QA - could you please set up a VM with ESET on Windows to test with? We're getting repeated reports about issues with ESET. Another one here http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=60489#7

I have made some progress using 7.4 v25381.  

If I uninstall ESET, install SC and get it running, reinstall ESET and then add complete exceptions into ESET for squeezecenter.exe, scanner.exe and mysql.exe (not port limited) then I can stop and start Squeezecenter from Squeezetray.  However, Squeezecenter takes ages to "re-startup" from Squeezetray - at least 10 minutes - I hadn't let it run for this long before - so it does eventually work.  Again, there is nothing in the SC or ESET logs that gives a clue what is going on.

Similar pattern if I reboot - it does eventually start up (takes less time than the initial "re-startup" did, but still longer than I would expect - a minute or two perhaps).

I'm now going to update to latest version of 7.4 and see if that works a similar way and will report back.

Tried to install 7.4 v75453 and I get the following two error messages:

"The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( Application ) cannot be found.
The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message
DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use
the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for
details. The following information is part of the event: Perl interpreter
failed."

and

"Event Type:	Error
Event Source:	Application
Event Category:	None
Event ID:	0
Date:		10/03/2009
Time:		13:06:13
User:		N/A
Computer:	MEDIASERVER
Description:
The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( Application ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: Carp::Clan::__ANON__(): Error executing 'SELECT me.name, me.value FROM metainformation me WHERE ( name = ? )': DBD::mysql::st execute failed: MySQL server has gone away at /<C:\PROGRA~1\SQUEEZ~1\server\SQUEEZ~1.EXE>DBIx/Class/Storage/DBI.pm line 771.

However, again SC will startup after about 5-10 minutes.

(In reply to comment #1)
> QA - could you please set up a VM with ESET on Windows to test with? We're
> getting repeated reports about issues with ESET. Another one here
> http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=60489#7

Michal: I have a VM image setup now, do you want access to it? or should I send you a copy

James it would help Michael if you could send him the installer. I tried looking into this but couldn't manage to download ESET. It took me adding their email to my address book to receive the activation email. The link works, but then asks for a username and password, not provided in the email. I can't enter anything into those fields anyway. I tried their support link, but it requires a username and password! :(

(In reply to comment #5)
> James it would help Michael if you could send him the installer. I tried
> looking into this but couldn't manage to download ESET. It took me adding their
> email to my address book to receive the activation email. The link works, but
> then asks for a username and password, not provided in the email. I can't enter
> anything into those fields anyway. I tried their support link, but it requires
> a username and password! :(

I have an (unused currently) username and password and a copy of the latest installer.  I've had to uninstall ESET on my squeezecenter server (which is a shame because it's a great firewall/antivirus combo in all other respects).  Happy to contribute these to the cause (at least until there's a fix).  What's the best way to get them to you - email?

We may need to get your full copy, as I just tried with the Trial Version of ESET NOD32 v4 and 7.4 r25674.  Worked like a charm :(

Michael: please coordinate with Siduhe via email and test this out.  Let me know if there is anything QA can do to help.

> We may need to get your full copy, as I just tried with the Trial Version of
> ESET NOD32 v4 and 7.4 r25674.  Worked like a charm :(
> 
> Michael: please coordinate with Siduhe via email and test this out.  Let me
> know if there is anything QA can do to help.

If you can't reproduce it, then I wonder whether there's something else causing this issue. Did you test with the Security Suite (which I assume features a firewall) or only with the AV? Siduhe - can you configure ESET firewall to allow for ports 9000 etc.?

Hi Michael, yes I can configure Security Suite to allow the usual ports (9000 and 3483), you can also give full access to certain *.exe files (which is what I have done in the past, squeezecenter.exe and scanner.exe).  ESET Security Suite has worked fine with these exceptions in the past and as I mention above, if I roll back to an earlier iteration of 7.4 it works fine again.  I'm not clear if what was tested was NOD32 or Security Suite, but it may also be something peculiar to my setup.

