TinyWall Starts in Unknown Mode

Operating System: Windows 7 Pro. SP1 x64
TinyWall Version: 3.2.3 (I have been running this without problems since the day of its release.)

TinyWall seems to have developed a problem. I have no idea what is causing this issue, one day TinyWall was working okay, the next day, out of the blue, this issue turns up and is now persistent every time I boot the system up.

Basically, on boot up of the system TinyWall starts in what it claims is 'Unknown: Mode'. Like in this image of the System Tray:

https://images2.imgbox.com/73/6d/YhqgAP9X_o.png

To get it into normal functioning I need to right-click > Change Mode > Normal Protection in the System Tray. This seems to work most of the time but not all the time, sometimes I need to do this several times to get into Normal Mode. Sometimes this doesn't work at all and I have to Quit TinyWall and relaunch it manually, which might fix it.

I should add that when it starts in Unknown Mode, and once I get that fixed so it is running normally, then the GUI interface that gets presented on clicking 'Manage' from the System Tray does not recall the last size or position of the GUI. So, if I want to see the Application Exceptions information I have to resize the GUI back to the size I normally use.

I have also tried uninstalling TinyWall, reboot, install TinyWall again then rebooting. This procedure did not solve the problem.

How do I get my TinyWall to boot in normally again?

 

I should add the following on what happens when TinyWall boots in to Unknown: Mode:

Firstly, there is a long lag-time before TinyWall actually shows up in the System Tray, roughly 30 seconds to a minute.

Secondly, while in Unknown Mode if I click on the 'Manage' the TinyWall Firewall Settings GUI shows no settings at all on the 'Application Exceptions' or 'Special Exceptions' tabs. For the Special Exceptions tab all items are unticked.

Lastly, in Unknown Mode I can still connect to the internet.

 

Okay, tinkering with this a little further:

I did a reboot, got Unknown Mode and twice tried Change Mode > Normal Protection. On two occasions I got the balloon-tip "Communication with the tinywall service encountered an error". On the third try of changing to Normal Protection it seemed to work and was back to a normal TinyWall.

 

Thanks for your response, stapp. I have PMd ultim. Wait see how he responds.

 

Windows 7 Pro. SP1 x64
Tinywall v3.2.3
Samsung Magician v7.0.0.510

I think I found the solution to Unknown Mode, at least for my system -- though the principle might apply to other systems. Explanation as follows:

Yesterday it dawned on me that if Tinywall starts in Unknown Mode and I repeatedly try multiple attempts to get it back into Normal Mode that I never managed to get into Normal Protection Mode while the (what I will call) the Network Adapter Icon in the system tray was showing a blue circle as shown in this screenshot:

Network Adapter Icon -- Blue Circle

Only when the blue circle disappeared could I get Tinywall to go into Normal Protection Mode. I would note that sometimes it would take up to around a minute for that blue circle to disappear. I would also note the blue circle was static, it was not rotating (which I think is what it would normally do). It was also the case, now that I had noticed this, that I dawned on me that that blue circle was there much longer than it had been before this issue with Tinywall turned up. This got me to thinking that maybe the cause of the Unknown Mode was down to some issue with my Network Adapter so I started doing research into that and found this thread in a forum:

Windows Seven Forums -- Network slow to initialize on startup, slow system

Once I read that thread I thought -- and considering that I was getting a balloon-tip messages from Tinywall on unsuccessful attempts to get into Normal Protection that "Communication with the Tinywall service encountered an error" -- yes, I need to look into what is happening with 'Services' on system boot-up/boot-in.

Cutting a very long story short I finally managed, I think, to find what the cause of Tinywall Unknown Mode at least on my system. The story goes like this:

I have a Samsung SSD on my system. I actually have two Samsung SSDs, a large one for my day-to-day system, and a smaller one that I had previously used as my system SSD but which I no longer used as part of a day-to-day system. On that smaller SSD I had done an install of Linux Mint, decided I didn't want Linux, and put that SSD to one side. However, I did want to clone my Windows system to the smaller SSD's boot partition (overwriting Linux) so that if my computer ever went faulty I could just switch to using the smaller SSD, which did not have personal data on it, and I could then hand my computer to a tech so that he could use that as a boot-SSD for finding out what was wrong with the computer without in any way risking compromise my personal files. Now the kicker:

As part of doing all that I found out that Samsung had updated their Samsung Magician software to version 7.0.0.510. I had previously been using version 6.3.0.300 of the software and had been using that for quite a long time. I would note of both of these versions, and my use of them, that I never did allow the software to launch automatically on system boot-up -- if I wanted to use them I would just launch them manually and take things from there.

It then dawned on me that the problem with Tinywall might have started at around the same time as I had installed Magician 7.0.0.510. So using Windows Task Manager and the Services.msc and the knowledge I had gained from reading the forum thread (above) I went and had a look to see if anything was present in Services that might be related to Magician. I found that there was.

