Thread for version 24.xx issues and suggestions

FaikB · November 1, 2024, 11:09pm

Well said, and I agree. I was very happy to provide for the continuous funding of research & development of the Symantec Engine through my subscription. I was extremely satisfied, and I felt it was near perfect in customization and threat detection. Frankly, I truly don’t agree with this recent move of replacing it with the Avast engine.

I firmly believe the Symantec Engine was what allowed Norton to maintain a full protection score on AV-TEST for 10 years - no other antivirus product was able to do that, including Avast. I personally feel this may leave users more vulnerable to threats, as one less scanner allows hackers to find loopholes and bypass the engine.

And I’m not here to slander Norton, I am here because I don’t want the AV I stood by and defended for many years going in this direction. This release is not at the quality it should be, and I hope this will be resolved soon too. All the years of software development and funding for the Symantec engine just to be replaced with Avast and forced on users - was that the right move?

majorbuzz · November 1, 2024, 11:09pm

Hi @mandc,@BJM, and @SoulAsylum. I just wanted to say I enjoyed chatting with you guys, and in some way we may have helped each other.
As for me, I contacted Norton via phone with my issues, they won’t accept that Version 24 is buggy to say the least, and wanted to reinstall the app via remote desktop. I declined because of some of your experiences.
My latest move was via Facebook on Norton’s official page. I went back and forth in a friendly way with a support tech from the company. He also wants me to contact support again and let them have at my computer, yet this is part of what he wrote me, which I wanted to share with you guys. For what it’s worth. Please note, there is no time frame on this…
“I would like to inform you that there are some bugs found in our application and we are fixing this issue, so I request you to update the application, when updates comes. -Nishant”

ITMA · November 2, 2024, 12:21pm

Help Lines are populated by ‘Wordsmiths’ !
Speaking to a non-tech ‘Help Line’. “The site is down for maintenance.”
“No, it’s not. Last night you’ve renewed/reloaded your website, and it’s failed to come back up properly”.
Could I find the website ‘down’, NO ! It’s up, OK !, but non-functional.
Happens all the time, around the world.
False150

Cozzy121 · November 3, 2024, 12:07am

The only thing I can add to this discussion that because of the latest update I have uninstalled Norton. An update should at best improve matters or at the very least leave functionality the same, this update has impacted negatively on my PC and therefore it must be removed. Bravo Norton.

Nova_eXelon · November 3, 2024, 12:07pm

I have been using Norton since 2009 DESPITE its getting trashed everywhere. Now I get things like this:

Alright I’m not allowed to post the screenshots even though the site uploads them without error

ZenTimings triggered Driver Vulnerabilities
SkyrimSE triggered IDP.Generic

I don’t have a screenshot but Mods for games that use a different *.exe to start like Seamless Coop for Elden Ring are also triggering Norton all of the sudden.
Same goes for the Updater for SpecialK. Funny thing here is Norton allows the download of the update but not installing it.

I am really considering moving away from Norton now. I use way too many Apps/Mods for games to put up with this.

bjm · November 3, 2024, 3:26pm

Please try uploading image to https://postimages.org/
Please try copy Direct link: and paste (space characters to break link) with your message.

for example:

https: //i. postimg. cc/FRDnZ2Zr/png-20065. png

or try Preformatted text </> to break link
https://i.postimg.cc/FRDnZ2Zr/png-20065.png

bjm · November 3, 2024, 3:33pm

Hello @Nova_eXelon
Is this your SpecialK
Install for you?
Install for all?

==========================

Developers: Unknown
Version: 24.10.26.2
Identified: 11/3/24
Last Used: 11/3/24
Startup Item: No

Few users
Hundreds of users in the Norton Community have used this file.

New
This file was released 8 days ago.

Unproven
There is not enough information about this file to recommend it.

Origin

Downloaded from: https://sk-data.special-k.info/SpecialK.exe

File: SpecialK.exe
File size: 10.5 MB (11,055,805 bytes)
MD5 checksum: 847A2EF4AD5DEF5A0BF71AA241B8A006
SHA256 checksum: C8EF5533CEEE0DEC494B4F835BA8FCE11B06AD839A1DF6CD40999DFF469E95B4
Date/Time: 11/3/2024

Note: SpecialK.exe is not signed

=======================================================
Caveat: I’m not a Gamer

=========================================

Hello @Nova_eXelon
may be related
https://community.norton.com/t/trustworthy-programs-ending-up-as-idp-generic-and-im-sick-of-it/248354

SoulAsylum · November 3, 2024, 4:02pm

@Blaise Downloading and installing that update now on one of Windows 11 Pro machines. Will report results when done.

