No Prevx icon after sign in

Discussion in 'Prevx Releases' started by pling_man, Apr 21, 2010.

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  1. pling_man

    pling_man Registered Member

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    Sometimes when I sign in the Prevx icon is missing from the system tray and I have to reboot. This has been reported before but Prevx have not seen it in testing.

    Today I found the reason on my system (I think).

    Its a question of timing the run of Prevx and KIS 2010. When Prevx runs first the icon is shown and everything works. When KIS 2010 runs first Prevx doesn't show up.

    I hope I have fixed this by telling KIS to never scan the prevx.exe application. So far, this seems to be working for me.

    I would be interested to know if anyone else with this problem also is running KIS 2010.
     
  2. BoerenkoolMetWorst

    BoerenkoolMetWorst Registered Member

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    I've no problems with the icon and KIS2010(but Prevx always runs first at that PC), are you sure the icon hasn't changed to auto-hide(in windows options) after a new build? Happened to me sometimes. I had some other problems with KIS2010 hanging on scans with Prevx, but that was solved by lowering Prevx selfdefense to medium.
     
  3. pkidza

    pkidza Registered Member

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    I have Prevx and KIS 2010. Experiencing the same thing here. The icon disappears. The 2 prevx.exe processes are still there but no GUI or icon in the tray. It is not Windows hiding the inactive icons - it is not there. I am running Windows XP SP3.
     
  4. Triple Helix

    Triple Helix Specialist

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    Hi pling_man & pkidza

    Go into the GUI via Start>All Programs>Prevx Folder> Click on the Prevx 3.0 Icon not the Uninstall Prevx Icon :D >Then go to>Settings>Basic Configuration>Untick Show System Tray Icon>Click Save Settings and go back and Tick Show System Tray Icon>Click Save Settings and it should show up! I had to do that in the past and it worked for me! I always have a Prevx Icon on my desktop to access it easier as you can do that in the GUI>Settings>Basic Configuration>Tick Create a desktop shortcut>Click Save Settings.

    HTH,

    TH
     
    Last edited: Apr 21, 2010
  5. pling_man

    pling_man Registered Member

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    Hi TH.

    That doesn't help though as I have that ticked. The issue is that the icon will not appear if Prevx does not manage to run and display its icon before KIS 2010 does. This means that when you switch users or sign off and on again, the icon may not show up because KIS2010 will display its icon first and block the prevx icon somehow.

    I should add that when once this issue happens, you can't run Prevx by double clicking the desktop icon.

    Most of the time when I do a normal boot and sign in the Prevx icon appears first (further to the right) because KIS normally doesn't load fully until near the end of the startup sequence.

    I think this is an incompatibility with KIS 2010 which could be solved but it requires debugging on a system with KIS installed.

    I am having some success telling KIS 2010 to allow prevx.exe to do whatever it wants. With this setting, Prevx can load as late as it wants and the icon will appear, even if it is to the left of the KIS 2010 icon. This is a good enough solution for me, but it would be better if it could be solved for less savy KIS users who won't know how to fine tune the HIPS system in KIS 2010.
     
    Last edited: Apr 21, 2010
  6. Triple Helix

    Triple Helix Specialist

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    OK great we will see if Joe has another solution with the one's that have KIS? ;)

    TH
     
  7. PrevxHelp

    PrevxHelp Former Prevx Moderator

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    This is definitely good to know, although we would indeed prefer to actually fix the incompatibility. Could you let me know your Prevx self protection settings currently? It may be worth trying to lower them to see if that corrects it at all - we just had a customer in our inbox earlier today who had a similar issue and was fixed by lowering their self protection settings so hopefully that will work for you as well :)
     
  8. pling_man

    pling_man Registered Member

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    Self protection is Maximum (the default).

    I will see if changing protection to medium works and report back. (I will re-enabled default settings in KIS2010 for prevx.exe while I test this.)

    I agree, it would be better if it could be fixed, or, failing that, change the default protection to Medium.
     
