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adam10101
Former Member
Message 1 of 3

McAfee firewall issue (+more)

I know a few people have posted with this issue.

For the last few months my firewall has being disabling itself, no major problem except last week the lack of firewall caused my laptop to get infected with quite a few viruses etc from an email I probably shouldnt have opened. I ran a full McAfee scan which found nothing, then decided to run the Microsoft boot-time scan... this found about 12 items and successfully removed them.   After this I was a bit more concerned about the firewall so contacted McAfee today, the first guy who took remote access of my computer changed a few settings, which now means that when the firewall disables itself, I cannot browse the internet.  Although I know that the firewall turning itself off is a known issue, McAfee are now claiming that my inability to browse the internet without the firewall on is also related to this... I find this odd since up until the point where he changed settings I had never encountered this issue.

Has anyone else encountered this? Or know of a fix?

So far i've tried forcing the McAfee service host to stay on, but this doesnt really address the firewall problem. I've also tried a system restore but this makes no difference.

Thanks in advance, Adam

2 Replies
adam10101
Former Member
Message 2 of 3

Re: McAfee firewall issue (+more)

Just to add:    I am able to browse the McAfee website. Even when everything else doesn't work

okanaganfan
Contributor II
Message 3 of 3

Re: McAfee firewall issue (+more)

Hello Adam (adam10101):

I’ve just recently joined McAfee Community and your post caught my attention. I’ve been lurking and searching these Community page for many hours, trying to find some answers for my McAfee issues, over the last several weeks.

Regarding your McAfee Firewall issue and the (+ more)… I have had similar issues. No infections, yet. Sorry to say, I don’t have any fixes or helpful suggestions to offer you. I would like to add my voice to yours, though, if you wouldn’t mind? Just to let McAfee know these are real issues occurring with their programs and that they are ongoing issues.

My McAfee Firewall shut down three times in the last two days. I had the pop-up notify me that my firewall was shut down. This did not happen immediately after an automatic McAfee update or seems to be due to a restart. I do remember this happening once before, maybe a year or so ago? And I believe it was a couple of times within a two day period.

One issue I’ve been experiencing for several months is the McAfee Service Host keeps shutting down! Adam, you referred to trying to force the McAfee Service Host to stay on, so I’m assuming you’ve been having issues with it shutting down unexpectedly as well?

Another issue is my CPU usage is randomly fluctuating and will often fluctuate between 50 – 100 percent in a continual cycling. I’ve been observing this via my Task Manager. There doesn’t seem to be any pattern with this issue. It can occur simply by opening a single document (even a one paged document with text only can trigger this). Or, I might be trying to read some news on my browser, etc. (without any attempt to view any video news clips). This behaviour certainly makes my computer unusable! I constantly need to restart my computer, when I’m finally able to gain enough control… and it is so stressful trying to accomplish anything under those circumstances. Many times I’ve been unable to access the Task Manager or use the Alt – Ctrl – Del command to force a program to close or shut down/restart the system. I have had to wait out my poor computer’s ‘whining’ and even used the On/Off to shut down when I’ve not had the hours to wait. I’ve only had to do this a few times, but really do hate subjecting my system to that.

I had my McAfee updates NOT working for months. Seriously, I checked and my updates seldom worked … and, when McAfee attempted its automatic update, it would take a minimum of 45 minutes, usually well over an hour! This was despite the processor working at a high speed (a high CPU rate) and using a high speed DSL connection. So, I got into the habit of checking the update and doing it manually. I even used the Virtual Technician, saved the log, as it proved the updates were not working. Plus, it also showed that the Virtual Technician wasn’t fixing the problem, either, despite saying it could! I have a long story about this and one of my technical assistance chat sessions …. Yipes! Despite that one bad experience, I have to give the McAfee technical assistance reps kudos. They were very polite and sincerely tried to help me solve my issues.

So, I’ve been dealing with various McAfee issues for months; I’ve been through the McAfee help pages, had a number of technical assistance sessions via chat, been on the phone for technical help. I’ve used that dratted McAfee Virtual Tech, several times, and when it did find a problem, I would allow it to fix it. But, then I discovered it had NOT fixed the problem! I have the most recent log on that one. Shortly after I’d used the McAfee Virtual Technical Assistant and allowed it to ‘fix’ the problem (it had found a registry issue), I got another pop-up notifying me that my firewall wasn’t working again!

Oh yeah, do you remember that awful DAT file that hit a few people a couple of years ago, in the spring? That one was a nightmare for me … it shut me down completely, for quite a long time! So, despite this issue possibly not being as bad (whatever ‘this’ is) I’m still finding it is crippling my computer and my ability to get my work done!

Ooh - ooh …. I better stop … I feel a possible ‘soap box’ attack coming on!

My specs are:

Dell computer bought late 2007

Windows XP Media Centre Professional with Service Pack 3

CPU Pentium, Dual Core, 2.66 GHz

System Memory 1.00 Gigabytes

Hard Drive 250 Gigabytes

Internet Explorer 8

NOTES regarding software and peripherals on my computer:

I ended up doing a clean re-install back to the original Windows XP Media Centre Professional on my hard drive last year. (Not a system restore.)

I have kept up the updates required for Windows.

I have kept up the updates required for McAfee.

I have not added software programs to the computer.

I installed my Epson multi-function, not my Dell multi-function.

I’ve done a few re-installs of my McAfee Anti-virus program. This was done correctly, using the McAfee Clean Removal Tool. This yielded no corrections with the various issues my computer is, and has been, experiencing.

Over the last few months I’ve had some chat sessions with McAfee Technical Support and allowed three remote sessions on my computer with McAfee Technical Support. During one of these sessions the support rep removed my browser’s home page, they reset the browser’s settings back to their default settings, and then they installed the MSN home page onto my Internet Explorer 8. This change was done with my permission. One thing did surprise and disappoint me. My browser was left without the original Dell Google Home Page as my Internet Explorer’s home page. This had been installed by Dell and had some specific features I’d used regularly. I’ve not changed my home page back to its original Dell home page. For now, and… just in case?

Have a great day and take good care of you,

Erin

PS:  I am another person who is really hoping some fixes arrive soon!!!

Message was edited by: okanaganfan
Changed the word 'days' to 'weeks' on 30/04/12 9:55:00 CDT PM
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