Cannot go online while Firewall is enabled...

[JCruz063]

Hi all,

I have Norton Internet Security installed in my Windows XP Professional home PC and three days ago - on Monday May 3, 2004 to be exact - I had Optimum Online (cable internet) installed on it. It seemed to be working fine for the first couple of minutes I used it, but then I started downloading updates (both Windows updates and Symantec's updates) and things got screwed up. My condition now is the following: if the firewall is enabled, I am UNABLE to go online - pages won't load; if the firewall is disabled, pages load without a problem.

It's soooooo annoying! I've searched the symantec's web site and have tried a couple of things they suggested (like allowing default inbound NetBios name and starting NIS manually, not automatically when Windows starts) and have failed to fix the problem.

Can anybody suggest what I should do?

Thanks!

JC

Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly...

 

[edfair]

For starters, have you considered dropping the norton and enabling the XP firewall?

And as an additional possibility, getting an external firewall. And if really paranoid, using zone alarm in addition to the external.
There are easy solutions, and complex solutions. And evidently the norton is complex. I haven't used it so I don't know the issues.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[tazuk]

Hi JCruz063 --

I'm not overly familiar with NIS, however having experienced similar issues whilst setting up a network at home using multiple firewalls (both hardware and software) I'd suggest that you make sure that NIS is set to log all warnings / activity. You can then use the logged information to establish what is being blocked when you're trying to connect.

If you can obtain and post some of the log information (obscuring sensitive information eg IP addresses etc) then I'll have a crack at helping with the specifics.

On a related note I'll admit to being slightly paranoid about Symantec updates as a recent Subscription Services update to my NAV2004 took out the entire application, leaving me no option but to uninstall / reinstall again.

HTH



TazUk

Blue-screening PCs since 1998

 

[JCruz063]

Thanks for your replies guys!

I was so frustrated that I just uninstalled/reinstalled the application before seeing your replies. In any case, it works fine now so the problem must have been a corrupt installation of some update.

Ed Fair,
The XP firewall is called "Internet Connection Firewall" and it works on Internet connections only. That is, in order to enable it, you must have a connection in IE, right click on such connection and then enable the firewall on it. My cable doesn't use any IE connections (in fact, I have no settings whatsoever in my machine for my cable internet) and thus I can't use ICF with it. If I keep running into problems with NIS, though, I may consider using an external firewall, as you said. Thanks again!

TazUk,
Had I seen your reply before unistalling NIS, I would have tried to view that log you're talking about - I'm sure NIS has one.

[...] a recent Subscription Services update to my NAV2004 took out the entire application, [...]

This sounds really scary and annoying at the same time. I hope it doesn't happen to me as I try to stay up to date all the time. Thanks again!


JC

Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly...