Norton Family Blocking Web Activities - No Error Message or anything in the logs- Product Unusable

Norton Family | Parental Control
1

My son started experiencing issues where websites wouldn’t load with his browser for his online school. After some very long troubleshooting with level 3 support at Norton and my own testing and verification, I was able to diagnose that it came down to the “others” category under Web Categories that was the culprit. There are ZERO error messages that pop up on the browser and there are ZERO error message that pop up in the logs that says Norton is blocking the website so it’s very difficult to troubleshoot and diagnose. To get around it, I had to allow the entire content filtering category of “other” in order to make it work. Even a rule to permit the website would not work. Today, I’ve ran across another website that would NOT load due to Norton Family with no error message or log of any kind. I’ve now had to disable Norton Family in it’s entirety so my son can use his computer and go to school. Is anyone else experiencing these types of issues. I’ve opened a case with Norton but hear nothing back and it’s it’s been days with out a response which is so frustrating. At this point I’ll be looking for another product to use for this purpose. Anyone have any suggestions? Norton Family has been pretty good but recently these last two issues that don’t prevent any alerts or logs has me scratching my head that the product is unusable.

2

Hi JohnF123

Sorry for the inconvinient caused, we are from Norton Family Engineering team, we can help you troubleshoot this issue.

We have noticed that you have couple of windows devices configured with Norton Family product. One of them has the older version(3.9.0.30 - Right click on Norton Family trayIcon and click on “About Norton Family“ to know the version) - if you are facing issues on this device, please upgrade the product to the latest version (25.10.x) by following the below steps. If the issue occurs on the other device (version: 25.10.x installed), we would like to know more details on which website is not accessible, so that we can analyze further and provide you an appropriate solution.

Steps to update Norton Family to the latest version.

  1. On the child device, open any browser and go to family.norton.com and sign-in as a parent.

  2. Click on the respective child name and click on “Add Device”

  3. Click on “Add New Device" and Choose the option to mention that it is the child device and continue.

  4. Click on the “Download” button. Once download is completed, install the downloaded Norton Family Installer. This will update the Norton Family to the latest version.

Please keep us posted, so that we can help you better.

Thanks
Norton Family Team

3

Not my first rodeo with ya’ll. I have a ticket with your level 3 on the same exact issue that I’ve been waiting for an answer on for a couple weeks now. The version of Norton Family is 25.10.105.28. You guys have the HAR log files. Is there a bug in this version? Unless you’re saying that I need to upgrade this older device that is no longer in use to fix the issue with the new device?

4

Hi JohnF123

We have analysed the HAR log files and the product seems to be blocking the below URL which is rated as uncategorized. This could be an embedded URL, could you please add this to the Norton Family House Rules Exception list and allow the same.
”api.stride2-oci.p1.engageli-prod.com”

On the child machine, right click on “Norton Family” tray icon and click on “Update House Rules“ and then recheck the website that you are trying to visit. If you face any further issues, please let us know the website that you are trying to access, we can further analyze and get to a resolution.

Thanks
Norton Family Team

5

Edit:
too many categorization engines

6

Hi bjm

Please don’t refer the previous Rating engine, As we have mentioned in the earlier annoucements, latest Norton Family is using a different categorization engine.

Thanks
Norton Family Team.

1 Like
7

The very simple part of the problem that Norton CONTINUES to miss in this problem is that there is ZERO notification to the user or parent in the logs that something is being blocked. You guys just decided to block it and give NO warnings or error messages. This creates a guessing game as to why something isn’t working and then turns into hours and days of working on troubleshooting. The product is completely USELESS without warnings or meaningful or easy to understand log files especially when your software is blocking something. How can you feel comfortable having the product exist like this?

8

Hi JohnF123

We understand your concern and appreciate your intention to make the product better. We generally send alerts and inform parents on all user navigated URLs (Top level), however we don’t send alerts/logs for embedded URLs as it could send multiple alerts. We hope that your issues is resolved after adding the respective website to the allowed list. In future if you encounter any issues, please report here in this forum, we will make sure to review and resolve.

We are constantly working on improving the product experience and handle this better. Thanks again for your time and efforts.

Thanks
Norton Family Team