Re: The Bat/ZoneAlarm quirks.
Hi Allie, ACM Blarp is using Tiny Personal Firewall and not ZA. I've also tried running without TPF active at all (disabled service, reboot) and it has no effect on TB's periodical checking. It seems to be something internal to TB. Since it only gets reported on XP 2000, I wonder if there's something with the permissions. I have TB installed under my account (which has Admin rights). I wonder what it does if installed under a different account with say Power User rights or something? -- Tom G. http://blarp.com -- Free tech support The Bat 1.61 - Windows 2000 Current version is 1.61 | Using TBUDL information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
Re: The Bat/ZoneAlarm quirks.
On Thursday, August 22, 2002, 8:02:06 AM, Blarp wrote: Since it only gets reported on XP 2000, I wonder if there's something with the permissions. I have TB installed under my account (which has Admin rights). I wonder what it does if installed under a different account with say Power User rights or something? I am running 1.61 under Win XP Pro with Power User rights, and I don't have any problems with periodical checking. A couple of questions come to mind with periodical checking: 1. Are all the problems being experienced on a dialup connection? 2. Does TB start a dialup connection to do a periodical check? 3. Is there anything in the log file to indicate that TB attempted to connect? 4. In anyone experiencing problems with periodical checking with a permanent connection (such as a network connection or DSL)? The answers might narrow the problem down a bit. Julian -- Using The Bat! v1.61 on Windows XP 5.1 Build 2600 Current version is 1.61 | Using TBUDL information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
Re: The Bat/ZoneAlarm quirks.
Hello Julian, A couple of questions come to mind with periodical checking: [...] 4. In anyone experiencing problems with periodical checking with a permanent connection (such as a network connection or DSL)? No problem here, whichever version of ZA or TB. Running XP Pro in a network-environment (DHCP [yes or no, doesn't matter]; Router etc). Greetings, Alexander Current version is 1.61 | Using TBUDL information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
Re: The Bat/ZoneAlarm quirks.
Hello Julian, JBL A couple of questions come to mind with periodical checking: JBL 1. Are all the problems being experienced on a dialup connection? In my case it's always occurred with different DSL connections. JBL 3. Is there anything in the log file to indicate that TB attempted to JBL connect? Unfortunately my standard sized (20k) logs have already lost that info. However, I can say that the connection centre which I've always set to appear automatically stays away too when this problem is present. JBL 4. In anyone experiencing problems with periodical checking with a JBL permanent connection (such as a network connection or DSL)? See 1. -- Regards Johnny Skaaning The Bat 1.61 - Windows 2000 Current version is 1.61 | Using TBUDL information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
Re[2]: The Bat/ZoneAlarm quirks.
Hi Allie, ACM When I had the problem, a restart of TB! would *always* result in a ACM successful mailcheck. When it stopped checking for mail, it would ACM stop and never successfully check again until I restarted TB!. The same thing happened to me - every time I started TB! (with ZA running) I would get about 5 minutes worth of successful checks. Quit and restart TB and I'd get another 5 minutes. When you start a program ZA keeps a table of where the program is accessing. When you quit, that table is removed. Therefore a quit + restart would clear that table. ACM My connection problems were later not confined to TB! but my ACM internet connection in general. I'd be connected to my ISP but ACM nothing would be happening. Only an OS reboot would fix this, ... ACM all the time. That's probably a different and bigger issue. :-) ACM When I installed uninstalled ZA and installed TPF, I created 2 rules ACM for TB!. One to allow connections to the remote machine's port 25 ACM and another for remote port 110, with both connecting at a single IP ACM (not a hostname who's IP may vary). I never had problems again. Unfortunately with ZA you can't create specific rules like that - you can only say the remote server(s) IP address is good. But my first suggestion/solution that I gave is effectively the same as what you did with TPF. ACM The changing IP may be one factor but I doubt that it's the only ACM one. True. I don't have a full Windows debugger available on my email box to be able to track down what's going on in the background otherwise. I'm more of a unix guy (actually a networking guy) than a windows expert. :-) ACM Be that as it may, I don't think ZA is to blame for the frequently ACM reported problems with auto-mail checking. In my case it was - I could reproduce the problem and create the test environment so I found out what it was. There may be (and most likely are) other problems/bugs/issues that look and act in similar ways. ACM Especially since a clean install of TB! fixes the problem. This ACM seems to point to a TB! problem. Hate to say it, but it's probably is a windows problem actually. They (MS) have an absolutely horrid TCP/IP implementation in the OS, so I wouldn't be surprised to find it does things in weird and unexpected ways... Cheers, Ross. -- Ross West mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Current version is 1.61 | Using TBUDL information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
Re: The Bat/ZoneAlarm quirks.
