Beta first problems

[MasterTB]

I'm connected to a Network LAN with a Laptop.
I first start my session on the lan and the firewall detects that connection. That is a trusted connection because it's the network lan.
Then, I have to connect to the network proxy to get Internet access, the firewall doesn't recognize that connection as a new one and gives it the same "trusted" treatment as it gave the other. THAT IS NOT RIGHT. The latest stable version didn't do that, it detected both connections individually and treated them accordingly.
I'll post some screenshots...

hehe, finally, AFTER 30 MINUTES of being connected to the internet, the firewall realized that there was another connection and detected it...

There seems to be a lag, a very long and disturbing lag on the network detection system. Now both connections are detected and treated as they should.

[Alexey]

Could you please specify what is a connection to the network proxy you?
We need the following information to find the problem:
1) Screenshots from Firewall network point information window of your active network information before connecting to the network proxy;
2) Screenshots from Firewall network point information window of your active network information after FW detects connecting to the network proxy. You could force updating network information by disabling and than enabling back PC Tools Firewall engine.

By the way, to what stage ( point 1 or 2 ) the screen shots you attached belong to?

Thank you

[MasterTB]

The connection to the Internet is done via VPN to the company's proxy.
The problem was that the firewall detected the LAN as soon as I plugged the cable but then I connected to the VPN without an alert.
After 30 minutes of being connected I saw the pop up telling me that a new network was detected.
Till that moment, the only connection I saw was the one to the company's domain (although I was browsing with Opera via the proxy).
I can't post any screens now because I'm at home, maybe tomorrow.

Martin.-

[Leighton Cyr]

FirewallGUI.exe has crashed three times in the past six hours. Firewall keeps(at least eight times) presenting me with a request to allow "Userinit.exe". How many time do I have to bless it? Shouldn't "userint.exe" only run at boot time? Why does it keep popping up in the middle of a session?

[MasterTB]

I did see that user init pop up.. I had already started the system, responded to that pop up and then when opening Opera it asked me again telling me that User init wanted to use Opera to access the Internet (¿)

BTW, why does the firewall install with Low filtering settings on Windows 7 x64 and High on Win 7 x32 (both Home Premium, clean installs...)

Martin.-

[Leighton Cyr]

Whenever I start an app that checks for the latest version, PCTFW+ asks for "userinit.exe" to be blessed. I'll say YES and then it will bring up the same query two more times stating that the binaries have changed. For something that is a boot-only app, it certainly is getting an awful lot of play. If I bless it, and tell it to remember my selection, why does it keep coming back?? I'm getting very close to reverting to 6.0.0.88.
BTW, why didn't my app settings from 6.0.0.88 carry through to 7.0.0.50? Now I have to reteach all of the apps that access the net.
Please, somebody in development, come up with a resolution to this annoyance in a reasonable amount of time.

[hdavid]

UserInit.exe - We are chasing this issue but we can't reproduce it easily, can we send you a driver version with more logs so you can generate logs for us?

ESP in 64 bit, yes it is Law by default in 64bit

Network Pop up, if you are happy to generate logs for us I will send you instruction of how to do it and we could probably sort it out.

thk in advance

[hdavid]

It would be great if you could submit the windows report error (a pop up that comes when application crashes) because we can get it and find the bug

thk

[Leighton Cyr]

hdavid,
It was just the usual "Windows 7" error box saying that the named app has died, do you want to close it?(Words to that effect). There wasn't any diagnostics that I saw. I'll try to capture it next time it happens(tomorrow). It's night-time here.

G'night,
Leighton

[Leighton Cyr]

This is totally intolerable. While browsing, I went to a new page, within the same site, and the "Userinit binaries have changed" message popped up seventeen times in a row. If it weren't so pathetic, it would be funny. I'm not laughing.

Shutdown has also become an ordeal. What usually takes 3-4 seconds to shutdown is now running close to a minute.

I am falling back to 6.0.88 as soon as I can.

Sadly yours,
Leighton

[hdavid]

We managed to reproduce it and we will send a fix soon. Regarding the crash dump you can do the following:

1. Open Control Panel
2. Click to open Action Center.
3. Scroll down to find Maintenance and Click on it you will see at the button a link to settings click on it
4. Choose the option 'Automatically check for solutions and send report data, if needed and press OK

This will automatically send us the report

Thk

[MasterTB]

UserInit.exe - We are chasing this issue but we can't reproduce it easily, can we send you a driver version with more logs so you can generate logs for us?

ESP in 64 bit, yes it is Law by default in 64bit

Network Pop up, if you are happy to generate logs for us I will send you instruction of how to do it and we could probably sort it out.

thk in advance

Send it! I'm not going to be 100% using the PC but will upload what ever it generates.

