Intermittent connection loss

[steev]

For a while now I've been suffering from this. After being idle for an hour or so my connection was getting lost and I had to reboot my PC. Neither the router nor the cable box needed a reboot in order to regain the connection.

I have now (hopefully) found the cause of the problem and thought others here may have been suffering from the same thing so posting my solution in the hope it might help others. The problem was being caused by Zone Alarm. I had tried disabling it in the past with no success. But it seems that turning it off does not actually turn it off. After installing an FTP client it was unable to connect to the server and it seems to have been due to a Zone Alarm process still running and blocking the connection. However, after totally uninstalling Zone Alarm my connection has been very stable.

[Chris W]

great first post it would not be the first time i have heard of problems like this caused by ZA

lets hope you continue with these useful posts

MB

[Stuartbe]

to the forum

I agree with MB - Good first post.... I have heard of zonealarm creating problems like this before.

Steev

Sadly, this is a common and well known problem with ZA. One of the reasons I hate it with a passion.

[Stuartbe]

I find kerio personal firewall one of the best free firewalls as it has very good level of control... www.kerio.com

HTH

[carlingman]

Originally Posted by Stuartbe

I find kerio personal firewall one of the best free firewalls as it has very good level of control... www.kerio.com

HTH

Yep i will give that the as well.

Currently using the free version of Kerio now and it has just expired but as long as your not running a network the free version is great.

[greencreeper]

Yes. I can't remember if it's just Zone Alarm or older versions of ZA Pro, but there are two processes - vsmon that does the access control and the client (GUI) that configures and controls vsmon. Shutting down the GUI does just that - vsmon continues blocking/allowing traffic as normal. It's a security thing to ensure that the firewall is running before anything else, and to prevent viruses from shutting down the firewall.

I've just checked with my copy of ZA Pro and shutting down the GUI does shutdown vsmon too.

[Tezcatlipoca]

steev

Let me guess....ZA version 5?

[greencreeper]

Originally Posted by Matt D

Let me guess....ZA version 5?

Yeah - good point. Avoid it like the plague. Never in the field of programming has such a hopeless piece of software being released by so few on so many

[Nikko]

Originally Posted by greencreeper

Yeah - good point. Avoid it like the plague. Never in the field of programming has such a hopeless piece of software being released by so few on so many

Hey - what about Windows ME??

[greencreeper]

Originally Posted by Nikko

Hey - what about Windows ME??

I dunno how you got that past the swear filter The damn thing's on my mum's laptop - it's the only computer I'm scared of breaking. I patch ME and pray that the thing will start

[Nikko]

Originally Posted by greencreeper

I dunno how you got that past the swear filter The damn thing's on my mum's laptop - it's the only computer I'm scared of breaking. I patch ME and pray that the thing will start

Brave man - patching ME is like putting a spoiler & body stripes on a Sinclair C5

[steev]

The connection loss issue has been very frustrating for me. It was only by chance that I uninstalled ZA as my router contains a firewall and I assume that will be sufficient. I can understand why ZA may have been locking connections even whtn the GUI was shut down but the intermittent loss of inbound traffic has no logical explanation as far as I can see. There is no timeout setting in ZA so I guess this is a plain and simple bug.

It wasn't ZA v5, but pro v3 that I've been using. Have used it for a few years and assumed it to be a good piece of software. Not any more though.