Hello Ross, Tuesday, August 20, 2002, 7:18:11 PM, you wrote: RW No problem. The joys of working at an ISP, eventually it would RW come back to haunt me as people start complaining about my load RW balancer and how it doesn't work, when in fact it's ZA that's RW causing the issue. Even if it is no problem, it is very nice to see people who help like this. One of the reasons I stopped using ZA is that it had this very annoying behavior with TB! I would have quit ZA anyway because I found something better for my needs, but you probably saved a lot of people out there. What I considered strange was the lack of responses. I expected this thread to get a lot of responses. Not only 1 or 2... Anyway Have a nice time :) Best regards, Alexandros Cicovic Current version is 1.61 | Using TBUDL information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
Re: The Bat/ZoneAlarm quirks.
Hello Ross, On Tue, 20 Aug 2002, at 10:27:44 GMT -0400 (8/20/02, 9:27 AM -0500 GMT here), you wrote in [EMAIL PROTECTED]">mid:[EMAIL PROTECTED]: RW Hope that helps to give people an explanation as to what's happening RW and a solution for people in the future. I haven't had a problem with TB ZAP, but thanks for the info. -- Best regards, Greg Strong TB! v1.62/Beta1 on Windows 98 PGP public keys: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?subject=0xB1FE63FABody=Please20send20keys Current version is 1.61 | Using TBUDL information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
Re: The Bat/ZoneAlarm quirks.
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 In [EMAIL PROTECTED]">mid:[EMAIL PROTECTED], Greg Strong [GS] wrote:' RW Hope that helps to give people an explanation as to what's RW happening and a solution for people in the future. GS I haven't had a problem with TB ZAP, but thanks for the info. I don't think the problem is as simple as this. Why? When I had the problem, a restart of TB! would *always* result in a successful mailcheck. When it stopped checking for mail, it would stop and never successfully check again until I restarted TB!. My connection problems were later not confined to TB! but my internet connection in general. I'd be connected to my ISP but nothing would be happening. Only an OS reboot would fix this, ... all the time. When I installed uninstalled ZA and installed TPF, I created 2 rules for TB!. One to allow connections to the remote machine's port 25 and another for remote port 110, with both connecting at a single IP (not a hostname who's IP may vary). I never had problems again. The changing IP may be one factor but I doubt that it's the only one. Be that as it may, I don't think ZA is to blame for the frequently reported problems with auto-mail checking. Especially since a clean install of TB! fixes the problem. This seems to point to a TB! problem. - -- Allie C Martin \ TB! v1.62/Beta1 Windows XP Pro List Moderator/ PGP Key - http://pub-key.ac-martin.com ' -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iD8DBQE9ZCNrV8nrYCsHF+IRAmpsAKD+No3kxFXB0jHZxRoma44f2I0WgwCfa5TC HPXA1z35UelarGQhgvU6THc= =XM+j -END PGP SIGNATURE- Current version is 1.61 | Using TBUDL information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
Re: The Bat/ZoneAlarm quirks.
Hello Allie, On Wed, 21 Aug 2002, at 18:34:02 GMT -0500 (8/21/02, 6:34 PM -0500 GMT here), you wrote in [EMAIL PROTECTED]">mid:[EMAIL PROTECTED]: ACM I don't think ZA is to blame for the frequently reported problems ACM with auto-mail checking. Especially since a clean install of TB! ACM fixes the problem. This seems to point to a TB! problem. Are you referring to [EMAIL PROTECTED]">mid:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ? -- Best regards, Greg Strong TB! v1.62/Beta1 on Windows 98 PGP public keys: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?subject=0xB1FE63FABody=Please20send20keys Current version is 1.61 | Using TBUDL information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
Re: The Bat/ZoneAlarm quirks.
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 In [EMAIL PROTECTED]">mid:[EMAIL PROTECTED], Greg Strong [GS] wrote:' GS Are you referring to [EMAIL PROTECTED]">mid:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ? Yes. This testimony is an interesting one. Not only this one, but one person in [EMAIL PROTECTED]">mid:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote that he/she wasn't using a firewall and yet had the autocheck problem. Blarp is using Tiny Personal Firewall and not ZA. He has the problem. Luc, also with the problem, isn't using ZA. ZA may be known to create problems but I really doubt that it's the culprit this time. - -- Allie C Martin \ TB! v1.62/Beta1 Windows XP Pro List Moderator/ PGP Key - http://pub-key.ac-martin.com ' -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iD8DBQE9ZDvGV8nrYCsHF+IRAsCiAKD1eeGC8esIIwDZltnOqrH8GbcrOQCfbjBC 5TSO8GOZIfo9LEPSMuSb4SU= =lzor -END PGP SIGNATURE- Current version is 1.61 | Using TBUDL information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
Re: The Bat/ZoneAlarm quirks.
