Security → Norton Live Update Issue

This has been mentioned in recent threads but after reading of another instance of trouble with NAV 2003, I decided to devote a topic to this problem. Norton System Works 2003 is installed with my Windows XP Professional system.

Two weeks ago following a LiveUpdate that included program updates, my computer became sluggish. Among other things, Trojan Hunter 3.7 loaded slowly, and at boot, the NAV icon had a red X overlayed for an extended period of time. After 20 to 30 seconds the red X would disappear coincidentally with a bit of noise from the hard drive.

Running LiveUpdate from within NAV 2003 still generated an "everything is updated message" with the big green check mark. Remembering a previous experience, I visited the Symantec Support Options Page and clicked on the Automated Support Assistant (ASA) at the top of the support page. After downloading and running the ASA software, I was advised via Critical Issue notification that my LiveUpdate module was old and might lead to trouble if not corrected. Instructions were available for a manual download of the Live Update module, so I did so.

Following installation, I ran LiveUpdate and discovered that the green check mark is apparently history. Here's what the new "Finish" screen looks like:



Additionally, my computer feels nimble, Trojan Hunter now loads quickly and the red X is gone from the NAV icon for the most part. Intermittently, the red X clears after about ten seconds.

The only remaining problem I'm aware of is that the Web Cleanup utility does not clear history though it states that it is doing so. I have to clear history from within IE6. I'm receptive to advice for this issue.

I read very little feedback in any forums regarding the Automated Support Assistant. Basically, it inspects your installation and checks for currency of all components, then offers solutions. While I certainly agree that Symantec/Norton products should not be giving this much trouble, maybe more of us should be utilizing the ASA.

I suggest that Norton users visit ASA and check for LiveUpdate currency. It might solve existing problems without a reinstall. However, do proceed with caution.

Users of older products, be advised that Symantec will pitch an ad in the ASA report for you to upgrade. Don't confuse that with a Critical Issue advisory. Such advisories will be near the top of the report and the words "Critical Issue" will be in red letters.

It's alarming when LiveUpdate on one's system says everything is okay yet the ASA says LiveUpdate is old or corrupt. Since the manual download of LiveUpdate uninstalls the old module, it would seem the Symantec code-writers could write LiveUpdate to properly uninstall the old version from within the Norton applications. Then again, since it's in use, perhaps LiveUpdate can't remove itself properly without a reboot. Whatever the case, I hope Symantec support personnel will read this and work on getting the bugs out before more customers have to remove their Norton product or be forced to perform an operating system reinstall.

I just confirmed the LiveUpdate situation with my Symantec 2004 products on WinXP and 2K. Perhaps equally interesting is that ASA wanted me to update LiveUpdate on my 2001 products even though it said they were unsupported and had expired subscriptions (checked WinNT but not Win98). BTW, the XP and one 2K machine required reboots - one 2K and the NT machine did not.

I'm feeling a wave of paranoid building . Why would I need a new version of LiveUpdate for an unsupported product?

Before seeing your post and updating LiveUpdate, I had seen a similar sluggishness and Autoprotect disabled on a couple of machines (coincidentally (??) the ones that required reboot /w new LU). Both run NAV2004 but one has the DiamondCS security suite (PE, TDS-3, WG) and the other TrojanHunter. The problems seemed to have resolved themselves after a run of Symantec updates using the previous version of LU.

Another effect that I had from the the LU update was that all my Scheduled tasks for auto update and weekly scan were broken in XPPro. I had to remove and re-install and see if they'll work when the time comes.

Along with this, the update from the common client from a few weeks ago screwed up my bootup sequences and it now takes 3 to 4 minutes for this PC to re-boot. No solution offerred.

I'm beginning to really dislike Symantec.

"I visited the Symantec Support Options Page and clicked on the Automated Support Assistant (ASA) at the top of the support page. After downloading and running the ASA software"

I went to that link and saw nothing about Automated Support Assistant (ASA). Have my eyes failed me?

Ignore me, I had my IE security set too tight. Sorry

See this for changelog to LU 2.0 and known issues:

»ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/ ··· etup.txt

said by crh721:

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Along with this, the update from the common client from a few weeks ago screwed up my bootup sequences and it now takes 3 to 4 minutes for this PC to re-boot. No solution offerred.

I'm beginning to really dislike Symantec.

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Have you tried forcing XP (assuming you are running it) to recreate it's bootup precache? I don't remember the link to force it to do so, but if you leave the computer idle it will automatically. A tool that MS pulled (bootvis) does some additional optimizations that may reduce boot time further. You can still find it on google. When you install it, tell it to 'optimize system now'. I believe that option is off of the trace menu (next to file, edit, etc)

Not sure if you know this already. Bootvis isn't available anymore: »www.microsoft.com/whdc/h ··· Vis.mspx ...

I posted in a couple of threads about my recent problems with LU and NAV 2002. I did as you and downloaded and installed the latest version of LU and I don't think it solved the problem. It still does occasionally run, download and install updates automatically, but I still go to Symantec's site manually and check the date on the latest virus definitions to see if mine are current. And I still found that mine were dated 12/26 when the latest ones online were dated 1/02.

mady

My def date is 12/31/03 on an updated 2003 version.Is the latest version of LU 1.8?

said by FoMoCo:

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My def date is 12/31/03 on an updated 2003 version.Is the latest version of LU 1.8?

