Spyware Blocker stops working

[ptaylor]

I've used Untangle for the last few weeks as my gateway and it seems to work pretty well. One issue I ran across was that the Spyware Blocker stopped working at some point. I rebooted, and it was working again. (I noticed this because ads started showing up on web sites I frequent).

Is it possible to have services like the Spyware Blocker reset at a given time every day?

[mdh]

No, it doesn't change according to time of day. You will likely confuse some people with a post on Spyware Blocker labeled "Spam Blocker stops working" that is posted in the Feedback forum. Definitely across the board and likely to have a smaller audience of readers because of it.

[ptaylor]

Sorry - Meant Spyware Blocker.. I've corrected the title now.

I wasn't asking if it is supposed to stop working at certain times of the day. I was pretty certain the behavior I saw wasn't intended. I was just asking if it were possible to have it automatically restart at a certain time each day as a workaround for it crashing. That way, if it crashes one day, it should be up and working the next with no action on anyones part. Ideally, the bug causing the crash should be fixed, but I figured that would probably take some time to track down.

As to the reason I put it in the feedback forum, it was mainly to alert the Untangle support people that I'm seeing an issue where the Spyware Blocker appears to quit working.

[juank]

Hello Ptaylor,

First time hearing somebody having issues with the Spyware blocker. Are you running 5.3? Do you see any errors in your logs?

[ptaylor]

I am running 5.3, but I'm not sure which log you are referring to. The Event log of the Spyware Blocker still indicated that it was blocking things. (It is my understanding the the Spyware Blocker is what actually blocks ads.)

The problem is unusual, in that I can see that ads are blocked by Untangle, but then later I can go to the same pages and get the ads. The original time I had the problem, I simply rebooted Untangle as a test. After the reboot, Untangle was blocking the ads on the websites in question.

I just went back to one of the websites where I noticed the problem and the issue had returned - I could see the ads. I tried stopping and restarting the service (via the "power" button on the Spyware Blocker in the rack) and it did not help - the ads still appeared. So, I rebooted Untangle. After the reboot, the ads were gone.

If there is any other information that I can provide (via logs, etc.) that would be helpful, let me know and I'll try to provide it.

[juank]

That's strange. Can you tell me one site you are having that issue? I'll try it here and see if I experience the same behavior. Thanks

[ptaylor]

PM'ed - For others interested, the link where the issue is most noticeable has to do with a "bay" that's not in Tampa, but does have something to do with Buccaneers.

[juank]

I've seen that "problem" with that "..bay" before and after analyzing it, I found that the reason is that they have about 18 different AD sites they use. Some of them change domain names and IP numbers all the time so there is no webfilter that can keep up with them.

Anyway, this is not a SPYWARE issue. The Spyware blocker usually don't block this type of events. With "...bay" , most of those ADs get blocked if you are blocking the PORN category.

[ptaylor]

Ah - Well, that would seem to make sense... It's just odd that prior to a reboot, I've seen the ads, but afterwards I don't. Perhaps it is just luck of the draw.