Kerio - Tiny Support → Tiny Personal FireWall (2.015 a) PfVarLibInit Err

We have been using Tiny Personal Firewall 2.015a (freeware) for months and it has been fairly stable.
Recently we installed a game which has caused a major problem with the firewall.
When we power up, we get a message 'PfVarLibInit: Var_Server_Stat Error: 1 (10047.socket() Failed).
We uninstalled the game, then Tiny Personal Firewall.
Next we reinstalled Tiny but the error persists.
All suggestions are appreciated.

The game is competing for control of the sockets with Tiny, and has most likely installed a corrupted version of the Winsock. If the game was freeware then you may be a victim of SPYWARE, and the damage it can do. Get a copy of "Adaware" (free) from Lavasoft.com and use it to scan your system. Then use the windows "system information" tool's "System File Checker" to check all your system files for damaged or corrupted files, and files that may have been "replaced" by the game with the games own modified versions of windows dll's.

Games are dangerous, and can be very insidious. Games are also a vector for trojan horse installation! I suspect that the game is spyware and when you uninstalled it it didn't uninstall the spyware sub system. Adaware will remove it!

Good luck.

We didn't run System File Checker prior to the game being installed so it ran clean.
Should we extract Winsock.dll from the cab?

Replacing Winsock.dll wouldn't hurt, and it might help, But I would recommend running "Adaware" first. Adaware detects and removes all the nefarious stuff that spyware installs.

If system file checker didn't find anything wrong that's a good sign. Spyware programs hog your internet connection through sockets connections "below" the OS where they would be in direct competition with TPF, for access. There is also a database somewhere on the net where you can check to see if the game you installed is a "known" spyware package. But "Adaware" is the best approach, at your late stage of the game.

By the way, Kerio Personal Firewall ver 2.14, is more secure than Tiny 2.15. Tiny 2.15 is no longer in development and no longer supported. Kerio is free. Se download link on the board.

We ran the Adaware and replaced Winsock from the cab.
We still can't access E-mail or use Internet Explorer to access the internet.
This is of course, without any software firewall.
I don't have a clue what to do next.
Thanks.

Run the windows "Registry Repair Tool".

Restart in DOS mode. (NOT exit to DOS, but restart in DOS mode)

You should find yourself at Dos prompt: C:\windows

type: cd C:\windows\command

once at the C:\windows\command prompt

type: scanreg/fix/opt

When scanreg finishes, turn off the computer, wait a minute and restart.

This will clean up the registry, removing bogus entries, and no longer needed keys which may be pointing to the no longer present game. It's a safe operation.

If still no success, try "Norton Disk Doctor" followed by "Norton Win Doctor"

Registry checker fails with:
'Windows found an error in your system files and was unable to fix the problem. Try deleting some files to free up disk space on your Windows drive. It that doesn't work then you will need to install Windows to a new directory.'
There is over 2 Gb of free space on the C drive.

Then ran Norton Disk & Win doctor which run clean.
Registry checker then fails with above message again.

The plot thickens:
When I run WinIpCfg (Windows 98) I get an error:
'Fatal Error cannot read IP Configuration'.
I checked the adapters and they are bound to TCP/IP

Thank you

So,.. you have found the problem. There is a problem with one of the system files. The System File Checker didn't find any problems with any system files, so that suggests that your swap file may have an allocation error. Swap file is the only file not checked by most tests. The swap file is in the C:\windows directory. You can also use Explorer to review all the files in all the subfolders under C:\windows for unusually large files. Somewhere in there you may have a file left over from the game, that may have been allocated ALL of the drives free space.

Exit to DOS, then erase the windows cache file (it will be recreated when you reboot):

at the C:\windows prompt type:

erase c:\windows\Win386.swp , hit enter, wait for the file to be erased then turn off the computer, wait a minute and reboot.

Run "Scandisk" with surface scan enabled and see if it catches anything.

Sounds like you have a file allocation error in a system file, and your IP stack has been corrupted by the game.

Aren't games fun ?!

You are running across a old bug
which we used to get when we worked with older
winsock products.

Normal way to fix...must have cd or cabs available...is to remove tcpip....

really its to:
Uninstall the tcpip driver and reinstall.

There are two ways of doing this...one go to add remove programs look for communications and remove all networking communications...if u cant find it, it means that u have a newer OS (this applied to 95/98 mostly...)

Now u have to do this manually:

Go to your network settings...
find out which connection or adapter your using...
(if u have more than one this is absolutely neccessary...)

go to tcpip

write down all the values u see inside of all the tabs

Then close that window

Go back to network settings
and remove tcpip...

You may have to do this for all the adapters you have...until it works....

thats it...

I followed the KB at Microsoft for this error and removed the references to TCP/IP etc.
Still ended up with same error.
Reinstalling (but not reformatting) W98 solved the problem.
Next, I will reinstall TPF.

I think I'm having a similar problem:

I have been running zonealarm for a year or so with no problems. Recently I tried to install the latest update to ZA. The installer locked up midway through the installation, so I tried installing again. Same thing happened. OK. I Uninstalled ZA, tried to do a clean install. It locks up again 1/2 way through the installation. At this point I'm a bit fed up. I uninstall ZA and downloaded Tiny Personal Firewall 2.0.15 from Cnet. I installed TPF , and now can't get online at all. I set TPF to allow all traffic, but still nothing. I uninstalled TPF, but STILL can't get online again. I'm using a comcast cable modem and the good folks at comcast tech support assure me all is well on their end.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

make sure ZA is completely off of your system and then try again with tiny.
»www.zonelabs.com/store/c ··· lFAQ.jsp

Thanks SC.
I had uninstalled ZA using only the Add/Remove programs. The zonealarm support listed about 9 additional files to delete manually. After that, I was back in business!

Hi

I got the same problem !!!!

This is how it happened. I was playing Warcraft3 on goa.com (about the same than battle net, but smaller, and only for french guys...). I had to reset my computer because of a bugged map which blocked my win 2000 session.

I restarted, no scan disk... When I saw the same message before to open my win2000 session :
"pfVarLibInit... var_server_start error = ...(0091:socket()failed())

Well well well... I start on my session, and he told me : unable to connect to msn... I tried to go on the net : a message about a pb with Inet appears... and the same message which appears every five seconds : "0x6e4d12a3... address mem "0x00000003c"...

I tried to uninstall Tiny and to install it again, no way... still got this email, and still no way to surf without a msg every minutes.

Im using AVP (which is daily updated) and I hadn't got any pb for a long long time. Lavasoft just told me I haven't got any pb.

Please, tell me you ve got a patch, a solution, a new pc or something, but please, don't ask me to format everything because of a warcraft3 crap map...

Thanks for you help

PeTeRs
(my English is crap, but well... i m French, nobody s perfect...)