IE hangs after changing users

I'm getting a strange problem which seems as if it might be linked to NOD32. If I run Internet Explorer and connect to the internet, then log off the Windows session and log on as another user (or the same user - it makes no difference), when I run IE again it hangs up just after making the dialup connection. My configuration includes:

Win98 SE
IE 6 SP1, fully patched
NOD32 2.12.2
Zone Alarm Free 4.5.538.000
WebWasher 3.3

I've only noticed this behaviour in the last couple of weeks. All I've (knowingly) changed in that time is to apply the IE patch Q834707 and to change all the NOD32 settings as recommended in this thread (except the Update and Scheduler bits):

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=37509

Oh, and I also renewed my NOD32 subscription during that time, so I've changed the username and password in the Update screen.

Rather stupidly, I didn't note down what my NOD32 settings were before making the above changes, so I can't undo it precisely. Since noticing the problem I've gone through every Setup screen in NOD32 hitting every Default button I could find, but several tabs have no Default so I'm pretty sure I'm not back exactly where I started, and the problem with IE is still there.

The other reason I think it might be to do with NOD32 is that if I remove all of its entries in msconfig and reboot, the problem goes away. Admittedly it also didn't occur the one time I tried running IE without WebWasher, so it might be some kind of interaction between the two (or three) of them. With WebWasher and NOD32 running and IMON disabled, the problem is still there.

The way IE hangs is particularly weird: just after connecting I get a bit of activity on my dialup connection, then it stalls, with the MS logo thing on IE not going round. I can't close IE, but just right-clicking on its taskbar icon restarts activity on the connection. I may have to right-click a few more times to get the IE Home page to complete, but then it is well and truly hung and has to be closed from a Ctrl-Alt-Del. In trying different settings of NOD32 I've seen other symptoms like IE opening with blank toolbars, and the dialer getting stuck on screen after connecting.

Obviously there's other things I could try like uninstalling the Q834707 patch, disabling ZA etc., but I'd appreciate any hints about where to start. For example, how do I get NOD32 back to the as-installed state (surely not only by uninstalling and reinstalling?).

Sorry this post is rather long!

Richard Price

 

Hi Richard:

You may want to download 2.12.3 of NOD32 (free download) and see if it fixes your issue.

Changelog
October 15, 2004 - Program components version 2.12.3

* IMON
o fixed some minor problems
o higher compatibility

Drop us a note here if it helps.

 

Thanks for the suggestion - I hadn't noticed a new version was available, and it's not included as an automatic update yet. I downloaded it manually and installed it, selecting the option to keep my existing settings; unfortunately the original problem remains.

I see from another thread here ("reset to DEFAULT settings") that I'll need to uninstall, delete the Eset folder and reinstall to get all the NOD32 settings back to default. Maybe that's the next thing to try?

Richard Price

 

Since we are unsure of your setup, can you verify if you are setup for Dial-up connection settings?

Start with Post # 18 here

and click on Advanced, are you set for Dial-up?

 

Yes, I'm set for Dial-up under Update | Update | Setup | Advanced.

The virus definitions are successfully being updated automatically, which I assume suggests that the Update settings are OK. The Event Log always contains some "Error connecting..." and "Update attempt failed..." entries, presumably relating to periods when I'm logged on to Win98 but not connected to the internet.

Richard Price

 

Indeed they are

Correct

Cheers

 

I tried the above, but it made no difference. Uninstalling the IE patch Q834707 also made no difference, so that seems to rule out my assumption that the problem was caused by something I changed in the last couple of weeks.

What does prevent IE from hanging is disabling either NOD32 or WebWasher (as previously mentioned) or, I have now discovered, disabling ZoneAlarm. So it begins to look like some kind of four- or five-way interaction between IE, NOD32, WebWasher, ZoneAlarm and maybe Win98's handling of user login! This problem has surfaced fairly recently, but I last updated ZoneAlarm in January 2004 and WebWasher about a year before that, so my suspicion does fall on IE, Win98 or NOD32 which are all fully patched up to date.

