Yes, when I log into the NSM and click edit it has my childs name logs into as her name. She does not have to log in by physically typing in her name or a password she simply clicks her profile icon on the windows log in screen. The adults have password protected their log ins.
Again, any site that I manually block or block from the list of visited sites does not allow her to go to. Any site that is in the cat list is still free. Example, I have chosen to block news sites in the cat list...but type in cnn.com (a news site) and you can get there. I blocked myspace.com from the list of web activity and it blocked her from going there.
I like the program as far as the ease of use and setup but would really like to get this bug fixed so we can count on the cat list.
Could you uninstall and reinstall Norton Safety Minder to see if it helps? We have seen this in the past that uninstalling and reinstalling the program corrected issues.Since we save all your kid’s activities on the servers, you won’t lose any data.
Here are the Help files on how to uninstall and reinstall Norton Safety Minder.
Same results. The sites I have chosen to block either manually or by selecting them from the activity list are blocked. The sites like playboy and cnn which should be blocked by category rule are still open. Myspace is blocked by manual rule and I got the warning. The other two are only blocked by category rule and I got to both of them.
When ever I change a rule it seems to update fairly quickly to the computer. I have not tried to test the personal info rules yet.
Any other suggestions? If not I will uninstall and try another product. I think this is a product I would like to use but I need something now.
I appreciate your patience in resolving this issue.
If your computer or network is protected by Proxy or Firewall then please see if adding following sites to the exception list helps:
urlcat.norton.com
urlcat2.norton.com
If the information provided above does not help then please post a screenshot of any visited Web site (activity) in the expanded state. When you expand a Web activity like "Allowed Web site visited" , it shows a heading called "Categories". Below this the name of the category will be mentioned. If the name of the category does not appear between the title "Categories" and the link "Dispute site categorization" then it means Norton Safety Minder (client) was unable to determine the category and hence it failed to block the sites beloning to blocked categories.
Also, please paste the response you get when you ping "urlcat.norton.com" and "urlcat2.norton.com" in command prompt.
Note: The above information applies only to "Blocked Web site Categories not working" part of the thread. It does not deal with the problem of "Safe Search".
Yes I am using Norton Firewall as well. I added the two urls you said to add. I also was able to ping both urls successfully.
The two sites in question were playboy.com and cnn.com. Both of these sites should be in the category list one as mature and the other as news. Neither of them have a category indicated. Infact, I don't see that any of the web sites that were visited have a category indicated.
The MySpace site was blocked by my rule that I created. There was not a category indicated for myspace either.
If you still need a screen shot of the ping I will be paste one in but I was able to ping both.
Thank you for providing the requested information. It is very clear that Norton Safety Minder is unable to determine categories and hence this behavior.
To reproduce the issue, I created a "Program Control" rule in NIS 2009 that blocks "C:\Program Files\Norton Online\Engine\1.1.0.21\ccSvcHst.exe" from accessing the IP addresses belonging to urlcat.norton.com and I see exactly same behavior you desrcribed.
Note: This does not mean that same Firewall rule exists on your machine. It just indicates that NIS can be the cause of this issue.
I suggest you please try following steps to make sure that Firewall is not interfering:
1. Reboot machine.
2. Disable Norton Internet Security (NIS) 2009 firewall (Right-click NIS icon and click on "Disable Smart Firewall")
3. Open an instance of Internet Explorer and access Web sites belonging to different blocked categories like cnn.com (which belongs to News category) or playboy.com (it belongs to Pornography category, not Mature Content)
I disabled the NIS Smart Firewall and I also went as far as to go back and disabled NIS completely. Same results. Category sites not blocked and the ones I set up as blocked are.
I created a "Program Control" rule in NIS 2009 that allows "C:\Program Files\Norton Online\Engine\1.1.0.21\ccSvcHst.exe" access urlcat.norton.com. I rebooted and was still able to hit the two sites.
There were no other Program Control rules referencing Nortons.
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