MikeO wrote:
essential,
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.
Thanks,
Mike
I had a similar problem just today, except that in my case, there wasn't system instability - just that annoying window that stays on top of everything else, blocking that corner of the screen, and I had to force-quit the Norton thing at shut-down (details below).
I'm somewhat dismayed to hear that this may be a normal although "rare" problem with certain backup apps - is there something wrong between NIS 2009 and "Nero Express Essentials" data-backup DVD/CD-burning software? Nero worked just fine with NIS 2007.
The Norton stuck-window thing happened after I'd been burning some manual-backup DVDs for a couple of hours... interrupted by me every 20 minutes or so to put in another blank disk, so, no the computer had not "gone to sleep" or anything. (Or maybe it had?? more on that down below a ways)
(I'm thinking out loud a little bit here; maybe there will be something useful here that the experts can put 2-and-2 together to figure out why this is happening. I'm not an expert so I have no clue; all I can do is specify what I was doing and other maybe-relevant factors.)
My Norton idle time-out thingie is set to 30 minutes, so Norton shouldn't have been doing anything in the background in the first place.
Anyway I got the exact same "Norton Internet Security is currently performing background tasks" window that everyone else is talking about here; the window wouldn't go away, clicking the "x" made no difference, couldn't move the window either - and it *annoyed* me because it sat on top of all other windows and it blocked my view of windows underneath it. Curiously, the window's left side was warped a little bit too, just like the screenshot somewhere else on this forum - weird. (I did get a screenshot of it, pasted it into MS Paint and the little stuck window showed up just fine, warped left side and all, but in my minor annoyance 
I forgot to save the file 
before I shut the PC down)
The stuck window didn't seem to cause slowdowns, and I was able to continue burning CDs without errors (validation was fine) even after the Norton window appeared, but the window was in my way. I eventually got tired of looking at it and tried to shut down the PC, to reboot.
Got a "This program is not responding" for the "ccSvcHst.exe" so I clicked "End now" (that was unusual - the ccSvsHst thing has always shut itself down gracefully, without any intervention on my part) so after I had to force-quit 
the ccSvsHst, then eventually Windows finally shut down too (on its own). Booted up, no more annoying stuck window - so far anyway. I haven't tried running Nero again yet, though.
I hope this isn't going to be a recurring problem between Nero and NIS 2009, because I need to be able to do backups (manual backups, just dragging files onto the Nero DVD or CD window - nothing automated, no incremental backups or background-stuff or anything like that). NIS 2007 worked fine with Nero. I do *not* want to use the XP Pro built-in CD-burning capability because it has no verification of any kind, and I need to know whether disks were successful burns or coasters - they're backups of my artwork (such as it is ) and other hard-to-replace files and I don't want to risk losing stuff due to not verifying burns. So I need to be able to use Nero (technically, "Nero Express Essentials" which I guess is a stripped down version or something, I dunno, all I know is that it works and it writes disks that I can actually *read* later).
Since I very rarely run with Admin privileges (too paranoid), I can't just select "Disable AntiVirus AutoProtect" to make Norton temporarily cease its activities because to do that on a regular basis requires being an administrator all the time (that Norton system-tray item is greyed out for "limited" user-accounts). And I *resent/dislike* the idea of having to reboot as admin or whatever, just to burn a silly backup CD (assuming that would make a difference - it might not) - there should *not* be any conflict in the first place, and I hate rebooting (I only reboot when necessary for MS or Norton updates or changing certain prefs etc).
Besides, as I mentioned, I'd already disabled Norton idle-time scans, the Norton time-out thingie is set to 30-minutes, and auto-updates are disabled, so why was Norton even doing *anything* in the background, especially when the PC was *not* even online?
All system settings, other installed apps etc., were the same as previously. The computer had not been connected to the internet for at least several hours, so presumably the problem was *not* caused by Norton trying to contact the mothership 
since the internet was completely disconnected from the computer - one would assume that the Norton app knows about such things and doesn't attempt to call home when the computer is offline. I've always had the community-reporting thing turned on, in both NIS 2009 and NIS 2007, but as I said today the computer hadn't been online in hours, and besides it's never caused any problems in the past.
If the window reappears I will disable the community reporting, see if that makes a difference, although it kind of seems like a good idea to have it enabled - isn't that how Norton finds out about new threats? (Maybe not, I don't know.)
Not much reason for other software conflict, as I have very few other apps/software installed: namely, Microsoft Publisher 2007, Firefox 3.x, Ipswitch WS_FTP Pro, WinPatrol (never has caused any conflicts with Norton or anything else AFAIK, and I'd almost ditch Norton before I'd ditch WinPatrol - I really like WinPatrol), an HP color laser printer, Notepad++, HighLogic MainType fontviewer-thingie, the "necessary-evil" IomegaWare (for the twice-a-year long-formats of the Zip disks which are my only practical way of transfering files between the modern(ish) PC and the extremely ancient non-USB prehistoric Mac that I use for Photoshop and Painter), and the aforementioned Nero DVD/CD-burning software. The PC has no other a/v, no other firewalls. Just NIS 2009.
As far as I can tell by looking at processes (using Windows Task Manager) and services (using WinPatrol), I'd guess the likely culprits would be either Iomega or Nero since they each have a couple of things running all the time in the background (or whatever the correct term is), but how come Norton never had a problem with them before? (neither Nero nor my version of Iomega have required any updates recently, so that couldn't have caused the problem). The only thing that changed, was the usual Norton updates, and switching to NIS 2009 instead of NIS 2007 which I'd used previously. Although...
