System Specs: AMD Athlon XP 3500+ DFI nForce4 UltraD 2Gigs Corsair XMS PC3200 WD Raptor 74Gig Norton 90-day Trial with about 65 days left.
I'm the kind of guy who almost never restarts my computer. Maybe once every week or two. However, I was one of the Norton users effected by the "Symantec System Framework Failed" which would cause my Outlook to stop connecting, so the last few weeks I've had to restart almost everyday just to get Outlook working again. Now, Norton finally issued a fix for that error, and have caused another problem. NIS2009 is such a great step forward for Norton, I love it, they seem like the took so many steps forward with this product, but somehow took steps back in terms of compatibility with Windows.
The last two days maybe, I have been coming back to my computer (after it's been left idle for a while) the message "Norton Internet Security Is Performing Background Tasks" in the bottom right hand corner of my screen. When I see this, my system is either completely locked, or completely unstable. The message doesn't go away, but I am able to "X/Close" it. After I close it, explorer usually crashes if I try to do anything. This morning I woke up to one of those messages in my lower right hand corner. My Outlook would not connect to get any mail, then I tried to copy some files to my thumb drive and right clicking on the files caused explorer to lock/crash and I had to end up restarting.
My system has been rock solid for years, Norton has to be the issue.
Unfortunately Norton isn't causing any error reports that I can paste it, Norton itself isn't crashing that I can tell, but something in that "Norton Internet Security Is Performing Background Tasks" is causing problems with other parts of Windows.
Is anyone else having this issue? Can a Norton representative confirm they are aware of this issue?
System Specs: AMD Athlon XP 3500+ DFI nForce4 UltraD 2Gigs Corsair XMS PC3200 WD Raptor 74Gig Norton 90-day Trial with about 65 days left.
I'm the kind of guy who almost never restarts my computer. Maybe once every week or two. However, I was one of the Norton users effected by the "Symantec System Framework Failed" which would cause my Outlook to stop connecting, so the last few weeks I've had to restart almost everyday just to get Outlook working again. Now, Norton finally issued a fix for that error, and have caused another problem. NIS2009 is such a great step forward for Norton, I love it, they seem like the took so many steps forward with this product, but somehow took steps back in terms of compatibility with Windows.
The last two days maybe, I have been coming back to my computer (after it's been left idle for a while) the message "Norton Internet Security Is Performing Background Tasks" in the bottom right hand corner of my screen. When I see this, my system is either completely locked, or completely unstable. The message doesn't go away, but I am able to "X/Close" it. After I close it, explorer usually crashes if I try to do anything. This morning I woke up to one of those messages in my lower right hand corner. My Outlook would not connect to get any mail, then I tried to copy some files to my thumb drive and right clicking on the files caused explorer to lock/crash and I had to end up restarting.
My system has been rock solid for years, Norton has to be the issue.
Unfortunately Norton isn't causing any error reports that I can paste it, Norton itself isn't crashing that I can tell, but something in that "Norton Internet Security Is Performing Background Tasks" is causing problems with other parts of Windows.
Is anyone else having this issue? Can a Norton representative confirm they are aware of this issue?
When I got home from work it had happened again. “Norton Internet Security is currently performing background tasks” is stuck in the bottom right corner of my screen. I can “X/Close” it but Opera (web browser) crashed at some point during the day cause of this, and the same thing as eariler, right clicking on any file just gives me the hour glass for a while and gots to “not responding” and I end up having to restart.
It sounds like your system is locked up inside the file system. That is, any request for files on disc causes the individual processes to freeze. This issue is likely what is causing the "Background Tasks" notification to not dissappear. The most common cause of this class of issue is multiple drivers processing file-system related events, i.e. multiple real-time scan engines and in some rare occasions backup engines that monitor file system activity. It sounds like the increased disc I/O generated during idle time processing is triggering this condition.
Do you have any other antivirus / antispyware or other security software installed on the computer? Are there any backup applications installed on the computer?
Any details you can provide will help troubleshoot this issue further.
I have PC Tools Spyware Doctor as well (with the Anti-Virus Engine disabled), but I have been running NIS2009 and Spyware Doctor together for the last month or so with out any conflict issues that I could notice. Whatever this problem is it only started about a two days ago or so.
I have disabled "Idle Scan Time" in computer settings, should that help anything?
I'll be happy to provide as much information as I can.
Thanks.
Message Edited by essential on 11-18-2008 06:28 PM
PMJI but just to say that in my experience on XP Pro SP3 fully updated with NIS 16.1.0.33 that black background operation screen is a very normal occurance here but as soon as I do anything -- even move the mouse -- it fades away and I do not notice any deterioration in performance.
