who had me check some things like MSCONFIG, most notably run SERVICES.MSC, where I found the Symantec Core LC (whatever that is) process was in manual start not automatic, and COM HOST also hadn't started (I've had "COM Service stopped working" errors on startup on occasion since the Vista upgrade, thing still runs reliably well) - turned those both to automatic, and today, knock on wood, so far no churn!

 I haven't had 100 percent success with Live Chats, but in this case was surely worth the time invested (and no $!;-)

 Barney Lerten--Bend, Oregon

And, of course, now the hard drive is churning again. Maybe has to do with the start-up message I get about every other time that COM surrogate has stopped working. MS help no help, fixes offered elsewhere haven’t done it so far. sigh, argh.

Hi BarneyL,

 

I would recommend contacting our support team again, and let them know the entire situation. (that you've contacted them before, that it was workig fine for a while, etc.) Thanks!

I did, and while I got dropped from that tech, then got another, who logged into my PC, removed some temp files and, when I told him the thrashing had stopped as soon as he logged in (you know, the old 'drive the car to a shop and the noise stops' deal) he said it was a hardware problem not related to Norton. I logged off in frustration, went to PC Pitstop and ran some tests, got a new video driver, upgraded to Vista SP1, and .. anyway, the thrashing has stopped.

I did a whole segment on-air about it. Go to http://www.ktvz.com, click "About Us" and "Leave it to Barney."

It's stuff like this that make computer owners stark raving mad;-)

But if Norton behaves, I'll stay with it. But boy will I be nervous about the next upgrade! They seem to always give me grief;-/

 Thanks-Barney Lerten, Bend, Oregon

Please let us know if this crops up again. I’m glad the issue is resolved for you.

Well, I never count my chickens, which is fortunate, cuz after Norton “repaired” its settings this AM (and did a backup etc. despite my telling it to only do it weekly, on the weekend), the HD churning and thrashing started up again after two days of a blissfully quiet PC. At this very moment, it SEEMS to be stopping, about 90 minutes after the “repair,” but if it starts up again I’ll need to “fix” the “fix.” Sigh.

Hi, I have Norton 360 v.2 with Windows Vista sp1 (64bit) with 8gb ram/ Intel Quad processor.  I've noticed every once in awhile it causes my hard drives to go completely whacko continuously spinning like it is scanning for HOURS on end preventing me to do any real work on my computer without very slow delays.  In the windows task manager/processes....it shows ccSvcHst.exe *32 --Symantec Service Framework as taking up to 50% of the cpu processor...I've tried 'ending the process' but it just starts back up again. 

 

The norton 360 window doesn't show it is scanning for virus' or anything.  It is completely annoying as it prevents me from doing any work on my computer since the hard drive just constantly spins doing whatever the symantec service framework thing is doing. I'm seriously considering taking this off my computer (I've had it since version 1).

 

I'm not 100% sure about this and I don't know if there is really any correlation...but I sometimes notice it getting into this loop after awaking from sleep mode.....again I'm not entirely sure if they are related though.

 

Any help, enlightenment, suggestions?

Thank you in advance!!  :)

Yes, Tony, it's thrashing again. After two days of quiet as a mouse PC, Norton 360 V2 decided last night to update itself, and "fix" my settings. Now, after losing the "Com Surrogate not working" error message on startup for the 2-3 days things were working right, that error message is back, and the HD thrashing is back as well. (And, as usual, NOTHING ELSE has changed. It IS your software!)

 I shudder to go through another live chat, spend an hour fumbling and be told it's a hardware problem.

 It's a Norton 360 upgrade problem!

 I'm a paid-up subscriber, but if you guys can't fix this, I'll have to switch programs, again. This is ridiculous.

 Barney

I swear, my computer is alive - or psychic.

 

I post that note, venting, go away for a few for dinner, come back and... the PC is quiet. (After, oh, 45 mins. or so of churning.)

