WSA seems to be blocking functionality of Shadow Defender

  • 19 October 2013
  • 6 replies
  • 140 views

Userlevel 4
Has anyone recently experienced an issue with SD indicating that it is not in Shadow Mode when it actually is? I'm currently in Shadow Mode, and the desktop tip is not showing on the desktop even though I have the option checked for it to show when operating in Shadow Mode. The tray icon is also orange instead of blue like it should be when operating in Shadow Mode. The only way I know i'm operating in Shadow Mode is by going to Mode Setting, and looking at the status.

I think WSA is the culprit because WSA has blocked the functionality of SD several times in the past. WSA would not allow SD's GUI to launch about 3 months ago, and I opened a support ticket on it. I currently have a support ticket for this with Webroot right now. I'm just wondering if anyone else is running them together, and if they are experiencing any conflicts as well.


6 replies

Userlevel 4
Under utilities / system control / control active processes:  Shadow Defender.exe which is in the Program Files directory is listed as allow, but defenderdaemon.exe which is in the same folder is not listed in that list. If I go to PC security / Block Allow Files defenderdaemon.exe is in that list, and it is set to allow. I'm going to exit Shadow Mode, and try adding defenderdaemon.exe manually to see if that helps.
 
When I look at the task manager the only process belonging to Shadow Defender currently running is defenderdaemon.exe. I don't see Shadow Defender.exe running at all. I'm going to exit Shadow Mode, and see if Shadow Defender.exe is normally running when SD is functioning correctly. I have a few things to try, and I will report back to share my findings. Thanks for the help.
Userlevel 7
Hi CE
 
Have read your reply in the other thread, and am at a loss to suggest anything further given that I have very scant knowledge of Shadow Defender.
 
Contacting the developer about other 'hidden' components runing is a good idea...let's hope that this solves your issue.
 
Regards
 
 
Baldrick
Userlevel 4
I don't think it is WSA anylonger that is blocking SD functionality. I'm not possitive yet, but it appears it is a bug with the latest build of SD. I thought I was using the latest build of SD with NOD 32 when I was not having any problems, but maybe I was using the next to the latest build. I will run SD without any other security software installed to see if I can reproduce this.
Userlevel 7
Hi CE
 
Good to hear that you are progressing towards a diagnosis of what is wrong.  Keep us posted in how you get on in case there is a WSA involvement.
 
Regards
 
 
Baldrick
Userlevel 4
I was able to reproduce the problem without WSA installed. I was also able to reproduce it without any realtime security software installed at all. This is a fresh installation of Windows 7X64 SP1. I think it's pretty safe to say it's most likely a bug with SD at this point. I have sent Tony the developer of SD a support request asking what info he will need to diagnois, and debug SD for this particular problem. I thought it had to be WSA at the time because I had been using SD with NOD 32, and Appguard without any problems. When I installed SD with WSA I thought it was the same build of SD I had been using with NOD 32, and Appguard. I must have been wrong. I must have had the previous build of SD installed with NOD 32, and Appguard  since I did not have the problem until now. It's the only explanation that makes sense to me. Sorry for the confusion I may have caused.
 
Ok, now on to  the web browser problem I was experiencing with Firefox.  I probably should open a separate thread on this for the benefit of other users since I have seen several other users experiencing the same problem. I probably will after I get to do some more testing, and know for sure the cause of the problem, but I will post what i beleive the problem most likely was which I will have to confirm later . Firefox was failing to launch, and FF was also locking up when trying to use attachment buttons, add image buttons, etc .. on forums i visit including Webroot's.  Support instructed me to uninstall WSA, and to rename an app data folder if it still existed after the uninstall was complete. The app folder was no longer there after I uninstalled WSA so I only had to do an uninstall, and then reinstall WSA. unfortunately I had already uninstalled NOD 32 about 10 minutes before I got supports message to do this. The problem had gotten worse, and i needed to do some work online so I went ahead and uninstalled NOD 32. I browsed the forum only for about 5 minutes, and tried using the buttons I mentioned above to see if FF would freeze up again and stop responding. FF was not freezing at that time. FF was working fine. I made the mistake of going ahead, and doing as support instructed so soon. I should have continued to try to reproduce the freeze without NOD 32 installed before uninstalling, and reinstalling WSA so I would know If NOD 32 was causing a conflict with WSA.
 
I believe WSA, and NOD 32 was causing a conflict on my machine with Firefox. Maybe the 2 was trying to perform the same action at the same time through HTTP, or HTTPS. I do not know for sure, but what I do know is that for that brief time I was using WSA without NOD 32 the freezing up of Firefox had stopped. Maybe I had not given it enough time to poke it's little head out again to give me problems. That could be a possibility, but I will not know until I go back to reproduce the problem.
 
The problem with FF not launching when clickling on it has been a problem I have experienced with WSA in the past. before the release of this new version of WSA which is quite robust. It's packed with features which i'm sure will become much better in time since some of these features are new to WSA. We have to help iron out all possible bugs we can.  I will have to use WSA by itself without any other realtime security installed to see if FF still fails to launch. What I have been seeing is that FF will not launch, and you have to click on FF again. It will then launch after clicking it a second time. Then you have two instances of FF running in the process manager. I gave FF a full minute to launch the first time I clicked it so that should have been pleanty of time.

Another problem i have seen that just came to my mind when writing this is that FF will continue to run after closing it. I closed all windows of FF, and it's process would continue to run. I would open another instance of FF later, and then I would have 2 instances of FF running in the task manager. I would usually catch it because FF would become slow, or sometimes it would tell me FF is already running when I would click to open it again. I could be wrong, but I think the only other security application I was running at the time was Appguard when I had these problems. I know AG by itself has not given me any of these problem, but I normally do not use AG by itself unless i'm trying to test it against a particular threat i have learned about. So I have only used AG by itself for very brieft periods.
 
Well in order for other members to find this info easily I should probably start a thread on broswer issues. Maybe we can figure out these problems, and squash these bugs together if they are bugs. It will be interesting to know if others are experiencing the same, or similar problems.
Userlevel 7
Some excellent troubleshooting work! I`ll just chime in on the firefox issue
 
1) Firefox running after its closed is a known bug in Firefox and its something that the dev team commented on a while ago on a reddit interview. 
 
2) Firefox not displaying certain forums/websites again I have noticed this issue myself and it got so bad that I switched to Chrome
 
3) Firefox taking time to load up, again I have noticed this on PC`s with no AV`s installed. 
 
4) I dont know if you noticed at its terrible memory usage, open up maybe ten windows and check task manager. Prepared to be shocked!
 
Personally I have had enough of Firefox`s little quirks and its bloatness that gets worse with each build. The new security shield that the introduced two builds ago was giving me all sorts of grief. 

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