As a control, I will try installing Squeezecenter 7.4 on my laptop which also runs ESET and XP and see if I can reproduce.  If not, that suggests it's something to do with my server configuration (which also runs XP).  The server only really runs Squeezecenter and stuff to do with ripping, tagging and storing music, but I guess there may be something on there which is causing the conflict between ESET and SC (Avast is working fine on there with SC).

If it does reproduce, happy to supply my full version.  In addition, we could do a remote login session (I have logmein installed on the server) so you can see the problem for yourself.  

Will let you know how I get on with the laptop.

Thanks for that additional information. Do you know what the first build was which didn't work any more? Unfortunately we don't have files back for more than a week. But giving that revision number might help me understand what change is giving problems.

(In reply to comment #10)
> Thanks for that additional information. Do you know what the first build was
> which didn't work any more? Unfortunately we don't have files back for more
> than a week. But giving that revision number might help me understand what
> change is giving problems.

Can pin it down up to a point - v24777 works and v24896 (et seq) doesn't.  I don't install every nightly on the server but try to update once a week or so.

(In reply to comment #11)
> 
> As a control, I will try installing Squeezecenter 7.4 on my laptop which also
> runs ESET and XP and see if I can reproduce.  If not, that suggests it's
> something to do with my server configuration (which also runs XP).  The server
> only really runs Squeezecenter and stuff to do with ripping, tagging and
> storing music, but I guess there may be something on there which is causing the
> conflict between ESET and SC (Avast is working fine on there with SC).
> 
> If it does reproduce, happy to supply my full version.  In addition, we could
> do a remote login session (I have logmein installed on the server) so you can
> see the problem for yourself.  
> 
> Will let you know how I get on with the laptop.

Can confirm I see the same issues with a fresh install of Squeezcenter 7.4 v25762 on my XP laptop running ESET Security.  It installs ok if ESET is disabled, but once it's restarted and if you stop/start Squeezecenter I see exactly the same issues.  This is with the usual exceptions for port 9000/3483 (and squeezecenter.exe).

i.e. "The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( Application ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: Running out of good ideas for the listening port for the HTTP server - giving up. at /<C:\PROGRA~1\SQUEEZ~2\server\SQUEEZ~1.EXE>Slim/Web/HTTP.pm line 237".

Again, happy to give you a full install version of ESET to test with temporarily, as I have a licence I can't use at the moment!

Created attachment 5027 [details]
Log from ESET when starting up SC

(In reply to comment #13)
> Created an attachment (id=5027) [details]
> Log from ESET when starting up SC


This is just a log to show that ESET is letting SC communicate on startup according to the rules (port 9000, 3483 and squeezecenter.exe) - but SC still won't startup.

Is this a 7.4 only issue or do you see the same behaviour with 7.3.3 too?

(In reply to comment #15)
> Is this a 7.4 only issue or do you see the same behaviour with 7.3.3 too?

7.4 only.  Version: 7.3.3 - 25766 works like a charm.

Thanks. I think I have an idea about the change breaking this. But I don't understand why it would happen... Would be great if you could send me the test key via PM. I'll give this a try.

Siduhe - we'll need more information about your firewall configuration. I installed the Security Suite, and it's working perfectly fine (had to enable our ports though). But it didn't crahs neither without my opening ports.

(In reply to comment #18)
> Siduhe - we'll need more information about your firewall configuration. I
> installed the Security Suite, and it's working perfectly fine (had to enable
> our ports though). But it didn't crash neither without my opening ports.


Thanks Michael, I wonder if it is because something is left over from all the various SC installs I have had in the past? Although, that said, it won't start up in just the same way on my laptop which has never had SC installed on it before. Perhaps there is some common third party program on both laptop and server which is interacting with ESET and/or SC and causing the issues?  Will investigate that too.

My setup is just the standard ESET windows installer setup with exceptions then added for SC.

