Symantec Uninstaller Conflict - Screen Grey Out

Archive
1

Can someone help me out as I seem to have conflicting behaviour with Norton Internet Security (version 5.6) on a Mac Pro (late 2013) with OSX 10.9.2 installed? On an irregular basis I find that the screen greys out and becomes totally unresponsive to any keyboard commands for about one minute. I notice that this situation is most likely to occur if I have the Adobe Creative Cloud desktop app running and logged in.

 

Further investigations suggest that there is a major software bug present in the Symantec Uninstaller programme that sits in the Symantec Solutions folder. I have been running the Console application and have found hundreds of instances, occurring about every 10 to 15 secounds, of the following errors that relate to the Symantec Uninstaller application which are :

 

com.apple.launchd: (com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds

com.apple.launchd: (com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD[5775]) Exited with code: 1

 

I suspect that the continuous repetition of these two line of errors, combined with the running of the Adobe Creative Cloud desktop is directly causing the screen grey out issues for me. I hajve contacted both Apple and Adobe on this issue and both do not have a solution. Adobe suggests that my issue could be caused by a conflct with Norton Internet Security. 

 

I waited hours on the phone today to speak to a level 2 Symantec technial support person, after a level 1 staff member could not resolve the issue for me. I have spent many hours attemting to resolve this issue, without any success.

 

Kind regards,

 

Paul

2

Hi Lee,

 

I have spent several hours on this issue and running the Console programme on my Mac Pro (late 2013, OSX 10.9.2), that the following errors were reoccurring about every 15 seconds. The following sample from the Console programme will illustrate what has happened :
 
8/05/2014 1:39:43.478 pmcom.apple.launchd[1](com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD[3342]) Exited with code: 1
8/05/2014 1:39:43.478 pmcom.apple.launchd[1](com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
8/05/2014 1:39:53.511 pmcom.apple.launchd[1](com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD[3345]) Exited with code: 1
8/05/2014 1:39:53.511 pmcom.apple.launchd[1](com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
8/05/2014 1:39:53.000 pmkernel[0]PM notification timeout (pid 369, Creative Cloud)
8/05/2014 1:39:53.000 pmkernel[0]PM notification timeout (pid 410, Adobe CEF Helper)
8/05/2014 1:39:53.000 pmkernel[0]PM notification timeout (pid 412, Adobe CEF Helper)
8/05/2014 1:39:53.000 pmkernel[0]IOPMrootDomain: idle cancel, state 20
8/05/2014 1:39:53.735 pmloginwindow[112]ERROR | -[LWBuiltInScreenLockAuthLion closeAuthAndReset:] | Attempted to remove an observer when not observing
8/05/2014 1:40:03.542 pmcom.apple.launchd[1](com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD[3348]) Exited with code: 1
8/05/2014 1:40:03.542 pmcom.apple.launchd[1](com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
8/05/2014 1:40:13.572 pmcom.apple.launchd[1](com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD[3351]) Exited with code: 1
8/05/2014 1:40:13.572 pmcom.apple.launchd[1](com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
8/05/2014 1:40:23.603 pmcom.apple.launchd[1](com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD[3354]) Exited with code: 1
8/05/2014 1:40:23.603 pmcom.apple.launchd[1](com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
8/05/2014 1:40:33.633 pmcom.apple.launchd[1](com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD[3357]) Exited with code: 1
8/05/2014 1:40:33.633 pmcom.apple.launchd[1](com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
8/05/2014 1:40:43.664 pmcom.apple.launchd[1](com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD[3360]) Exited with code: 1
8/05/2014 1:40:43.664 pmcom.apple.launchd[1](com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
 
SO what appears to have happened is that there has been two issues : a) a series of PM notification timeouts pertaining to Adobe Creative Cloud; b) a series of com.launched(1) (com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD) occurring every 10 seconds or so. It appears that when both of these error conditions occur at or around the same time then another error : loginwindow[112]ERROR | -[LWBuiltInScreenLockAuthLion closeAuthAndReset:] | Attempted to remove an observer when not observing occurs, resulting in my Thunderbolt display panel going grey in colour and becoming unresponsive to all keyboard commands. After a period of about 20 to 30 seconds the screen restores itself to original state with full functionality.
 
