PrivateFirewall Stuck

Scratching my head here. I recently switched over to PrivateFirewall on several of my computers. These are all home use configured. I only have the problem I am going to describe on one setup.

On my main family computer (64 bit Vista OS) I noticed that PrivateFirewall gets stuck on OFFICE PROFILE. Strange too because I never set up an office profile. I bring up the PF main panel and notice that office profile is selected (and again I don't know how it got there). While the panel is up I go to view process monitor, applications, etc... on the left side. However those items don't come up and the panel appears to be STUCK. Next I try to switch over to home as the profile but that too is stuck and won't leave Office Profile.

I remember setting up PF and specifically I know for sure I used home as the original profile. After screwing around with this for a day or so I finally decided to remove PF and re-install it. I did that and it worked great for a brief period of time. As the first time, I selected home for the profile. Now its back to office profile and being stuck again.

I am using PF on another partition on this same computer and both OS's are encrypted so there is no "cross talk". On one PF works perfectly and on the other it keeps getting stuck. Same OS, hardware, updates, etc.....

Any recommendations of what to check for?

BTW ---- the firewall is still working ----- Shields UP says its perfect stealth. Alerts will come up if I do stuff to verify its still working.

 

Hi there, Palancar -

While I am not sure at first pass what might be the problem (something is certainly not right), I can try to help you trouble-shoot this issue. Can you please submit this info via a support ticket here?

http://www.privacyware.com/support_ticket.html

I'll need some exported data which we will review to try and isolate the problem and resolve.

Thanks,

Greg Salvato - Privacyware

 

Is your AV by chance Avast 6?

I had the same problem when I had Avast installed and tried everything I knew of to correct it. BYW - so did others; check out the Avast forum for additional details.

My resolution was to uninstall Avast since I definitely like PF.

 

itman nice call. You were correct on the family laptop in question - it is Avast.

So lets add to my puzzle. The other partition is also using Avast and has the same OS. It never misses a beat. Same frickin machine.

Just a head scratcher!!

 

My OS is WIN 7 x64 SP1.

There are some indications the problems with WIN 7 and Avast started when people updated to SP1. It does appear to be a hit or miss thing though.

My suspicious are that there is some registry conflict when moving between firewalls. In my case I was running the WIN 7 firewall when I installed PF. All was fine with Avast and PF untill I shut down the PC. Restarting the PC prior to shutdown was fine - no PF issues. First boot after shutdown however causes PF to lock up in the GUI stuck in the Office profile.

What I didn't try was to remove Avast, run its clean utility, then shutdown the PC with PF installed. Next startup the PC preferably after sitting overnight and reinstall Avast 6. That might do it. In my case, I was looking for a reason to get rid of Avast and this gave it to me.

 

Sorry its been a day or so since I got to this.

I went back to that family computer and uninstalled Avast. The PF firewall immediately opened up and moves around great now. I didn't "clean" anything or mess with PF at all.

For a firewall I am playing around with UnThreat a bit. I am not really too concerned about the AV since I am behind a router and have PF going strong. I do use MalwareB and others for AV as well. Those products are not "real time" but they are pretty good.

So far I like the way UnThreat runs --- but again I don't really go places on the family machine that are likely to test it much.

 

For what it is worth, I use Norton AV 2012 with PF 7 and it runs fine with it. Also MBAM Pro, the realtime vers., again with no conflicts.