Norton Internet Security 2011 and 8504,101 and other wierdness

Hi I'm running Norton Internet Security 2011 (18.1.0.37) on my Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) on a Dell XPS system. Here's the symptoms:

 

1. Every couple of days I discover Norton is inactive on my system (Including the desktop widget showing without the green "Secure" bar and the four icons below it grayed out.

 

2. After repeatably trying to get Norton going again I get the error 8501,101 and the instruction to reboot. I'm getting very annoyed having to reboot my system all the time for Norton.

 

3. I have also downloaded the remove program... removed Norton IS and reinstalled it. I still have the same issues.

 

4. Even more odd, last night I started a full system scan manually, this morning there is no sign of Norton on my desktop and no record of the scan AND Norton is inactive again and the 8504,101 error is back... corrected again with a reboot..

 

What is going on here?

 

I do not want to have to change AV providers, nor do I want to repeat the process where I pay Norton to poke around on my system, pat me on the head like I'm and idiot and tell me nothing is wrong.

 

Something is wrong and I want to know what it is and if it's not Norton then I want some idea what the real issue is so I can correct it and feel at least some trust in the security software I'm running.

 

And while I'm obviously annoyed, I will send any logs requested and perform any reasonable procedure to resolve this issue.

 

Dan Rhea

Hi I'm running Norton Internet Security 2011 (18.1.0.37) on my Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) on a Dell XPS system. Here's the symptoms:

 

1. Every couple of days I discover Norton is inactive on my system (Including the desktop widget showing without the green "Secure" bar and the four icons below it grayed out.

 

2. After repeatably trying to get Norton going again I get the error 8501,101 and the instruction to reboot. I'm getting very annoyed having to reboot my system all the time for Norton.

 

3. I have also downloaded the remove program... removed Norton IS and reinstalled it. I still have the same issues.

 

4. Even more odd, last night I started a full system scan manually, this morning there is no sign of Norton on my desktop and no record of the scan AND Norton is inactive again and the 8504,101 error is back... corrected again with a reboot..

 

What is going on here?

 

I do not want to have to change AV providers, nor do I want to repeat the process where I pay Norton to poke around on my system, pat me on the head like I'm and idiot and tell me nothing is wrong.

 

Something is wrong and I want to know what it is and if it's not Norton then I want some idea what the real issue is so I can correct it and feel at least some trust in the security software I'm running.

 

And while I'm obviously annoyed, I will send any logs requested and perform any reasonable procedure to resolve this issue.

 

Dan Rhea

Hello Dan and welcome.  I'm sorry to hear of your problem.

 

A couple of quick questions:

 

What security program did you have prior to NIS 2011?   Do you have any other realtime security programs running?

 

You mentioned using the Norton Removal Tool, but could you try this method?

 

The NRT may have left some settings and files behind or since it is an aggressive tool, it may have deleted or possibly corrupted one or more files.

 

I would suggest uninstalling by running the NIS 2011 installer again “overtop” of your current NIS 2011 installation.

 

Back up your Identity Safe data to a safe location and have a copy of your Product Key handy in a format that can be copied (.txt file)

 

Be sure to have the NIS 2011 installation package saved to a convenient location.

 

Right click the NIS installer package and choose “Run As Administrator”

 

You will be presented with an Uninstall Preference screen. 

 

Select “Please remove all user data including my stored passwords and quarantine content”.

 

NIS-2011-Uninstall-Preference.png

 

 

At the next window, select “No” to Safe Web Lite.

 

The uninstaller will now complete and request a restart.  Your product has been uninstalled.

 

Perform a search and delete any Symantec or Norton Files that may be left.

 

Copy your Product Key (Ctrl c) and then install NIS 2011 by choosing “Run As Administrator”.

 

At the Activation Window, paste (Ctrl v) your Product Key.

 

After installation is complete, be sure to “Run Live Update” to get the latest definitions.

 

Let us know how you do.

Hi Phil,

 

As for previous security programs, I had NIS 2010 that was installed on the system and then reinstalled when I moved from Vista to Windows 7 Pro. In October I upgraded to NIS 2011.

 

I did go through the uninstall/reinstall process (once about a week ago and once today). Everything seemed to work but I was never presented with a screen offering uninstall options. The box that came up was vertically oriented and had a list of products in red on a white background that would be uninstalled. Safe Web Lite was never mentioned.

 

The installer ran fine but I was not prompted now or last week to enter a product key... the installer simply requested a restart, and when the system came back up NIS 2011 was running.

 

A full system scan is in progress (after an update).

 

I guess all I can do is wait and see if it dies again.

 

Dan Rhea

Meh... my coffee hasn't kicked in yet.

 

Above when I mention that NIS 2010 was installed on the system... I should have said that it came preinstalled on my system.

 

I actually run Norton 360 on my other two systems, but I digress.

 

I see odd pauses at two times... while the system is settling down after a reboot and when I run the World of Warcraft launcher. The system is a 3 GHz quad core (Q9650) with 8 GB of Ram (Win 7 Pro 64-bit) so I get concerned when I see it pause for any reason... pausing when running WoW just makes me paranoid.

 

I'll let you know if I see anything else odd.

 

Dan Rhea

Hi Dan,

 

Thanks for the additional info. 

 

The reason I outlined the special steps above was due to an experience I encountered when running the NRT for the "so called clean installation".  The NRT is a brute force measure designed for a specific purpose and it does leave some files behind and may impact others.

 

If you encounter any further issues, please consider my suggestion of running the NIS 2011 installer overtop the current NIS 2011 installation and select to "remove all data".

 

Should issues persist after that, we can go about collecting logs.

 

Best Wishes.

Hi Phil,

 

Ah! My mistake... I reran the uninstaller... I didn't rerun the installer (I missed the difference). I will redo the processes later this afternoon.

 

One good sign is that a full scan finally completed. I may even have an idea why if had trouble before... it looks like it also scanned a couple of mapped drives (to a WD My Book network hard drive). It was scanning through many compressed incremental GFI backup files and thousands of digital photos. Sometimes the My Book will act flakey and cause timeout errors (something I see from GFI every once in a while).

 

In any case, Norton is still going strong.