  9. pling_man

    pling_man Registered Member

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    Unfortunately I still get problem sometimes with protection on medium. So I am going back to my own solution for now.
     
  10. Durad

    Durad Registered Member

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    This happen to me as well, when computer goes in sleep mode several times there is no icon in system tray, prevx.exe is running.
     
  11. MrBrian

    MrBrian Registered Member

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    I also experience this issue with Prevx v3.0.5.124 x64 free version on Windows 7 x64. I don't use KIS by the way. I seem to notice this issue more when I am doing fast user switches to my various user accounts.
     
  12. pling_man

    pling_man Registered Member

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    Me too! Changing my KIS2010 HIPs settings seems to have reduced the number of times it happens. It still happens though. Interesting you see this behaviour without KIS installed -- suggests its more subtle than a simple incompatibility.
     
  13. NBP Pipsquack Bird

    NBP Pipsquack Bird Registered Member

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    My case seems more similar to what MrBrian describes than to Piling_Man
    Consider there is one outward similarity - icon missing, but two different bugs, one relating to switching or logging off user accounts and another having to do with concurrent running security apps.

    Can either of you go into your Windows Event Viewer and look for errors?
    In my case when there was no Prevx icon, the following error was present in the event viewer

    Error
    Event ID 7034
    The CSIScanner service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s).

    Please report if you see these errors at times other than when Prevx is doing a version upgrade.
     
  14. pling_man

    pling_man Registered Member

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    The problem has nothing to do with updating. (I have different problems on autoupdate related to my use of a standard user account with UAC).

    This is in my system log from the last time the icon disappeared:

    General tab:
    ------------
    Level: Error
    EventID: 7034
    The CSIScanner service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s).

    Details tab:
    -----------
    - System

    - Provider

    [ Name] Service Control Manager
    [ Guid] {555908D1-A6D7-4695-8E1E-26931D2012F4}
    [ EventSourceName] Service Control Manager

    - EventID 7034

    [ Qualifiers] 49152

    Version 0

    Level 2

    Task 0

    Opcode 0

    Keywords 0x80000000000000

    - TimeCreated

    [ SystemTime] 2010-04-20T20:52:03.000Z

    EventRecordID 200027

    Correlation

    - Execution

    [ ProcessID] 0
    [ ThreadID] 0

    Channel System

    Computer MYPC

    Security


    - EventData

    param1 CSIScanner
    param2 1
     
  15. MrBrian

    MrBrian Registered Member

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    I found this same error twice in my event logs. I'm not 100% sure if these events happened during the time the icon disappeared, but I do know that these events don't correspond to Prevx version upgrades, since I haven't upgraded Prevx ever on the computer having the problem.
     
  16. pling_man

    pling_man Registered Member

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    The problem isn't that the icon disappears, more that it doesn't show up after sign in. Nor does the splash screen show.

    After reading the other thread about two prevx.exe processes, with one providing support for limited user accounts, I now know that this limited user process is killed when the icon doesn't show. Because there is no prevx.exe process running under my account name when the problem happens.

    So the problem might be something to do with limited user (called standard user in Vista, Win 7) accounts.
     
  17. PrevxHelp

    PrevxHelp Former Prevx Moderator

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    Hi pling_man,
    That sounds correct that the icon wouldn't show when prevx.exe is not loading under your user account. Do you have any specific set of events which triggers this? We're still trying to investigate these problems (in both threads) but have yet to find a reproducible case where we can fully find the cause :-/
     
  18. pling_man

    pling_man Registered Member

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    Unfortunately, I can't reproduce it on demand either. Recently it has got rarer which I put down to a combination of changes I made to KIS2010 HIPS for prevx and changing self protection to normal, but I don't know if this really makes a difference or if I've just been "lucky". I have had one event since I changed the settings, so I don't think its fixed entirely.

    I still have a problem updating from standard/limited accounts, which I had going to .129 and now to .130. I can only test this when there's a new RC. (you were going to check with your test people). I do wonder though if the two problems are related.