Does anyone have any further ideas I should try?

Incidentally I have found a workaround which is usable, but a pain to remember to do, and that is simply to select Quit in the NOD32 Control Center immediately before logging the user out.

Richard

 

That is a very old version of ZoneAlarm, the latest version which is stable is 5.1.033.000

I would suggest being that we are almost 2 years down the track that there would be a newer version of WebWasher. I have taken a look on their web site but cannot see version numbers.
I use the same products, except webwasher, as you as do many of my clients, and we are not seeing the same issue.

Can you try uninstalling WebWasher, installing the latest version of ZoneAlarm, and make sure your Windows is FULLY up-to-date.

Let us know how you go...

Cheers

 

Thanks for the reply, I'll certainly follow up these ideas. However as already stated above, if I don't run WebWasher I don't get the problem with IE, so I'm not sure actually uninstalling WebWasher would prove anything further. Or am I missing something?

Just FYI the version of WebWasher I'm running is 3.3, which surprisingly is the latest version, even though it's rather old as you point out.

Windows 98SE and IE6 are both fully up to date with critical updates and security patches, according to MS Windows Update. Of course it shows 37 optional non-critical updates, but I trust I do not have to install all of these - many of which I plainly don't need, like the .NET framework (23.1MB!), foreign-language menus etc.

So far I have stuck with ZoneAlarm Free 4.5.538.000 which is nearly the latest (barring a couple of routine maintenance items) in the very stable 4.5 series, because I've been put off 5.0 and later versions by the many adverse comments about stability in the ZoneLabs forums (http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs) and elsewhere. I believe I've seen posts there suggesting that the more recent 5.1 series is indeed stable now for Windows XP but still problematical for Win 98/ME.

However I will take your advice and give the latest ZAF a try. As it happens a new version was released yesterday, and the list of improved features is impressive, including dealing with some stability issues so perhaps I should try this one. I'll wait at least a couple of days and read what problems other people have with it first. (There is already one post in the ZoneLabs forums from someone who lost all internet access after installing the update and didn't get it back by uninstalling - just the sort of thing I don't want to hear!)

I'll post back when I've tried it.

Richard

 

Hi Richard, can you please send an email to support@nod32.com and place a link to this thread. If you do not hear from Eset within 3 days (allows for weekends), please advise us here...

Let us know how you go…

Cheers

 

I've had a great deal of help on this matter from Nigel Cook of Eset support, but unfortunately he's been unable to replicate my problem. So I have to assume there's something unusual about my configuration, maybe even something corrupt in my installation of Win98 SE, but I don't really fancy formatting my hard disk and reinstalling from scratch to see if the problem goes away! I can live with things as they are, if I remember the workaround of closing the Control Center before logging off.

Just to summarise what we tried: upgrading ZAF to 5.1.033 and then to 5.5.062 made no difference. Disabling IMON, DMON or AMON (one at a time) also made no difference. Connecting to the internet in each Windows session is not actually necessary in order to provoke the problem: selecting Work Offline each time is enough to get IE to hang after logging off and on again. The problem always occurs if I have all three of NOD32, ZA and WW running. Disabling any one of those and leaving the other two running either cures the problem or makes it very rare.

The one thing which did stop the problem for me was to uninstall NOD32 version 2.12.3 and reinstall 2.000.6. It remained OK when I let NOD32 update the virus signatures, but the problem came back as soon as I let it update the program again (to 2.12.2 in that case). That's strangely reminiscent of what happened when I used to run Norton AntiVirus (hope I can mention that here!) which came preinstalled on my PC. I never had any problem with that until around December 2002, when I accepted a NAV program update. From that moment on I had a big problem with logging off and on again, which would always cause the NAV AutoProtect process to fail. Symantec never came up with a fix for that, which was one reason for abandoning NAV (I uninstalled it *very* thoroughly) and switching to NOD32.

If anyone else has experienced anything like this, I'd be very interested to hear about it.

Richard