Automatic updates error with 4.26

[Guest]

[weaker]

[at]john2g: You have a different problem. Neither while installation I get an 106 error nor afterwards. No numbered error message.

[at]Drew99GT: It might have to with HTML settings and default browser. I use Opera 9.27 as default app for HTML, use Opera 9.50 alpha9903 as main browser but sometimes I use latest Firefox 2.0.0.13 and if nothing else helps I fire up IE6.

Btw this is how it looks:

[Eric Cryptid]

I had an Update error earlier. Error 106.

To resolve the problem, I temporarily turned on Windows Firewall then "Checked For Updates" which ran fine and then disabled Windows Firewall again.

XP SP2
CPF3
CBoClean

[Kevin McAleavey]

Looking into this ... I know there has been a lot of work going on at the server farm, perhaps that might have been part of it. As far as I know, all's fixed now. Some major changes were required with the BOClean updates now being handled by COMODO's server farm rather than the outside contractor site we had been using for FTP which had become less than reliable lately.

The 106 error occurs when a connection to the server has been established, but the data itself is being blocked. This is USUALLY the result of either a firewall blocking the data coming across, or that IE has been set into "offline mode" which also blocks data. Solution is to check that IE is actually "connectable" and NOT in "offline mode" and if that isn't it, then it's a firewall blocking the download.

I note someone was unable to manually download from the link - that's the same one the autoupdater was hitting as well, so quite obvious the data was getting blocked in the download or that would have worked. I'll keep watching to see if anyone else has problems or if we're better now, but that 106 does indeed mean that the connection is happening but the download isn't for whatever reason.

[Kevin McAleavey]

Apparently our server guys have reworked everything, so therefore things should be saner now.

If an "Error 106" should persist when you do a manual update (where the error is listed on the screen) then the problem is definitely going to be either being "offline" in IE, or a firewall or other program blocking the data from coming in after the connection has been established.

So that this can make sense for some of our more "l33t" friends here, the way the HTTP download will be working from here on is that COMODO has set up the main update address to a PRIMARY server. In the event that traffic is too high to service the update request, what will happen will be an automatic redirect to another server so that you will get your update without it being corrupted or incomplete or just plain dropped when traffic is heavy or other problems occur. So an "Error 106" can also occur if you have some settings or external security program which sees this "redirect" and decides to block it.

 Once again, the meanings of the error messages as far as BOClean goes (and CAV is using the same download code so might help there as well) are:

Error 103: Means that there is a problem with Internet Explorer itself being corrupted. IE probably isn't working either.
Error 104, 105: You do not currently HAVE an internet connection, network is DOWN.
Error 106: Means that a firewall program is blocking the connection *OR* your Internet Explorer is in OFFLINE mode - run IE and CONNECT.
Error 107: Network data transmission failure with your ISP. Try it again later when the "intarwebs" are working again.
Error 108: Comodo site is down or can't be found. Try again later.
Error 109: Connection was lost. CORRUPTED DOWNLOAD! Try again now!

 But if you encounter any download problems, go to the start menu, programs listing, Comodo, Comodo BOClean and finally "updater" and it will show you the error number right above the progress bar for a few seconds before it exits. That, and which version of Windows you're running along with any other "security" programs you might be running will be a big help in figuring out what's eating your data.

 Finally, I guess I'd better explain what the "checkmark" means after a download ... a GREEN checkmark after the download indicates that a successful update has been received (even if the download failed) and a RED X indicates a corrupted download and BOClean will try again. Except on Vista, the update is done with an external program and aside from Vista, the program cannot return success after it's been called and thus on XP and earlier, BOClean can only indicate the integrity of the file, not the download. When we integrated the update process into BOClean itself for Vista, it caused a number of problems in XP and that's why we returned to an external call. Just so folks know what's going on there.

[weaker]

I uninstalled and checked the registry for remnants of "Boclean" or "BOC" and there weren't any. I reinstalled and set the same settings like I had before (7 minutes wait after startup and unchecked "Do NOT show automatic update screen").

Today I got the error again!

I tend strongly towards "Do NOT show automatic update screen" unchecked being the culprit.

[Dennis2]

Apparently our server guys have reworked everything, so therefore things should be saner now.

If an "Error 106" should persist when you do a manual update (where the error is listed on the screen) then the problem is definitely going to be either being "offline" in IE, or a firewall or other program blocking the data from coming in after the connection has been established.

So that this can make sense for some of our more "l33t" friends here, the way the HTTP download will be working from here on is that COMODO has set up the main update address to a PRIMARY server. In the event that traffic is too high to service the update request, what will happen will be an automatic redirect to another server so that you will get your update without it being corrupted or incomplete or just plain dropped when traffic is heavy or other problems occur. So an "Error 106" can also occur if you have some settings or external security program which sees this "redirect" and decides to block it.