SA

SoulAsylum · November 3, 2024, 4:28pm

KB5044384 Installed without any issues, didn’t have to disable any Norton protections to allow the installing of the update.

SA

Alexander_Bjerke · November 3, 2024, 5:06pm

I have had some of the same issues with Norton 360 v24 which I just got so I won’t repeat things here.

One question though since I am trying to make my way around this rather confusing new UI with its many subsections. Not sure if this has been answered yet (I have’t been able to go through this entire thread), but I wonder where is the Performance Graph that has been in previous Norton versions? It has been very useful since it has shown all of the program installs, downloads, virus scans, performance notifications etc (see picture below from earlier version).

I checked the Performance section here on v24 and other parts but can’t see it anywhere. Anyone know where it is now?

bjm · November 3, 2024, 5:58pm

Hello @Alexander_Bjerke
Yeah, no Graphs anywhere with v24.x

Nova_eXelon · November 3, 2024, 6:03pm

Thanks for the reply. As for the screenshots:
I need to remove the h t t p s / / before it lets me post…

i. postimg. cc/qRn905yR/Screenshot-2024-11-03-124814. png
i. postimg. cc/9fwktnxp/Screenshot-2024-11-02-140720. png

Also I don’t know if SpecialK would install normally now, because since I first had problems with it around a month ago, I just did this:
i. postimg. cc/wj74grdp/Screenshot-2024-11-03-183036. png

Elden Ring Seamless Coop is maybe not a 24.xx problem because that was around six months ago now. I don’t remember the exact problem anymore but it was something “data prevention” something.
I had to completely disable that btw. because exceptions were ignored.

Look I know that if you install mods for example for Unity games that alter the Assembly-CSharp.dll that that would tip off Auto Protect. Making exceptions for that no problem.
But since the beginning of the year I am constantly fighting against Norton. I didn’t make screenshots in the beginning with Elden Ring because at the time I didn’t see a trend developing. But know it’s like every three days something new comes along that had worked for years on end but all of the sudden some file/app is dangerous.

And the SkyrimSE.exe thing broke me a little bit too much. I was already playing. THEN it crashed and I got the IDP.Generic warning. So even if it was really infected with something, Norton didn’t catch it when launching the game but like 20 minutes later.
Double checked with online virus scanner and it found nothing.

Norton for me was something that ran quietly in the background and would occasionally pop up to tell me it did some background stuff and found nothing.
Now it’s different and all of the above is in addition to all the other notifications about VPN not active (I already use one), cloud backup not active (I don’t want to), special offers (that I have to disable after every major update) etc.

bjm · November 3, 2024, 6:13pm

Alexander_Bjerke · November 3, 2024, 6:14pm

Thanks for the reply! Hopefully it will be added in a later update, but at least now I know it’s not me just not finding it.

GiBibby2 · November 4, 2024, 12:22am

I’m having many issues with this new update in my post.

mandc · November 4, 2024, 6:42am

Thanks for the information. There’s of course no guarantee that the next update will work or be an improvement, so I’m a little skeptical. I called last week and after I said that I already ran that NrN program, he was all out of ideas. Someone from the tech department was going to send me an e-mail. Nothing yet. Not really holding my breath. Great service.

I’m getting pretty near the end of my patience. If the update isn’t done this week, I’m going to have to get rid of it. It works about as well as dubious shareware from 20 years ago. Still waiting most of the time before Norton lets me use Firefox or Outlook - 10 to 15 minutes. Internet works - I just can’t use it. Under history, it’s doing the software update, live update, and a long string of “connected to network” - I assume my prvider’s network, and the vpn is listed multiple times. No idea what’s its doing.

majorbuzz · November 4, 2024, 3:34pm

Hi @mandc. It’s my opinion Norton doesn’t believe that there’s much wrong at all with V24. Leaving them a link to this thread may change their thoughts, but I doubt they’ll even read it.
I’ve noticed in the past with version 22 that it was updated roughly once a month. You would see a change at the tail end of the string of their version number.
For now, why not turn off your Cloud update and see if you can use Firefox and Outlook right away? I see almost every item you do in history. I don’t understand that it insists on running software update and live update when they’re both turned off, or supposed to be turned off. BTW, I like to manually run Live update. I wanna know when I get an updated version… BTW mine also “Connects to Network” around 4-5 times when My computer is first turned on. I have no idea why. I’m tired of trying to figure this whole mess of a program out. It just ain’t MY job.