    If I find out anything definitely or can make it reproducible I will let you know here.

    I would like to know if other people who see this issue also use limited or standard user accounts and hope they will post this information here so we can narrow things down a little.
     
  19. NBP Pipsquack Bird

    NBP Pipsquack Bird Registered Member

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    Yes.
    As previously stated I see it when logging off Admin account and loggin in to LUA/SUA.

    However, I think the Windows Event Viewer is the key.
    On Win7 x86, no other security software cept Prevx --- No icon dis appearing, BUT there are a number of instances in the Event Viewer of CSIScanner being unexpectedly terminated.

    So while the icon might not be disappearing, something below the surface is going wrong with CSIScanner service. ANd from looking at 4 PCs, they all have those errors in Event Viewer.
    Sometimes the icon disappears, sometimes not.

    But I think if more people took the time to look at their Windows Event Viewer, they'd see this bug is quite widespread.

    ... standing by ...
     
  20. Zorak

    Zorak Registered Member

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    Hi all

    I first reported my experiences here https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1652890&postcount=82. I use limited user accounts in XP3 and have experienced the problem when logging on as both admin and limited. It is very intermittent and I have yet to nail it down to any particular set of circumstances.

    I have also been having occasional problems logging off, which I don't think are related. As a result I have made a number of changes to my system over the past weeks in an effort to isolate the logoff problems. It is therefore difficult to be certain which change has been effective, however I have not had the Prevx problem now for over 3 weeks.

    One thing i did was disable the Windows welcome screen and change to the traditional logon screen, which also disables fast user switching. It may only be co-incidence but I don't think I have had the disappearing Prevx since.

    I only have one error in the System Event Viewer, from 4 days ago, but it is a strange one. It says CSI Scanner terminated but then restarted 7 seconds later. The strange thing is, at the exact same time the Scanner terminated there are two Security Events stating that two limited accounts logged off - but neither of them were actually logged on at the time! By tracing the other Security Events the only account logged on was an admin account, as the other accounts had logged off previously :blink:
     
  21. Zorak

    Zorak Registered Member

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    Sorry guys, this was probably a red herring. I think these events were generated when I changed Prevx self-protection from maximum to medium in my latest effort to fix the logoff problem.

    These events are still interesting for me as they may implicate Prevx as the cause of my occasional inability to logoff.
     
  22. MrBrian

    MrBrian Registered Member

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    I neglected to look in my virtual machine event logs. I also found 5 of these errors there, in a Windows 7 x64 VirtualBox virtual machine with no other anti-malware software running in it - not even Windows Defender. If i recall correctly, I saw the issue in the virtual machine when i was doing fast user switching while remaining logged into the previously used account.
     
  23. NBP Pipsquack Bird

    NBP Pipsquack Bird Registered Member

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    Well, not to put everything at Prevx's feet - Microsoft has some glitches with User Account Switching in Win7. In many configurations, simlpy logging onto one acount then back to a previous user account has Windows throwing off a bunch of Circular Kernel Context Logger errors.

    Thus even Windows can make Windows error out :-(

    Im sure its as frustrating for the software engineers at Prevx as to end users.

    Prevx is overall solid software, none of this is shaking my opinion on that just yet.
     
  24. MrBrian

    MrBrian Registered Member

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    I just had the issue happen in the virtual machine while doing fast user switching. There was no corresponding error in the event log this time. Prevx was no longer in the task manager process list - except for the instance running under the System account.
     
  25. pling_man

    pling_man Registered Member

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    Its been working great but today when I logged in (standard user account, UAC enabled) the prevx process under my user account is not running and I have no Icon.

    As this is so intermittent a different strategy is called for to fix the problem. Is it possible to create some sort of instrumented version that logs more events than usual to some sort of file, so that we can send that in to prevx when this problem arises. I was thinking along the lines of results of asert statements. People could then run the instrumented version on a temporary, voluntary basis?
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2010
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