Issue abstract: The latest Norton update has introduced a new but serious bug for ‘Smart Firewall’.
Detailed description: Open Norton 360 → click on Settings → Smart Firewall → navigate to ‘Program Control’ tab. Notice the issue…the program list does not load (most of the times) and the whole computer lags like crazy. The only temp. workaround is to restart the PC
Note: This issue seems to usually occur after first boot (and not if system is already running). In my case, it happened afterwards also but for some may happen on first boot only.
Product & version number: Norton 360 v26.8.11125
OS details: Windows 11 25H2
What is the error message you are seeing?
→ Most of the times, the program list does not load and the whole computer lags like crazy. This probably due to new, illogical change to use ‘dedicated GPU’ and nortonui.exe GPU usage.
If you have any supporting screenshots, please add them:
→ Screenshot
Hello @FullCircle360
~ and what Troubleshooting have you tried to remedy your “new bug for Smart Firewall”?
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May be best – to document/report “issue” directly via Norton support.
Note: for an official Norton response – open a support case: Norton Support Help Center → Contact us (bottom of page) Contact Norton Support → Let’s get started | Welcome (signed in)
Issue has reported to Norton with debug logs. And this is not “my new bug” but something that is broken and Norton must fix it soon. Norton’s performance is going down day by day. I strongly believe all of these issues are because of that one change wherein nortonui.exe is using GPU. nortonui.exe using dedicated GPU unnecessarily
If that’s fixed (reverted to how it was before), these types of performance-related issues will get fixed.
I noticed this last night. I opened up my smart firewall and checked program control to see everything was gone, then when I restarted the computer, I noticed programs repopulating program control in security logs.
I think this is connected to my issue of Norton resetting Program Control at least once a week or every other week on all THREE of my computers. It’s definitely Norton because it immediately did it when Norton updated to 26.8 last week and had to be restarted.
I have had this issue 25H2 windows and up to date drivers.
My computer lags horribly and nothing loads.
I dug into the logs and see a TON of windows programs crashing and not loading.
I already tried reinstalling fresh, checking for other av software, and disabling some secure core things.
None of them fixed it, something that Norton does completely destroys windows in the new build.
Search Bar does not work, applications do not launch (including it’s own uninstaller), and the computer is slow.