I will do a fresh install of both ESET and SC and document the steps here.  I think I may even have some screen capture software somewhere which would let you see what is going as it happens.  If so, will post a link.

I guess the good news is that this is a problem limited to my setup not one which is likely to affect the majority!

Any news? Are you using some other kind of system software, running in the background?

(In reply to comment #20)
> Any news? Are you using some other kind of system software, running in the
> background?

No real news, I've tried removing all non-essential background processes, but still can't get ESET and SC to play nice. As a result, I've been banned from "breaking" the server with further investigations until a weekend when my better half is away.  When that comes around (a couple of weeks) I'm going to completely reformat and reinstall Windows with a "clean" registry - I still think this must be down to some kind of corruption somewhere.

There's a new report about this issue in the forums:

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=60489#17

Siduhe - are you still able to run the latest 7.3.3 nightly? If that was the case, then the reason for the 7.4 failure wouldn't be in the code change I thought, as it's the same in both versions...

(In reply to comment #23)
> Siduhe - are you still able to run the latest 7.3.3 nightly? If that was the
> case, then the reason for the 7.4 failure wouldn't be in the code change I
> thought, as it's the same in both versions...

A quick test (luckily I have remote access to the server at home or I'd be in danger of divorce right now... ;-) ) with SqueezeCenter-7.3.3-25969.exe and I'm back to having the same problems as with the 7.4 version.

So no, I can't appear to run 7.3.3.

Thanks Siduhe!

I need more eyes on this. Andy - if you have a moment, do you see why $http_server_socket would not be created now, but did before the following change?

http://svn.slimdevices.com/slim/7.3/trunk/server/Slim/Web/HTTP.pm?r1=24753&r2=24887

I don't know, could the firewall be blocking SC from listening on any of the test ports?

QA to try to reproduce

As a reminder, Michael Herger can't reproduce this, but QA will also try.

(In reply to comment #28)
> As a reminder, Michael Herger can't reproduce this, but QA will also try.

I received an email from ESET Support a few days ago (I also reported this problem to them and they've also checked out the info on this thread). They sent me a new version of Security Suite 4 to try "which addresses a number of issues regarding treatment of programs immediately post installation".  Installed it and so far no problems at all with Squeezecenter over 48 hours later.  No express confirmation from ESET but this new version certainly looks to fix the problems I was experiencing.

It is available as a beta download on the ESET site - v4.0.424, so if anyone else is having a problem, suggest you upgrade.  Thanks all for looking at this.  Maybe leave it for a couple of days to let others chip in but otherwise I would suggest this bug can be marked RESOLVED.

Sounds like great news! Thanks for the feedback! I'll keep that bug open a few more days. Feel free to close it whenever you want. Thanks!

Siduhe - there's an increasing number of forum postings about this issue. Is it still fine for you? If so, what exact versions and revisions (ESET) are you using?

(In reply to comment #31)
> Siduhe - there's an increasing number of forum postings about this issue. Is it
> still fine for you? If so, what exact versions and revisions (ESET) are you
> using?

I find that ESET (v4.0.424) works intermittently with SC 7.4 (latest sql lite) - I still get the start up problem but it does works occasionally and there's no obvious rhyme or reason behind when it does/does not work.  

As a result, I've uninstalled ESET and am using a different firewall on my music server (I still use ESET for my laptops).  Hadn't seen there were further reports - sorry!  Still very happy to try and help debug this if needed.

I'm also experiencing this problem. I've added my experiences with ESET 4 in the forums which can be found here:

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showpost.php?p=437079&postcount=33

A resolution to this problem will be much appreciated!

Regards
Jaco

Created attachment 5403 [details]
Possible workaround for ESET issue: disable application protocol filtering

Ok, so here's what I've found: if you disable the Application Protocol Filtering in ESET, SC would start. It's not the firewall, but part of the antivirus. The settings as seen in the screenshot should work too, still filtering http and pop3 traffic.