I ended up doing two complete removals of NIS from my MacPro in order to remove some of the above error conditions. The first removal and installation of NIS did not result in the removal of error messages and grey screen out issues. On the second removal of NIS, I did a detailed search for any com.symantec or NIS related preference files and then removed them totally from my Mac. It appears that your unstaller programme does not remove preference files from library folders at user level or library folders at system level. On reinstallation of NIS and running of all the applications within NIS I found that the series of com.launched(1) (com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD) and loginwindow[112]ERROR | -[LWBuiltInScreenLockAuthLion closeAuthAndReset:] | Attempted to remove an observer when not observing errors had been eliminated and have not occurred since. 
 
My conclusion is that there were some corrupted NIS related preference files causing the Symantec Uninstaller programme to generate errors and required removal so that fresh preference files could be generated at the time of re-installation of NIS. So it appears that I may have done most of the diagnostic work for you, over probably at least a dozen hours!
 
There appears to be still a fault with the on-going generation of the Adode Creative Cloud desktop errors, possibly relating to an out of date Adobe CEF Helper or a library that is uses and I so will go back to the Adobe Forum website and request them to look into the issue to make the application run with improved performance.
 
I have had emails directly from Kevin G, case manager, Global Tier 2 Delivery, Endpoint Protection Product Support, Symantec Corporation,  on this issue also. Kevin has asked me to send through a log file, so that your back end engineers can look into further, included as a file attachment below. IF you are wondering, I could not send you screen shot, due to my Thunderbolt display panel going grey in colour and becoming unresponsive to all keyboard commands ehern the error condition occurred. (refer above).
 
Kind regards,
 
Paul
3

Can someone help me out as I seem to have conflicting behaviour with Norton Internet Security (version 5.6) on a Mac Pro (late 2013) with OSX 10.9.2 installed? On an irregular basis I find that the screen greys out and becomes totally unresponsive to any keyboard commands for about one minute. I notice that this situation is most likely to occur if I have the Adobe Creative Cloud desktop app running and logged in.

 

Further investigations suggest that there is a major software bug present in the Symantec Uninstaller programme that sits in the Symantec Solutions folder. I have been running the Console application and have found hundreds of instances, occurring about every 10 to 15 secounds, of the following errors that relate to the Symantec Uninstaller application which are :

 

com.apple.launchd: (com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds

com.apple.launchd: (com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD[5775]) Exited with code: 1

 

I suspect that the continuous repetition of these two line of errors, combined with the running of the Adobe Creative Cloud desktop is directly causing the screen grey out issues for me. I hajve contacted both Apple and Adobe on this issue and both do not have a solution. Adobe suggests that my issue could be caused by a conflct with Norton Internet Security. 

 

I waited hours on the phone today to speak to a level 2 Symantec technial support person, after a level 1 staff member could not resolve the issue for me. I have spent many hours attemting to resolve this issue, without any success.

 

Kind regards,

 

Paul

4

Thanks.  So apparently my guess about there being a panic was incorrect, it sounds instead like a screen lock was kicking in for some reason.  Again, hard to say if the uninstall errors were related, but perhaps the repeated launch attempts caused the CPU to get busy enough to cause the screen lock for some reason.

 

It's good to hear the uninstall/reinstall was able to resolve those errors.  I see from your info file that the uninstall plist is not installed now, nor should it be (except temporarily after an uninstall).  My theory is there was a failed uninstall at some point that left it running.  If it recurs, you should be able to remove it manually, from /Library/LaunchDaemons.  If you can't find it in Finder, this command from Terminal should remove it:

 

sudo rm /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.symantec.nis.uninstall.EnglishESD.plist

 

(The sudo command will cause a prompt for your admin user's password, note that the password will not echo when typed).