The subject title says it all. Earlier today I could not use Firefox or IE to connect to the Internet. When Firefox was double clicked, I had the Vista time waiting circle then nothing. When IE was double clicked a blank page would open, then nothing. I was able to check my email fine. I realised that the Safety Minder paw wasn't showing in the Vista Tray, but I couldn't get it to start. I fired up N360 V4 to get support, but after the first few screens, it also couldn't connect to the internet.
Thankfully after a shut down/restart the Safety Minder paw is now back, and I can get on the internet. This is now the second time this problem has occurred.
I am running Safety Minder V1.2.1.7 on Vista Home Premium.
Other than a shutdown/restart, is there another work around for this problem?
This afternoon my daughter started the computer and logged into her Vista account. She could not access the internet at all because Safety Minder hadn't started (no paw showing in the tray). I logged her off, and then logged into my account, and I also could not access the internet (no paw showing). I even tried to view an HTML document on my PC but without Safety Minder running Firefox couldn't start to be able to read the document.
The solution - but not the permanent fix (I hope), was to shutdown/restart. Not ideal and I'm not happy. I am seriously considering removing Safety Minder altogether as it seems to be crippleware.
Can you please give advice on how to fix this problem properly.
You mentioned "...and then logged into my account and I also could not access the internet...". I assume your windows account is not being monitored, so Norton Safety Minder is not enabled for your account. Since both your account and your daughter's account are not able to use internet, that shows with Norton Safety Minder enabled or not, internet connection is not available, and this scenario doesn't help to connect Norton Safety Minder to the internet issue.
Is it possible that another program on the PC causes the issue? Could you run your security program to see if it could find and delete any virus?
Thanks for your reply, I have carried out the full virus scan, and as I suspected nothing was found. I don't agree entirely with the reasoning for your answer as I could still partially connect to the Internet, I could check my email, and Norton 360 V4 was able to connect and update it's antivirus signatures. You are correct in assuming that my account isn't monitored by Safety Minder, however I am convinced that because the Paw wasn't showing, this was why none of the browsers would work.
Here is some more info, after clicking on FireFox to start, although nothing came up, when I checked Task Manager, firefox.exe was running as a process. The same situation with IE8 when I tried that.
So now I have a question for you: In the services is NOF the service for Online Safety Minder? If so, that was running as well. If it isn't related, then please ignore.
I was having a similar problem with norton safety minder not loading or taking about 20 min to load.I did a chkdsk scan and seemed to solve the problem.
I ran chkdsk and no problems were found. Today when I turned my PC on, and logged into my (administrator) account, the problem re-occurred. No paw, no connection to the internet. I checked services and and Norton Online had started. This is the first time in 7 days since the fault last occurred. I have not installed any new software since the last problem. I'm scratching my head now...
I'm sorry to hear you experienced the issue again and had to uninstall the program. We have been trying to reproduce the issue in house and talked about the issue in our meetings...but no far we haven't been able to reproduce it.
If you have any other additional information to help us to be able to reproduce it, that would be great. Please let us know if you have any updates on the issue.
I am getting the same problem.It started after windows did automatic update and asked for a reboot.I can use email but no internet browsing because the paw icon has not loaded.See my post here.
I've had the same issue with Safety Minder deactivating itself with my Daughters laptop. This has to be related to the latest Microsoft update as it happened the day after being updated on Her laptop. My Son is fine and He hasn't uploaded the update yet.
I appreciate your update. Could you show us the latest Microsoft updates that have been installed on your daughter's laptop and tell us what the exact OS, Edition and Service Pack you have? To see a list of updates already installed on the laptop, go to the Windows Update Web site. In the left pane, under Options, click View installation history.