[Leighton Cyr]

1. Open Control Panel
2. Click to open Action Center.
3. Scroll down to find Maintenance and Click on it you will see at the button a link to settings click on it
4. Choose the option 'Automatically check for solutions and send report data, if needed and press OK

This will automatically send us the report

Thk

This will send the error report to Microsoft. That won't do you any good.
This would be of more help if it's a catastrophic failure:

2690

Then send the mini-dump file to you.
If it's just a crash-and-burn, I don't know what will capture it.

LC

[hdavid]

GUI crash – We have one dump and working on it. In general when you send dump to Microsoft they register it in a website was winqual.microsoft.com. We have an account there and can pull the dumps and fix the problems.

UserInit.exe – We have a fix for that (details in separate post)

Network Pop up, logs – Will give a post that explains how to generate Network logs.

Few more post coming up :-). Thanks for your help

[hdavid]

Install the firewall and when the installation finishes, before you press ok to start the firewall do the following

1. Unpack the zip file as per your OS (32.zip for 32 bit OS and 64.zip to 64bit OS)
2. Copy the files pctgntdi.sys (pctgntdi64.sys in 64 bit OS) and pctplfw.sys (pctplfw64.sys in 64 bit OS) to \Windows\System32\Drivers\ directory
3. If you run Vista/Win7 also copy pctwfpfilter.sys (or pctwfpfilter64.sys) to \Windows\System32\Drivers\ directory
4. Copy PluginDllFW.dll to the firewall installation directory (\Program Files\PC Tools Firewall Plus\ or \Program Files\PC Tools Firewall Plus (x86)\ in 64 bit OS)
5. Copy FirewallPlugin.dll (from FirewallPlugin.zip) and FirewallSDK.dll (from FirewallSDK.zip) to the firewall installation directory (\Program Files\PC Tools Firewall Plus\ or \Program Files\PC Tools Firewall Plus (x86)\ in 64 bit OS).
6. Copy GenericTdiDll.dll to \Program Files\Common Files\PC Tools\GenTDI\ directory (or \Program Files (x86)\Common Files\PC Tools\GenTDI\
7. Run the firewall and reboot.


If you already installed firewall than just shut it down, copy the files and reboot.

Let me know if this solves your issue of UserInit.exe, thk in advance.

We will release soon a new version with the fixes I just want to be sure it really fixed your issue

[hdavid]

1. Shut down firewall
2. Delete the files Networks.ini and Networks.ini.sig
3. Run the file TurnONNetworkPopups.reg (will turn on logs)
4. Start the firewall
5. reproduce and send us the file FirewallSDK.dll.txt
6. Shutdown firewall
7. Run the file TurnOffNetworkPopups.reg (will turn off the logs)
8. Start the firewall

thk for the help

By the way I would take the binaries from the previous post (Fix to UserInit.exe problem) since there is a fix there that might solve the issue too.

[Leighton Cyr]

hdavid,
I applied the fix for the userinit.exe and it hasn't hiccuped yet. It was more than a little frustrating to have to repeatedly(as much as 17 times) click to accept an application that wasn't even running.

Thanks for your support,
Leighton

[hdavid]

OK thk for the patient we will build a new version with this fix and add few more fixes, estimated release time, next Monday

[hdavid]

Could you please try to reproduce it when ESP (in Settings->Filtering) is set to low?

[Leighton Cyr]

1. Since the original installation, and the three crashes, I've not had another crash. So I guess I can't reproduce it. Sorry!

2. I have ESP set at "Medium". Per another post you stated that at "Low" you don't inject any code, and at "High" you do. What about "Medium"?

3. With 6.0.0.88, under filtering, you could turn off the annoying application checking. Is that the same as "Application filtering enabled"? If you try to turn it off, you get a warning that is recommended that you leave it on. Is it the same, and do I dare turn it off without having a rule set?

Thanks,
Leighton

[hdavid]

1. No problem we think we know what is the problem, its probably in our ESP protection driver, it protect from malicious messages sent to our GUI and maybe we have some issue there because the crash is in the message loop of the GUI.
2. Medium is mainly around self protection + some level of Anti Injection protection.
3. You can do the same as you did in the previous version its just that we want users to be aware that they would need to create rules themselves and not expect it to work as is without application filtering enabled.

[MasterTB]

OK, so I reinstalled the beta, applied the patches and....
SUCCESS!

No problems so far.

PCTFW even detected Avast Service acting as a proxy (web and network shields I assume) which the latest version didn't.

Good job PC Tools!!!


