Norton's Automated Support Assistant problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter History Fan
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History Fan

Hello. My PC uses XP Home SP1, and my web browser is IE 6 SP1. I'm
currently using Norton Anti-Virus 2003.

If you go to Symantec's website and click the Support button, they
have a small tool called the Automated Support Assistant. Before you can
use it for the first time, two small programs are installed on your PC.
Automated Support Assistant scans your computer, determines which Symantec
product you have, and alerts you to any updates that the program needs. I
find it useful because it finds updates that the LiveUpdate feature built
into Norton AV often misses.

However, when I use Automated Support Assistant, my Internet Explorer
browser will frequently crash. Either it will freeze up totally, or a small
window will pop up saying..."Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and
needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience." I've had this problem
with NAV 2003 and 2004. Does this happen to anyone else?
 
History Fan said in news:[email protected]:
Hello. My PC uses XP Home SP1, and my web browser is IE 6 SP1.
I'm currently using Norton Anti-Virus 2003.

If you go to Symantec's website and click the Support button,
they have a small tool called the Automated Support Assistant.
Before you can use it for the first time, two small programs are
installed on your PC. Automated Support Assistant scans your
computer, determines which Symantec product you have, and alerts you
to any updates that the program needs. I find it useful because it
finds updates that the LiveUpdate feature built into Norton AV often
misses.

However, when I use Automated Support Assistant, my Internet
Explorer browser will frequently crash. Either it will freeze up
totally, or a small window will pop up saying..."Internet Explorer
has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the
inconvenience." I've had this problem with NAV 2003 and 2004. Does
this happen to anyone else?
Click to expand...

I've used it (the downloaded ActiveX controls) for quite awhile and
haven't had the crashes you mention. I don't know that they provide a
means on their web site to force a redownload of the files involved.

Internet Options -> General tab -> Settings -> View Objects

Stupidly Symantec chose not to name these objects to include "Symantec"
so you can easily identify them. There are 2 objects called:

ActiveDataObj Class
ActiveDataInfo Class

If you right-click on them and look at their properites, you will see
the Codebase is a URL pointing at Symantec. The files involved, I
believe, are:

C:\Windows\Downloaded Program Files\
ActiveData.dll
SymAData.dll

You won't see the files with Explorer (because it presents a different
view of the AX objects) so you have to use a DOS prompt to navigate to
that subdirectory to see the actual files. You can also right-click on
the AX objects shown by Explorer, select Properties, and look under the
Dependencies tab to see the associated file.

You could try deleting those AX controls and then revisit their support
page to redownload them to see if the crash goes away. Or, once
removed, just say No to downloading them again and use the manual
selection links near the bottom of the page. You can then check if just
visiting that page (without the AX controls installed and refusing to
install them) causes a problem or not.

If deleting and redownloading them still causes the IE crash, you
probably have something else screwed up. In that case, I'd use Spybot's
IE tools or BHO Demon to see what BHOs (browser helper objects) you have
installed. BHO Demon will let you disable them without having to
uninstall them. If you are using Norton AntiVirus then one of the BHOs
will be for it (to watch downloads through IE), so you might just try
disabling NAV altogether to see if it is affecting IE negatively.
 
I've used it (the downloaded ActiveX controls) for quite awhile and
haven't had the crashes you mention. I don't know that they provide a
means on their web site to force a redownload of the files involved.

Internet Options -> General tab -> Settings -> View Objects

Stupidly Symantec chose not to name these objects to include "Symantec"
so you can easily identify them. There are 2 objects called:

ActiveDataObj Class
ActiveDataInfo Class

If you right-click on them and look at their properites, you will see
the Codebase is a URL pointing at Symantec. The files involved, I
believe, are:

C:\Windows\Downloaded Program Files\
ActiveData.dll
SymAData.dll

You won't see the files with Explorer (because it presents a different
view of the AX objects) so you have to use a DOS prompt to navigate to
that subdirectory to see the actual files. You can also right-click on
the AX objects shown by Explorer, select Properties, and look under the
Dependencies tab to see the associated file.

You could try deleting those AX controls and then revisit their support
page to redownload them to see if the crash goes away. Or, once
removed, just say No to downloading them again and use the manual
selection links near the bottom of the page. You can then check if just
visiting that page (without the AX controls installed and refusing to
install them) causes a problem or not.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response. The two ActiveX controls installed by
Symantec are both listed as "installed," which supposedly means they are
working properly. The other status indicators are "unknown" or "damaged."

Just out of curiosity, I right-clicked on both of them, and selected
"update." I don't believe anything happened, but we'll see. The system
crashes and error messages don't happen every time, so I won't worry too
much if nothing is solved.
 
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