on hold for support 45 mins gave up.

I have an issue where Nod hangs on one of my production database servers and eats all the spare clock cycles. When the console is launches I get an error "Unable to communicate with the Kernel". I was on hold with support for about 45 mins before I gave up and left a message for a call back.

The couple of times I have called I have had pretty long hold times. Whats up? Maybe Eset should get some more folks to get the phones?

I am not knocking support knowlege level. Suuport service is great but getting them on the phone is a pain.

 

Hello PCMonk,
I'm sorry to hear that, did you submit your issue also through Eset website ?

What's your case number ?

Thank you

 

No I did not post an on-line request. That thing.. well, It asks a lot of questions and the response I get is normally no better or worse than with a call. It asks me to put my Eset username and password in an un-secured web page as well. Just seems wrong to do that. Any way it is pretty tough to completely explain all the details of this issue in an email.

A better solutiuon for an online case open would be simply, product, simple issue description and customer number, maybe a phone number or alternate contact info. submit. Wait for a call back.

I don't want to be critical but it seems to me that the process could be made easier.


Thanks for the reply.

 

I went ahead an made a case on-line... Case #453630

 

Hello PCMonk,

I will follow up with our support team. I noticed that you said you would prefer to speak in person to a support engineer, is this still true? I would like to make sure that you are helped.

Thank you,
Richard

 

I did receive a call about 30 - 45 minutes after submitting the on-line request. I am now working with Zack and Martin (great guys btw) and am on my way to figuring this out. It's an odd problem, we are not sure just what is causeing Nod to do this. It has happened 3 times over a 5 week period. Zack and Martin are looking at my config and dump files from the server now.

Thanks for the reply!

 

Actually the best would be to generate a complete memory dump from the moment the issue occurs and convey it to ESET customer care who will pass it to the developers for perusal.

 

Hi PCMonk,

Have you excluded the files and file types that Microsoft recommends not be scanned from the real time scanner?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822158

Is the database itself being scanned?

BFG

 

I have followed the settings outlined in Eset KB article KB Solution ID: SOLN2144 I will have a look at this article as well.

Thanks for the extra info. I'll post back if there is anything listed by Microsoft that is not covered in the KB article.

 

I was sent a reply today that simply said I had my server settings wrong and that I should refer back to the KB doc. I replied requesting help, I obviously got it wrong the first time and subsequent attampts so.... But no reply or call yet, silence.

Turns out when I look at the client settings on the console of the server I did not have the email client or web protection settings per the doc. I set my settings through a policy on the RA console and things are not laid out the same way there. I am not sure what these settings would have to do with the issue I am having however.

I would REALLY like to here from a tech today so I can put this to rest.

HELP?!?!

 

Below was the response for a request for a call on an open active case
On hold now 23 minutes 42 seconds and counting.

Where's the love guys

~Private communication removed per the TOS.~

 

Hello PCMonk,

I have taken your case to one of our support engineers and have asked that he call you. Please let me know if you are contacted and have received assistance.

Thank you,
Richard

 

Thanks. Gary called and was great. I think we made some progress on this. I am still in the monitoring phase to see if Nod gets stuck scanning again on this server. Wait and see.

It's tough getting you guys on the phone but every tech I spoke with was very sharp and helpful.


Thanks again.

 

Hello PCMonk,

Good to hear. I will keep in contact with Gary to see how things are going. Thank you for keeping me updated!

- Richard

 

I have looked into this pretty hard and I spotted a sysinspector task set to run each morning at 6 am. This is the exact time the CPU spiked at stayed at 100%. I have disabled this task. I looked at the core dumps and see many faults durring this period. I do not know how to analyze any further than that so I am pinning my suspicions on the Sysinspector for now. It will take a few weeks before I can confidently say this resolved the issue.

This is an older server running Win2k not patched since SP4 rollout to my knowledge. This same process was running on all of my other 2k3 servers and XP workstations with no issues. There may be any number of things that could cause this. Servers don't change that much and no one uses it to access the internet other than for patches and updates. There is no need to run this on a schedule anyway atleast for my servers.

Thanks for all of your help everyone. Sorry for my frustrated posts here. I am going to do some lurking in this forum and try to answer a few questions myself to give back to the community.

 

I am certain the sysinspector task caused this problem. I have had no problems since disabling this task. On my laptop the sysinspector does not release memory back to the system the way it should. Each time it is run the memory used by ekrn grows. It's an odd deal. The memory issue does not occur on every machine I have tested so I am not sure what the deal is here. I started a new thread on that issue.

 

Are you using ERA4? This is a known bug which will be addressed in the release version of ERA4. To my best knowledge, ERA3 is not affected.

 

Version 4.0.474.0

Other info....

Virus signature database: 4950 (20100316)
Update module: 1031 (20091029)
Antivirus and antispyware scanner module: 1265 (20100311)
Advanced heuristics module: 1101 (20100309)
Archive support module: 1109 (20100316)
Cleaner module: 1048 (20091123)
Anti-Stealth support module: 1012 (20090526)
SysInspector module: 1214 (20100127)
Self-defense support module : 1009 (20090917)

 

Is this the version that will be updated to remove the bug or the version that was suppose to fix the bug?

 

This issue is currently being investigated.