Martin.-

[MasterTB]

Ok. so the New network issues are not resolved after all.
On my Desktop PC, using the same nic, I connect to my network at home, the LAN is detected and set as trusted.
So far all good.
I move the PC to my cousins house to some LAN Party action and... SURPRISE.
I connect the PC to his router (using the same nic) and not as the latest version, the firewall assumes I'm still on the same connection and doesn't detect that I'm on a different router, with a different mac, all because I have the same DHCP range.

This is an ERROR of course.
To clarify, I'll post a screen where you can see the networks name (my network) and the settings, at my cousins house.

[MasterTB]

On the previous version, when I selected the Networks view, I could see the adapters MAC address, now all I see Is the name of the Network, status, and if it is trusted or not. If I choose details, I can see if it has DHCP if it is active, the IP/MASC and the Default Gateway IP.

When I go to another network that happens to use the same Default Gateway IP -say 192.168.1.1- there is no pop up telling me that there is a New Network detected. It happened to me already (see previous post).

I think it is because the firewall does not read the adapters MAC address... If this is NOT a bug then it is seriously bad policy.

I could be connected at home where my router has 192.168.0.1 IP or at a public hot spot or unprotected WiFi with the same IP and nothing would change on the firewall ????

That is not good.

[hdavid]

We'll look into it and will contact you ASAP on this

[MasterTB]

We'll look into it and will contact you ASAP on this

Cool.

Martin.-

[MasterTB]

iF you look at my Networks file (from Program Filesx86\PC Tools Firewall Plus) you'll notice that there is only one Network detected despite the fact that my PC has been -since the reinstall- at my place and on my cousin's.

That is:
A TP Link modem router at home and a Link Sys at my cousin's. Two routers, two networks but since they both share the same gateway the firewall only detected one because it did not detect the router's MAC's like it used to do.


That is BAD. REALLY BAD.


Martin.-

[hdavid]

We are aiming to release a new Beta today or tomorrow that will solve all known Beta issues including this one

[MasterTB]

Can't wait!! :D

[Leighton Cyr]

I've been getting the following error throughout the session:
2708
over and over again.

Thanks,
Leighton

[sciencewis1]

Do you have another anti-virus software running or have you done a system restore recently? I have encountered this issue after a system restore. If the issue persists I would recommend uninstalling, rebooting, and then reinstalling the software. Thanks and hopefully this helps.

[MasterTB]

That is the exact same error I saw before I noticed the duplicated processes (see this thread: http://www.pctools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=67181), maybe they are related??

To answer sciencewis1 question on this thread, I have avast and don't do restore points automatically.

[Leighton Cyr]

sciencewis1,

I have BitDefender running, and no, I have not done a system restore since I got on Windows 7.
In any case why is it occurring over and over again? Once it has restored the file it should be OK. This is like the userinit boondoggle where it was finding an error in a routine that isn't even running. It sounds like another false alarm that I wish would stop sounding.

MasterTB,

I have only one instance of the service and the GUI running. If there were two running, I could understand the two of them fighting each other.

Thanks,
Leighton

[sciencewis1]

In that case, I would recommend disabling BitDefender and re-installing the firewall. Sometimes anti-virus software can interfere with the installation process.

[Leighton Cyr]

sciencewis1,

Too late. Been there, done that. That thought had occurred to me.

As I mentioned before, once it's been restored, why does it keep pestering me?

Thanks,
Leighton

[hdavid]

We have seen this happening on 64 bit OS, we are looking into it

[Leighton Cyr]

hdavid,

I'm normally a patient man, but this is driving me nuts. I have fallen back to 6.0.0.88 until there is a new release.

Thanks,
Leighton

[Leighton Cyr]

Achen,

Regarding:

http://www.pctools.com/forum/showpost.php?p=233100&postcount=30

Will this issue be addressed before the release of PCTFW+ 7 Final?? I see that the beta 3 has been released to the public. That is the same version with which I had the problem. Were you unable to recreate it? Hasn't anyone else seen this?

Anxious to hear from you,
Leighton

[hdavid]

Ok you might because when those reports are there (and its probably our fault )we don’t get enough information. In this case what you need to do is open the dialog, look at the file that is being reported, tell us what the file is, what was the scenario (upgrade to a new version, just reboot, clean install etc), and send us the log file from the Firewall installation directory, the file is FirewallSDK.txt

I will ask Achen to put it in a sticky, because there could be many reason for this to occur

1. A BUG in installation
2. A synchronization issue
3. A malicious attempt to violate the firewall files
4. A Smart Update issue

The main thing is that firewall important files are signed and when we can not verify the signature when we open a file we can not trust it and we report about it, its probably a BUG but this information described above will help us sort it out