Hello Allie, On Wed, 21 Aug 2002, at 20:17:58 GMT -0500 (8/21/02, 8:17 PM -0500 GMT here), you wrote in [EMAIL PROTECTED]">mid:[EMAIL PROTECTED]: ACM Blarp is using Tiny Personal Firewall and not ZA. He has the ACM problem. Luc, also with the problem, isn't using ZA. ACM ZA may be known to create problems but I really doubt that it's the ACM culprit this time. Agree. To be totally honest I've gone back to ZAP 2.6.362. This old PC doesn't handle newer resource intensive ZAP to well. I've got the support contract continued for another 8 months. I just download new ZAP programs as they are upgraded. When I upgrade this old PC, I'll give them a try. -- Best regards, Greg Strong TB! v1.62/Beta1 on Windows 98 PGP public keys: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?subject=0xB1FE63FABody=Please20send20keys Current version is 1.61 | Using TBUDL information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
The Bat/ZoneAlarm quirks.
Hi everyone, Yeah, I know this has been talked about a million odd times on the list, but no reason/solution has been posted, I thought I'd toss in my 0.02c about my problem with TB!/ZA: (My) Issue: The Bat! will start checking mail on startup, but after a while it will stopped by ZoneAlarm. Shutting down ZoneAlarm will allow The Bat! to function normally, but without protection for the computer. As I work at an ISP, and everything was working fine with ZA and TB, until we made some network changes, and suddenly this problem pops up. So I'm lucky enough to have the environment and tools on hand to do some serious debugging on the problem. :-) Anyways, onto my problem: The problem started when we switched our mail server from a single external IP address to multiple IP addresses as we installed dual load balancers and use DNS round robin to balance between them (which then in turn balance to the mail server farm). So how does this affect TB! + ZA? Well, TB will make a request to the pop server (pop.x.com) to pickup mail on startup. Everything works and all is cool. And TB! will continue to make requests to the pop server, except suddenly something changes - the IP address of the pop server. After a few minutes the DNS caching of the pop server's entry (ie: pop.x.com - x.y.z.10) on the local computer runs out, the computer makes a DNS request and receives a reply. With DNS round robin, the IP address might be the same as before - in which everything still works, but if it changes, the locking situation shows up. The real problem is that TB! references the mail server by name (this is a good thing) but it looks like ZA keeps more detailed info about the connection that it doesn't like being changed for security reasons. ZA will track that TB! opened a connection to pop.x.com which is x.y.z.10 - and as long as TB! is open, that mapping has to stay that way. If the IP address changes (for whatever reason - be it DNS or more nefarious reasons), then it might be a possible man in the middle attack and ZA locks out access to the mail application. The annoying part is that ZA doesn't like to give warning messages to users - part of the user friendliness experience I guess. Solutions: 1) Add all your mail server IP addresses to your Local Zone in ZA. (Hence they become safe in the eyes of ZA.) or 2) And an entry to your HOSTS file with a name to a single IP address. This will override the DNS queries for the host name and always return that 1 IP address. or 3) Instead of an name for your mail server, put an IP address. From the perspective of an ISP - #1 is the best solution! Hope that helps to give people an explanation as to what's happening and a solution for people in the future. Cheers, Ross -- Ross West mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Current version is 1.61 | Using TBUDL information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
Re: The Bat/ZoneAlarm quirks.
ON Tuesday, August 20, 2002, 4:27:44 PM, you wrote: RW Hi everyone, snipped some very good research RW Hope that helps to give people an explanation as to what's happening RW and a solution for people in the future. RW Cheers, RW Ross Hi Ross, Although I never had this problem I would like to say thank you for finding the culprit AND providing several workable alternatives. Great work. -- Best regards, Gerard -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The most efficient labor-saving device is still money. -- Franklin P. Jones Using The Bat! v1.61 on Windows 2000 5.0 Build 2195 Service Pack 3 Current version is 1.61 | Using TBUDL information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
Re[2]: The Bat/ZoneAlarm quirks.
Hi Gerard, On August 20, 2002, you wrote: RW Hope that helps to give people an explanation as to what's happening RW and a solution for people in the future. G Although I never had this problem I would like to say thank you for G finding the culprit AND providing several workable alternatives. G Great work. No problem. The joys of working at an ISP, eventually it would come back to haunt me as people start complaining about my load balancer and how it doesn't work, when in fact it's ZA that's causing the issue. Good to know what ZA is looking for. This also explains a few other oddities that I had been seeing when running ZA. Now if I can only get all the people to switch to TB! instead of using Outlook. :-) Fun stat: 700+ megs (~15,000 msgs) of email on the pop server - TB! was the only client to download it all successfully in one go. Another fun stat: Largest single email received through TB!: 95 megs. Try that with Outlook. :-) Cheers, Ross. -- Ross West mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Current version is 1.61 | Using TBUDL information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
