Internet access blocked by McAfee ???

[nickhoare]

I have fixed by uninstalling and re-installing .... Kaspersky.

[exbrit]

nickhoare wrote:
I have fixed by uninstalling and re-installing .... Kaspersky.

That's certainly one way of going about it., good luck.

[jah_rs]

I have had this same intermitent issue now for some time (18months), I have a pc running Windows 7 Ultimate with BT NetProtect Plus, rebadged McAfee Total Protection product. The same as the previous respondents, intermitently at boot up I cannot access the LAN at all from any application (browser, skype, outlook etc). If I shut down and reboot the problem goes away, to shut down I have to force the PC as it will hang forvever otherwise. So this indicates to me that the PC is waiting for something to load or finish loading but what ever it is it never completes. Curiously the only application that can access the LAN/WAN is Mcafee, it can still update and thinks everything is fine. I have captured using wireshark and can see that nothing leaves the PC other than mcafee fraffic when this happens. I can still ping local addresses such as the router but nothing else. So the PC seems unable to resolve anything other than local addreses. At first I thought it was DNS but as I am unable to ping any DNS address or any other external address during one of these failures this isnt the case.

I have tried disabling the Mcafee firewall, it makes no difference. I have uninstalled McAfee and the problem goes away. Using Windows 7 own firewall and installing MS AV I never have any problems.

This is my last attempt to try to fix this, however I have a feeling that there simply isnt a fix. The fault doesnt seem generate any error event logs and after looking endlessly in various forums nobody has found a solution other than uninstalling either the Mcafee Firewall or the entire Mcafee security software suite.

I have spent hours and hours speaking to support engineers from BT and McAfee none of who has been able to fix this issue. The only working fix has been to uninstall it.

Any suggestions?

[exbrit]

Strange I can't repro it in my 7.  Ask Tech Support to escalate it to a higher level.

Message was edited by: Ex_Brit on 27/02/14 7:44:13 EST AM

[thecreator]

jah_rs wrote:
I have had this same intermitent issue now for some time (18months), I have a pc running Windows 7 Ultimate with BT NetProtect Plus, rebadged McAfee Total Protection product. The same as the previous respondents, intermitently at boot up I cannot access the LAN at all from any application (browser, skype, outlook etc). If I shut down and reboot the problem goes away, to shut down I have to force the PC as it will hang forvever otherwise. So this indicates to me that the PC is waiting for something to load or finish loading but what ever it is it never completes. Curiously the only application that can access the LAN/WAN is Mcafee, it can still update and thinks everything is fine. I have captured using wireshark and can see that nothing leaves the PC other than mcafee fraffic when this happens. I can still ping local addresses such as the router but nothing else. So the PC seems unable to resolve anything other than local addreses. At first I thought it was DNS but as I am unable to ping any DNS address or any other external address during one of these failures this isnt the case.
I have tried disabling the Mcafee firewall, it makes no difference. I have uninstalled McAfee and the problem goes away. Using Windows 7 own firewall and installing MS AV I never have any problems.
This is my last attempt to try to fix this, however I have a feeling that there simply isnt a fix. The fault doesnt seem generate any error event logs and after looking endlessly in various forums nobody has found a solution other than uninstalling either the Mcafee Firewall or the entire Mcafee security software suite.
I have spent hours and hours speaking to support engineers from BT and McAfee none of who has been able to fix this issue. The only working fix has been to uninstall it.
Any suggestions?

Hi jah_rs and All,

It seems that McAfee doesn't tell Customers or that Techs assume that the Customer knows and Customers failed to read the manual.

Customers mainly want McAfee to be Plug and Play with no adjustments.

McAfee Firewall with the Firewall on, and accessible only with the McAfee Firewall on, has a section called "Ports and System Services".

To allow Windows to correct the time on the computer, "Network Time Protocol Port 123" must be checked for Windows to be allowed to go through the McAfee Firewall. McAfee installs with this unchecked, and thus, Windows is blocked by default.

[the_finn69]

Dear all,

My wife recently had problems connecting to the Internet and she desperately tried to find out why she couldn't connect. After trying different things, temporarily succeeding in regaining access to the Internet, and losing it again, she finally found out the reason for her connection problems. Bloody McAfee! McAfee had by itself, without the user's request or knowledge, changed some settings on its own which prevented her from accessing the Internet anymore. Unbelievable! Who on earth makes a product that does something like that? What's the bloody point?

Of course, maybe McAfee's logic behind this feature is "if you can't access the Internet, you won't get any viruses". Not a very good logic from where I'm standing (or sitting). The point of antivirus software is to allow the user to surf the Internet without restrictions, save for some legal ones, without risking a virus infection. It certainly isn't to decide for the user what she can or cannot do. The antivirus software is there to serve the user, not to be her master. It all starts going downhill when computer software becomes self-aware (remember Skynet in the Terminator movies?).

Anyway, the problem was easily solved in the end by removing McAfee from the PC and installing a Finnish quality product, F-Secure, instead. Now her Internet connection works like a dream while F-Secure at the same time keeps all viruses at bay. Simple solution!

[Peacekeeper]

Simple solution but can you please tell us what Mcafee changed in the settings so we can inform the developers so others do not have this issue.

[selvan]

Hi the_finn69,

Sorry for the Inconvenience caused. Could you please elaborate which steps fixed the issue connecting to the Internet. This will help us improve our Product provided the issue was really caused by McAfee.

[exbrit]

As the problem has been corrected and to prevent misuse of this thread I am locking it.  Any similar issues please start your own new discussion, thank you.

Peter

Volunteer Moderator