I might find a very slight sluggishness for a few moments but if I do -- and I really can't say -- I would put it down to NIS finishing off what it was doing when I interrupted it!
But you clearly have a very different situation -- I see MikeO is pointing to conflicting applications which would be worth eliminating if only for troubleshooting.
Yes, prior to the last couple days, it would just fade for me as well when I came back to the computer, if I even saw the message. I'm only seeing it a lot now cause it is freezing on the screen.
I have shut down Spyware Doctor, and I probably won't know if I have the error till I wake up tomorrow morning, but I will post either way. But like I said, they were running fine together for the last 3 weeks. I have made no other changes to my system.
Well, I ended up re-activating Spyware Doctor prior to going to sleep because I had already turned off “Idle Scanning” in NIS2009 and I didn’t want to change two things at once. When I woke this morning I had no errors, so i’m going to leave idle scanning off until the next update then i’ll try again.
My setup is two users -- my wife and myself -- and this afternoon she was playing Solitaire (not the MS version but from an old WIN98 CD she likes and runs fine under XP and VISTA when the black Norton Background flag came up and stayed up. Solitaire continued as normal and I could do all sorts of actions including switching user (Fast User Switching) to my desktop and back to see if that did anything but it did not.
The one thing I could not do was to make the Background notice go away -- [X] had no effect; couldn't drag it anywhere (don't know if you can usually since it fades if you even move the mouse).
I ran Task Manager and nothing I could see as odd was there -- certainly no Not Respondings.
I then brought up the main NIS screen -- which said last update 1 hour ago but when you clicked on that it showed it happend 3 hours previously. So I ran LiveUpdate manually and it brought down two updates, 1 def and 1 whitelist, but with no change on the 1 hour ago message.
So I went to my desktop and ran LiveUpdate again which brought down one more update and changed the 1 hour ago message to the usual seconds.
Back to my wife -- no change the Background message was still there so I logged off and got the usual message about ccSvcHst running and being closed which appeared for a while and then told me it could not close it down. I used shut down and rebooted and both desktops were OK.
All of which would seem to indicate that one of the two instances of ccSvcHst was having a problem ........
Seriously, I run Vista Home Premium on an HP Pavilion dv9700 and NIS 16.1.0.33 and have recently noted that I too am experiencing NIS acting like McAfee, posting that black box, stepping on the shoelaces of and locking up ANY activity which might be taking place. Outlook, IE, Solitaire, DVD creation - you name it. I keep having to shut down using the power switch. No non-Norton checkers of any kind run in the background, though I do, from time to time manually run AdAware.
I saw something similarly recently, but haven't seen it again. It seems sometimes one of Norton's background processes gets stuck and that's why the black box won't go away.
I am having the same problem. The pop up saying Norton AntiVirus is currenlty performing background tasks keeps getting stuck on the bottom right hand. It's really annoying.
"Norton Internet Security is currently performing background tasks" is stuck in the bottom right corner of my screen. I can not "X/Close" it or move the window.
I have NIS version 16.1.0.33. I'm running an HP laptop with XP SP2.
I have turned off "idle scan" and "Community Watch" but nothing changes that window. I do use Carbonite back up software. Everything seems to run except that window will not go away.
It did not start right away after installation of the NIS 2009 but just within the last three days.
I'm using a Compac Presario R3000 laptop (AMD Athlon proc) with Win XP Home Ed (SP3). I, too, am now experiencing the 'dreaded' Norton IS is currently performing background tasks message as of today. I let the machine sit idle for 20min or so. When I came back, there it is ad it won't go away (no X?close, no nothing....it doesn't acknowledge the mouseover at all)
I note that there have been multiple inquiries about this glitch and, seemingly, no helpful response from Norton.
Are we customers left to figure the glitch out for ourselves? What do I know? Nothing! That's why I pay for software from RELIABLE? companies. Norton IS RELIABLE, RIGHT?
I originally wrote: That appears to have done the trick; however, one should not have to disable software to keep it from jammin’ one up. Thanks!
Turns out I was mistaken. After some updates, THE BOX IS BACK! In 20+ years of Norton I’ve never experienced such McAfee-like difficulties. Wonder if they hired a McAfee (or Micro$oft) programmer! Now, I’ve turned off both the community AND the background scan.
I had this happen once with Norton 360 after an update but it disappeared permanently, so far, after a rebooted a couple of times which it looks like was needed to complete the update.
<< After some updates ... >> What version of NIS are you on now?
Have you worked through the suggestions from MikeO who is a Symantec staffer. I imagine he will pick up the thread once the holiday season is fully over.
I haven't seen anyone say that they ran a full system scan to check any software conflict agains CPU usage. Do you think, since you have experienced it, that a software conflict during scans would lock up Norton in this particular problem?