Please give this a try and report back. IMHO this is just ESET aggressively filtering stuff which makes SC fail. I'm not sure we can actually fix this. But there's a workaround.

Dan - James can confirm this workaround. Could you please create some FAQ and inform your people (whether in Barcelona, Berlin or Bern ;-))?

I found an alternative workaround. 

I had a look in the ESET advanced setup tree under "Antivirus and antispyware / Web access protection / Web browsers". It showed that it has classified Squeezecenter.exe as an internet browser. I excluded it by putting a cross next to the squeezecentre.exe. That also solved the problem without having to change the "Protocol filtering" settings in ESET.

I'm not sure which workaround is the safer one: excluding squeezecenter.exe as an internet browser, changing the protocol filtering settings. Probably only ESET technical support can tell us that. However, there exists two methods for working around the problem for now...

Although there exist workarounds for this problem now, they are only that at best. 

I believe the *real* fix for this problem would be to ask ESET what rules/logic they use to determine to classify an application as an internet browser. Also, once ESET has determined that an application is an internet browser it then flags it for content filtering, so it should still keep functioning normally if all is well, e.g. like internet browsers, etc. None of the other applications in my ESET list flagged as internet browsers stopped working as a result. The fact that it breaks SqueezeCenter may be that something in 7.3.3 creates malformed content from a virus checker's viewpoint? 

Please follow up with ESET tech support so that a REAL fix for the problem can be found.

Created attachment 5405 [details]
Better fix to ESET/SC issue

Jaco - great advice! Sounds like the way to go. I was looking for that kind of whitelist, but didn't find it (in the little time I spent looking for it). But it's generally better to just enable some specific app than disable a check for all of them.

Anyone following this bug: go Jaco's route.

Dan - please use the above method if you describe this in a FAQ or wiki page.

Dan - I've added that information to the diagnostics XML file. Users encountering this issue should see instructions on how to fix this when running the installer (or diagnostics from the Control Panel). Change 27404 (7.4+ only)

I consider this issue "fixed", as there's not much more that we can do. ESET users need to configure that product accordingly, but should now be informed by our product about this.

I don't agree with the resolution to this bug. As I've mentioned, I view it as a workaround at best and not a fix. Please read my comment #37 again. Here is what I said:

"I believe the *real* fix for this problem would be to ask ESET what rules/logic
they use to determine to classify an application as an internet browser. Also,
once ESET has determined that an application is an internet browser it only
flags it for content filtering, so it should still keep functioning normally if
all is well, e.g. like internet browsers, etc. None of the other applications
in my ESET list flagged as internet browsers stopped working as a result. The
fact that it breaks SqueezeCenter may be that something in 7.3.3 creates
malformed content from a virus checker's viewpoint?"

Recently we had a similar problem at work with another AV product, and in the end we had to modify our software since it was behaving in ways that triggered the AV defenses. I guess this is a similar case.

I've tried to install 7.3.2 again and mark it as "web browser" in ESET. The service starts successfully. Therefore I think the problem isn't in eset suddenly detecting SC as web browser, but in some internal change of SC's workings.

Jaco: I don't think the problem should be in some malformed content created by SC; the error seem to happen during port binding, before any communication can happen. Maybe there was some change in the way SC binds the port? (I would check it myself but I am not familiar with the code base, so it would take me ages just to find how where it's happening).

This bug has been marked as fixed in the 7.4.0 release version of SqueezeBox Server!
    * SqueezeCenter: 28672
    * Squeezebox 2 and 3: 130
    * Transporter: 80
    * Receiver: 65
    * Boom: 50
    * Controller: 7790
    * Radio: 7790  

Please see the Release Notes for all the details: http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Release_Notes

If you haven't already, please download and install the new version from http://www.logitechsqueezebox.com/support/download-squeezebox-server.html

If you are still experiencing this problem, feel free to reopen the bug with your new comments and we'll have another look.