Magnus_Norden · November 4, 2024, 4:17pm

OK. This latest update has now forced me to quit Norton after some 20 years. I suddenly started getting interrupts in my digital audio workstation after the update. Uninstalling NAV solved this.

Silent Mode was useful to me. It is now gone. I cannot use NAV anymore. I am switching to Eset.

Windows defender does not interfere with my DAW. Eset does not. The previous versions of NAV didn’t. The current update does. So, either I stop making music on my pc or I ditch Norton.

Best,

Magnus

WalkingMan · November 4, 2024, 10:09pm

I’ve spent the past few hours scrolling through this topic and like many others I feel that the product I now have is very far from what I purchased. I’m astounded that any software company could release such a defective product and there has obviously been a serious lack of testing carried out beforehand.

Now a couple of specifics of my experience today. First off, I can confirm that the Security History rapidly fills up with “Connect to network xxxxxxxx” messages. I cleared the history but before doing so I found that these messages are added every 5 or 6 seconds, so this isn’t shown in the screen shot below.

However, what set me off on this topic was when I tried to send an email today and got a popup alert about a certificate not being trusted. I’ve used the same computer, email client and Norton 360 for years without any such problem until today.

System details as follows;

Computer: Dell Latitude E5550 laptop
OS: Windows 10 Pro version 22H2 (fully up to date)
eMail client: Thunderbird version 128.4.0esr (32-bit) (fully up to date)

Norton 360: version 24.10.9535 (build 24.10.9535.881) (installed by Live Update)

It should be noted that I have Thunderbird configured to use a POP SMTP server with SSL/TLS security as seen here …

The popup alert was as follows;

Clicking “View” revealed the following details indicating the problem certificate was created by Norton Antivirus;

So I then clicked “Get Certificate” and this downloaded a pem file (mail-btinternet-com-chain.pem) and I examined the contents …

I then selected and viewed the “Norton Web/Mail Shield Root” certificate and it can be seen that this is a self-signed certificate created by Norton …

I next opened Windows Certificate Management Console

and confirmed that the same “Norton Web/Mail Shield Root” certificate was present in the ‘Current User’ and ‘Local Computer’ ‘Trusted Root Certification Authorities’ certificate stores. Presumably added to those trusted root certificate stores by Norton 360.

That would normally mean the ‘mail.btinternet.com’ certificate should be trusted but it clearly isn’t.

My first thought was this must be a Thunderbird issue, but I did a bit of searching using Google and found the exact same issue was reported by someone using Outlook 365 (see [Norton Popup when opening Outlook 365])

Then I found this discussion on the Norton Community, so I suspect this is another bug in v24.xxx

My temporary work around was to click the ‘Confirm Security Exception’ button on the Thunderbird popup alert, adding ‘mail.btinternet.com:465’ to the Thunderbird Certificate Manager exception list as shown here …

WalkingMan · November 5, 2024, 1:49pm

For what it’s worth, before I added the security exception to Thunderbird as described above, I initially disabled ‘Scan outbound emails (SMTP)’ in the new Norton UI as shown below. This stopped the Thunderbird popup alert, a further indication that this was being caused by Norton.

I then re-enabled ‘Scan outbound emails (SMTP)’ and the Thunderbird popup returned. That was the point where I added the Thunderbird security exception.

VERY STRANGE … later last night, and confirmed this morning, I deleted the Thunderbird security exception and retried sending an email and there was no alert popup ! I double checked that ‘Scan outbound emails (SMTP)’ was still enabled in Norton.

So, for the moment, this issue has gone away for some unknown reason. At least I know what to check and modify if it re-appears.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused, but I thought this worth reporting as I couldn’t find any mention of it in this ‘consolidated’ issues discussion.

Thread for version 24.xx issues and suggestions

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