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I have NIS 2004, NSWP 2004, and LU v1.8 installed with all LUs. 12/31/2003 looks correct.

There is a version 2.0 of LiveUpdate but it is an elective download at this time.

I have updated to it on one NAV 2003 (which had LU 1.8) and one NIS 2004 (which had LU 1.9) installation today and have no problems.

LU 2.0 is said (in the changelog I linked above) to be an improvement over previous versions because it drops 16-bit Win95 support, which was known to introduce stability and performance issues.

"Not sure if you know this already. Bootvis isn't available anymore"

if anyone wants bootvis, i've got the xp version.
im me and i'll give u the exe.

I wonder why LiveUpdate is not indicating there is a new version of LiveUpdate available.

Here is the link the the LiveUpdate versions:
»www.symantec.com/techsup ··· /lu.html

Here is when version 2.0 of LiveUpdate came out:
»New version of Symantec LiveUpdate ( 2.0 ) posted

I'm wondering why LiveUpdate is *not* indicating that there is an update to LiveUpdate on my Nav2003/98se?

How can the average consumer know to search for the new version when they're led to believe that LiveUpdate is supposed to update itself? My mother and other people I know were still running the old version.

It's good you're on top of it.

said by FoMoCo:

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I'm wondering why LiveUpdate is *not* indicating that there is an update to LiveUpdate on my Nav2003/98se?

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Sorry, I left out "not" in my post. LiveUpdate is not indicating a new version of itself with either my 2002 or 2003 version of NSW.

I'm currently running the updated version of LiveUpdate and it's still not working. FYI, the latest virus definitions are dated 1/5; the previous version was dated 1/2. So I am not sure it's wise to depend on LU anymore because even when I clicked on the LU button it did not download the latest definitions. I don't know why LU is not working but I manually downloaded and installed both of the latest 2 virus definitions because LU didn't do it.

mady

When you say it is not working, what happens when you run the program? The latest definitions given through LiveUpdate are December 31st. The latest definitions you can manually download are dated January 5th.

Thank you for spelling it out. Votes to you friend.

said by Allyn_P:

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How can the average consumer know to search for the new version when they're led to believe that LiveUpdate is supposed to update itself? My mother and other people I know were still running the old version.

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LiveUpdate will doubtlessly offer the update to 2.0 in the not too distant future. I would guess they want to test it in the public for a short while to make extra sure there are no problems. It has already been tested internally, now offering it as an elective update before going wide open with it gives the opportunity for quality assurance "in the wild". I would be surprised if LiveUpdate 2.0 isn't offered by LiveUpdate before the end of the month.

said by skj:

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When you say it is not working, what happens when you run the program? The latest definitions given through LiveUpdate are December 31st. The latest definitions you can manually download are dated January 5th.

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When I run the program it opens LiveUpdate Express, runs down the list of stuff that it usually does, then tells me that my NAV is up to date. But twice I have gone to the Symantec site )»securityresponse.symante ··· oad.html) after doing this and found updated virus definitions, dated 1/2 then today dated 1/5. I updated my version of LiveUpdate on 12/26 but still had to manually download and install the 12/31 definitions. So I don't know what it's doing, but it's sure not updating. And it's always been enabled and my update subscription runs until June, 2004.

mady

Hello z0ned - you wrote:

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LiveUpdate will doubtlessly offer the update to 2.0 in the not too distant future.

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The update was "officially" released on December 19, 2003:

Release Date: December 19, 2003
File:lusetup.exe (3,979,536 bytes)
Description:Version 2.0.37.0 update for 32-bit LiveUpdate files.
»New version of Symantec LiveUpdate ( 2.0 ) posted

said by madylarian:

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But twice I have gone to the Symantec site )»securityresponse.symante ··· oad.html) after doing this and found updated virus definitions, dated 1/2 then today dated 1/5. I updated my version of LiveUpdate on 12/26 but still had to manually download and install the 12/31 definitions. So I don't know what it's doing, but it's sure not updating.

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I suspect you are not paying attention to the difference between LiveUpdate virus definitions and Intelligent Updater virus definitions. You are very hard to understand.

said by Sparrow:

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The update was "officially" released on December 19, 2003

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Released, but apparently not published via LiveUpdate yet, since nobody reports having it offered by LU automatically. So it is released for optional manual download. But as I said I have to think it will be published via LU sooner or later.

No, it will not be offered as an auto-update for reasons highlighted below:

quote:

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How to obtain the current version of LiveUpdate

Note: Although LiveUpdate version 2.0 has been fully tested with all Symantec products that use LiveUpdate, some corporations have policies that require that software be tested by the system administrator internally. If you work in a corporate environment, check with your system administrator before downloading and running Lusetup.exe.

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There were other Symantec articles relating to this as well.

said by skj:

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I wonder why LiveUpdate is not indicating there is a new version of LiveUpdate available.

Here is the link the the LiveUpdate versions:
»www.symantec.com/techsup ··· /lu.html

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It will be released via LU soon from what I heard. Don't know the date though.

Also, see »New version of Symantec LiveUpdate ( 2.0 ) posted that Crystal Sky already noted.

I just noticed LiveUpdate 2.0 is out!

Downloaded and installed with no problems, via liveupdate.

Ran Liveupdate and got a Livereg update, and I assume, the LiveUpdate shown here.

Note: This is a more recent version than the direct download specified above.