 

Oyy.... a yoyo roller coaster!;-/

Yes, I was hoping a Symantec Tech would pop on here and let us know what a fix would be by now.  The same thing occurs with my computer....it will be fine for a few days and then out of nowhere it will do EXACTLY what was stated in my original first post, rendering my computer virtually useless for work for SEVERAL HOURS (it may be longer for mine due to a larger hard drive)....not only is it keeping me from working in a timely manner (a simple 'save file' that takes seconds took about 15mins...'shutting down' windows takes almost 30mins!!!) but I can't imagine all that constant spinning to be very healthy for the physical hard drives with all that wear and tear of whatever it's doing nonstop!!  ....And as mentioned in the original post everytime I try 'ending the process' in the task manager it just starts back up again in a few seconds....even if I shut down the computer fully and boot back up, whatever the 'symantec framework' process is doing still occurs from bootup so there is literally NO ESCAPING the constant hard drive thrashing until it finishes whatever it is doing.  This is absolutely ludicrous!

 

Apparently it doesn't have anything to do with the 'waking' from sleep mode as I had walked away from my computer leaving it up for about 45mins and when I came back ....away it went with its spinning! 

 

This is really really bad news, can a tech from Norton please address this issue?  My wife's subscription to Norton had expired about 3 days ago and there is NO way she is going to resubscribe with this kind of nonsense and if there isn't a fix soon it is definitely coming off my computer.

hi horton - i've seen a few posts elsewhere mentioning some extreme HDD and CPU utilization. in several cases, it's been narrowed to the add-on pack. if you have it installed, i'd recommend uninstalling (for testing purposes at least) it to see if the problem resolves. i'd be interested in understanding what your power settings are, in light of the observation about having walked away for 45 minutes and then having it spin up.

 

mel 

hi barney - i was just mentioning to Horton that i've seen quite a few of these issues being linked to the add-on pack. can you confirm that the problem (assuming it will return) occurs when the add-on pack is not installed?

 

mel 

Unless it’s something auto-installed, I haven’t installed any add-on pack, so … that rules that out, right? I’d say I’m getting churning about half the time and not the other half (or maybe a bit more, like 2/3 1/3). It really had gone away for a couple-3 days until Norton “fixed” its settings a couple days ago. Aggravating, huh?;-/

Greetings MelodicWynd!

 

I have definitely not added the addon pack...and oddly enough it has occured tonight again (2 nights in a row) AND it apparently has occured when, again, I didn't put the computer in sleep mode but just let it stay on....(the latest internet explorer and photoshop were still active and up)....and sure enough after dinner I came back to the computer and it was in the middle of its spinfest....I ALSO noticed something new this time in the task manager next to the symantecframework listing (aside from the major cpu usage) was that the 'memory' usage was massivelysteadily increasing...by the time I got back to the computer after leaving it about an hour it was up to 99,000k....when I 'ended the process' it started up again at about 5000k and quickly began increasing again thereafter....and I attempted to stop it a few more times with the same occurence. 

 

Hope this info can help shed any light?

Hmmm...interesting....I did check the Vista 'power plans' which I've never done before and it was set on 'balanced'....I've since upped it to 'high performance' and see if that does anything.  (crosses fingers)

Wow, Horton, we have a similar disease but your symptoms are worse - 30 min. shutdown? Mine's ludicrous too, about 10 mins., and while it slows my work during the churn, it doesn't make it unsable, just a pain in the arse. (FYI, mine's a 2 1/2 yo HP MediaCenter PC m7167c bought from Costco.) I used to run McAfee, then THEIR "upgrade" sucked up ALL the bandwidth (this was a few years ago) so I uninstalled and got Norton (which I'd had problems with years ago but with 360 v1 had been pretty nice;-)

 So tired of "upgrades" causing problems - I did a dangerous in-place upgrade from XP to Vista last summer and it went pretty well, considering. I do a twice-weekly TV segment here in Bend, Oregon, so I have a special place to carefully vent about things;-)

 Nice to meetcha, lousy reason to do so huh?;-)