However, when I'd used Nero with NIS 2009 a couple of times before, those were very short sessions lasting maybe a half hour total - maybe that's a factor? Today's Nero burning session was much longer. As I said, with the Norton stuck window today, even though I'd been running Nero for several hours today, the computer had not been "idle" because I'd had to periodically put in another blank disk to burn to. So I don't know what Norton's problem was.
Except... wait, wait a minute... I hadn't actually *clicked* anything or moved the mouse for a while - so maybe Norton thought the PC was idle? Could that be a clue to what was going on? If so, seems like that would be kind of lame - one would think that Norton would be able to detect when other major well-known brand-name apps are actively running, like when they're in the middle of burning DVDs or whatever.
I have Norton's full-screen-recognition thing enabled, which is supposed to disable Norton background activities when some other app is set to full-screen. Nero Express Essentials doesn't recognize F11 *but* I'd clicked the little box in Nero's upper corner that makes it go to full-screen, so it ought to be the same thing, right? So, with another app at full-screen, Norton shouldn't have been doing anything in the background.
As I said, they (Nero and Norton) always worked fine together before, no conflicts whatsoever - at least nothing obvious enough for me to notice it. Certainly never had any stuck Norton windows before. I'd never before even *seen* that little window that appeared today, in any form, dysfunctional or otherwise.
I hope this isn't going to become a recurring problem - I hate having to reboot when I'm in the middle of something, just to get rid of a pesky window that blocks part of the screen - like, when I'm in Publisher, that exact spot is where I keep one of the Publisher palette-thingies and I have *no* intention of moving my palettes to accomodate some other app's bug or whatever. And the longer I can go between reboots, the better - it's a pain to have to reopen all the files that I happen to be working on at the time, etc.
Someone mentioned scans:
Probably about 6 or 7 hours or so before starting Nero, I'd run a Norton manual full-system scan, after manually doing the Norton Live-Update thing. The scan had completed successfully (nothing to report there) at least a couple of hours before I started running Nero (small HD). So, since NIS had just scanned the whole darn system, I wouldn't have thought it would want to be doing more background scans or whatever (especially since it's set to not do that). Auto-updates are supposedly disabled too, although based on my past experiences with an earlier version (NIS 2007), just because you've instructed it to not do updates, doesn't necessarily mean that it will follow your orders. I haven't been using NIS 2009 long enough yet to know whether or not it obeys such orders.
When the stuck window appeared, I did open up the regular NIS 2009 user-interface, which opened up quite fast 
(normal for NIS 2009) and it showed no CPU usage by Norton. Hmm. Maybe it's because I didn't know what to look for, but I wasn't able to find anything that looked out of the ordinary, as far as the Norton app and processes etc.
And I had been *so* happy 
with NIS 2009 too, it's so nice and fast and doesn't mess with my CPU like the old NIS 2007 did... so I hope this NIS 2009 stuck-window business isn't going to be a regular thing.
Shooting in the dark here:
Could it be because I had virtual memory turned on? Last week I ordered more RAM (to bring it up to 2 GB, which will max out my little Dell), and I will install the new RAM in a couple of days or whenever it arrives here. Could it be that using virtual memory somehow confuses Norton? (After I install the new RAM, I want to shut off virtual memory completely - right now, however, VM has its own partition all to itself, so at least it isn't competing with fragmented HD space or something - and I keep the HD defragmented anyway - although it's still writing to the disk I guess, so maybe that causes problems with Norton?).
Anyway FWIW for Norton troubleshooting purposes, all the CDs and DVDs I burned today were fine, they all validated perfectly, with no errors, even *with* that Norton window affixed permanently onto the screen... so I guess things could have been worse... at least the Norton stuck window didn't screw up my other apps... Anyway, that window was in my way.
Given all the good points and significant improvements in the 2009 version of NIS, I'd be willing to overlook/forgive this stuck-window business *if* it doesn't happen very often (say, once every few months, maybe). Any oftener than that, and I'll be feeling a bit miffed. Norton isn't a freebie, after all, so expectations are somewhat higher.
Nisntworking wrote:
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?HELP!!
Well, I suppose "bugs happen" or whatever, given the complexity of modern software, but still... I'd rather not have that darn stuck window again, and I hope they come up with a solution for people who are seriously affected by the problem. And I want to be able to use Nero without Norton freaking out or whatever. And I don't want to have to restart all the time either.
I wasn't too comfortable with the idea of having to force-quit Norton (the "ccSvcHst.exe" thing) - couldn't that leave a "window of opportunity" for a virus or whatever to do something bad, when Norton is force-quit like that? Or couldn't it corrupt Norton prefs or something, doing that? Okay so I'm not a computer genius (especially with Windows) but I'd always thought that force-quitting things was bad for them.
(Yeah I know this is kind of long but I don't know enough about computers to know what details might be useful clues, and what details are irrelevant)
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Windows XP Pro, SP2
Norton Internet Security 2009, version 16.2.0.7
P4 2.4 GHz Dell Optiplex GX260
(I'm not telling you how much RAM I have right now, because it's embarassingly tiny but FWIW the RAM will be upgraded to 2 GB in a couple of days or so when I get my shipment, not that that has any relevance to the issue at hand here)