Visual Studio - Start w/ Debugger Starts and Stops - Norton Seems to Block With No Way To Stop

Norton 360 for Windows
1

Hello everyone,

So the other day I was going to work on an application of mine in Visual Studio 2017, like I have for years, with zero issues. However, I ran into a problem where I would try and and Start Debugging and it would start and then just stop. The application would never launch.

This is out of the blue, and even more, it seems that on first logging into my computer after a restart, I can run do this all fine, but, if I change a SINGLE line of code, and try it, failure. Even more, I can run the exe itself, and I can use Visual Studios Attach to Process of the exe running, and it works fine. Again, reboot the PC, no issues until what appears to be a code change (I tested today my one application was fine, found a bug, modified the code, boom, stopped).

This is 100% Norton’s fault, because when I uninstalled Norton the problem went away.

Reinstalled Norton hoping something was wrong, no luck. Even more, it says “my program is fine to run”. I have turned off every security setting, no luck. What’s interesting is in the Smart Firewall I can’t actually change the “Automatic Program Control”. It literally won’t change, and if I go to the settings to do it, it will change but the second I leave and come back, setting reverted.

I am pretty sure the latest update broke the Smart Firewall or something.

Support of course was useless, all they wanted to do was connect to my machine. I quickly gave up with them as I had to get a Senior member … pretty sure there’s some doc out there about this they know about, and haven’t fixed, and they just didn’t bother to look for it.

This is infuriating because I’ve never had an issue before, and now this. It’s like it has some hash stored as “safe” and when the code changes and the hash to follow, it goes haywire.

I can’t be alone, anyone else having an issue like this?

EDIT: In the Report.wer I pulled up through Event Viewer, I see this little sucker in the Loaded Module “ArPotEx32”. Also, there are no errors anywhere in Nortons logs about this

EDIT2: Well it gets more random. Confirmed I have to reboot to get it to work again. Now I can’t get it to break. One thing to note, I got the Smart Firewall to change the setting to “Ask” only after the reboot. I am wondering if it went dumb and then sabotaged all my applications I tried, because this one has internet access aspects.

EDIT3: Nope it’s back, al of a sudden, randomly it stopped working. I have one application running at the moment, opened another one that has opened multiple times successfully, and now, it doing the same thing. No code changes or anything.

2

Hello @joshea There is another user who is having a similar issue as yours in that. The same module is faulting with their work as well. For your reference here is the thread.

SA

3

I am the other developer having issues with ArPotEx32 as well. What we have determined is Norton and AVAST are not blocking the program they are crashing the program. I am getting ready to have our attorney start the process of legal discussions with Norton if we start to lose users over this.

4

That’s what it reminds me of as well, is crashing. As it starts up and then instantly stops, and Event Viewer shows it like such.

I personally would love to see this, because this is pathetic it’s even gotten to this point. Granted I have worked around it for now, but I shouldn’t have to!

5

Glad to see you both chimed in when I linked things. Now, please allow me to escalate this thread since it links a common issue you are both seeing, in one thread. Here is my message to the forums moderators. I hope dev teams will get involved since I do not have any means of direct contact with them on your behalf.

These two customers need the engineering teams involved since they have a common issue with the same failing module in their Norton product. Please escalate to the appropriate team for ASAP action.

SA

6

This may have already been fixed.

From my end, at least, I have been compiling and running fine like I used to before. Now of course I never knew the exact symptoms that started it. But usually by now I’d have seen a problem, and I haven’t.

7

Good news indeed. Have you seen any updates installed since I linked and asked for moderation of both threads? Just trying to understand what changed for further assistance documentation with the forums.

@RogerW_Nemeth What is your status?

SA