Magician (it turns out) installs a Service to the system. The service is titled SamsungMagicianSVC and the actual target exe file for it is titled SamsungMagicianSVC.exe. It turns out that even if the user doesn't auto-launch Magician on boot-up it is nonetheless the case that the Service does get activated on boot-up. The Service by default is set to load 'automatic' on boot-up. That SamsungMagicianSVC Service is connected to Samsung Magician's connecting-to-the-internet functions: SamsungMagicianSVC.exe has to be allowed to pass through Tinywall to get the Magician to function properly in attempts to contact Samsung's servers.

In any case when I checked in Windows Services I found that SamsungMagicianSVC wasn't loading properly at boot-up, it would often get stuck in 'starting' mode for ages, and a couple of times it looked as if it would never start.

I will now cut a long story short and just say that I then found if I set that Service to load 'Automatic (Delayed Start)' then Tinywall started to load directly into Normal Protection Mode at boot-up and it did so very quickly (as it had previously done flawlessly for quite some time); sometimes before even the Network Adapter Icon was showing in the system tray.

I tried many multiple reboots of the system while having the Magician Service variously set to load 'automatic' or load 'automatic (delayed start)'. Again cutting a long story short I found that Tinywall started up in Normal Protection Mode without issues if the Magician Service was set to load 'automatic (delayed start)'. So, as best as I can see now, it would seem that for whatever reason the Magician Service 'SamsungMagicianSVC' was the culprit in forcing Tinywall to start in Unknown Mode. SamsungMagicianSVC was also the culprit in having my network adapter take ages to initialise itself. Having said all that, on a couple of experimental reboots of the system I found that SamsungMagicianSVC had started seemingly without issues and that on those occasions Tinywall started up normally too -- hence why it appeared that the issue with Tinywall was intermittent (somewhat, though mostly the issue did manifest).

I would add that my own suspicion is that Samsung Magician version 7.0.0.510 is seriously bugged with respect to its SamsungMagicianSVC Service. I would also note that there have been several different versions of Samsung Magician between the version I was using and the (new) one that I had installed. So I can't comment on which version of Magician started all this, if Magician is the culprit for all users of Tinywall on Windows 7 that experience this Unknown Mode problem.

My own reading of it is that if SamsungMagicianSVC service tries to startup and fails to startup promptly then it prevents Tinywall service from starting and hence you get Unknown Mode showing up. But, at that, I am just guessing.

I would also add that other users experiencing this seeming problem with Tinywall need to look into what Services are launching automatically at boot-up and see if there is any one of them that might be the root-cause of the seeming issue with Tinywall.

P.S. It is also the case that there is another service that Magician installs, it has the title MagicianSVC. I have no idea what it does but it still points to SamsungMagicianSVC.exe as being the target .exe file. It's startup type by default is set to 'Manual' and it's service status is 'stopped'. In any case as far as I can tell it seems not to get launched on system boot-up.

P.P.S. My overall impression of Samsung Magician is that it is God-awful software anyway.

 

Thanks to Radish's help I reproduced the problem in one of my VMs. Turns out to be a Samsung Magician bug actually. Fix (or rather, workaround) is already prototyped and will be in next release this month.
Thank you Radish!

 

Just tested the newly released TinyWall 3.2.5, ultim. Your workaround works for the Samsung Magician problem detailed above -- well done! Thanks for the new version.

When it arrives, a Happy New Year to you and others on the forum.

 

I know this is not a thread about Samsung Magician, but an Internet search of "SamsungMagicianSVC.exe internet" brought me to this thread. The program wants to phone home with every boot. I only discovered this since I use a different non-Microsoft firewall that alerted me. It is frustrating that Magician gives one a false setting to not start with Windows, then it does the behavior nicely explained above.

I am experimenting with setting the SamsungMagicianSVC service to Manual. The software can still be launched manually, but that starts the service and the service does not auto-terminate when you exit the program (which in itself is annoying as it forces you to find the icon in the system tray and exit).

 

To come back to this briefly (so I can close this tab in my browser), here is where I am at with Samsung Magician. I will set the service to manual. Then only rarely use the software to check for drivers or troubleshoot something. When (if) I do use this software, I will have to remember to make sure the "start with Windows" setting in the program is deactivated (by itself that is not enough!), close the program and re-set the SamsungMagicianSVC service to manual and terminate all the "auto-on" type stuff. In the meantime I will use other software that behaves better (and IS better) to do most the functions of Samsung Magician. You do not need Samsung Magician at all really.

Autoruns is a great software to see what is automatically turning itself on with Windows. Also, finding a way to get your software firewall to let you know when ANY program is trying to access the Internet (out-going alerts) is a good idea. You can then set to auto-allow the programs you choose.

I will leave this post here as, like I indicated, Internet searches will send people here. Good luck, everyone!