 Once again, the meanings of the error messages as far as BOClean goes (and CAV is using the same download code so might help there as well) are:

Error 103: Means that there is a problem with Internet Explorer itself being corrupted. IE probably isn't working either.
Error 104, 105: You do not currently HAVE an internet connection, network is DOWN.
Error 106: Means that a firewall program is blocking the connection *OR* your Internet Explorer is in OFFLINE mode - run IE and CONNECT.
Error 107: Network data transmission failure with your ISP. Try it again later when the "intarwebs" are working again.
Error 108: Comodo site is down or can't be found. Try again later.
Error 109: Connection was lost. CORRUPTED DOWNLOAD! Try again now!

 But if you encounter any download problems, go to the start menu, programs listing, Comodo, Comodo BOClean and finally "updater" and it will show you the error number right above the progress bar for a few seconds before it exits. That, and which version of Windows you're running along with any other "security" programs you might be running will be a big help in figuring out what's eating your data.

 Finally, I guess I'd better explain what the "checkmark" means after a download ... a GREEN checkmark after the download indicates that a successful update has been received (even if the download failed) and a RED X indicates a corrupted download and BOClean will try again. Except on Vista, the update is done with an external program and aside from Vista, the program cannot return success after it's been called and thus on XP and earlier, BOClean can only indicate the integrity of the file, not the download. When we integrated the update process into BOClean itself for Vista, it caused a number of problems in XP and that's why we returned to an external call. Just so folks know what's going on there.

I was having 106 error yesterday it has worked fine this morning with the autoupdate BOC426.exe.
When I tried manual update yesterday it was BOCupd.exe different exe for maual update?
Dennis

[Kevin McAleavey]

I uninstalled and checked the registry for remnants of "Boclean" or "BOC" and there weren't any. I reinstalled and set the same settings like I had before (7 minutes wait after startup and unchecked "Do NOT show automatic update screen").

Today I got the error again!

I tend strongly towards "Do NOT show automatic update screen" unchecked being the culprit.

Hmmm ... don't THINK so, as nothing in that part has changed since 4.01. Did you try that "manual update" trick in going to start menu, Comodo, Comodo BOClean, updater? I don't use Opera and the screenie LOOKS like Win98 to me ... but the "Error #" info from the Updater screen might be helpful. Possibly, IE is turned off or dead perhaps. The updater for BOClean (as well as everything else) uses WININET libraries (IE code) to do the download. If it's bombing, gotta be an EXTERNAL reason. Only problem is I don't know WHICH one that might be.

But something's hosed with the update - the error numer returned from the manual update might help. Apologies for the unhappiness there, we'll figure it out once there's more data. I'm headed out for the night, but will be back again, I promise.  

[Kevin McAleavey]

I was having 106 error yesterday it has worked fine this morning with the autoupdate BOC426.exe.
When I tried manual update yesterday it was BOCupd.exe different exe for maual update?
Dennis

Actually, we call it BOC4UPD.exe, but yeah, looks like there was a bit more to do on the server side than what I'd been told was "ready." If the problem's fixed, then I'm one HAPPY camper! Heh. But been sitting here all night in the US Eastern trime zone just to be sure ... but yes, the BOC4UPD.exe is called by BOClean to do the updates, then BOClean checks them and uses them IF they pass our private encryption and certification test. We might be OK now! 

[Dennis2]

Actually, we call it BOC4UPD.exe, but yeah, looks like there was a bit more to do on the server side than what I'd been told was "ready." If the problem's fixed, then I'm one HAPPY camper! Heh. But been sitting here all night in the US Eastern trime zone just to be sure ... but yes, the BOC4UPD.exe is called by BOClean to do the updates, then BOClean checks them and uses them IF they pass our private encryption and certification test. We might be OK now! 

The reason I asked is I use a proxy to connect to tne internet and log for both BOC426.exe and BOCupd.exe and only BOC426.exe connected to the proxy this morning in CPF3 logs though it could be a logging problem in CPF3.
Dennis

[Kevin McAleavey]

Anything's possible there ... one of the reasons why BOClean originally did FTP downloads was that it eliminated a LOT of sillinesses.

All I can say is that the HTTP download in BOClean uses WININET, as COMODO told me to code it for. Any download issues, since BOClean is using WININET (which is the IE browser) will be affected by anything which messes up Internet Explorer for whatever reasons, since WININET will use whatever IE is already set (OR misconfigured) for ... 

But if there's a problem with the download, run IE and see what it does on THIS link:

http://download.comodo.com/boc/update/boc426.xvu

 That's where the updater goes, and then a REDIRECT might occur to the ACTUAL server ...

[weaker]

The manual update works fine without any error message! It tells me that it is downloading, unpacking, verifying and then success.  But anyway, I had never a problem with a numbered error message. Just the one I pasted above.

And it's not Win98, it's WinXP SP2 using the classic no-bling-bling Win2K style. 

EDIT: When I open the link in IE, Orbit Downloader catches the link. Pressing Esc yields the standard IE dialog. So it may be Orbit catching things. I will investigate...

[at]Drew99GT: Do you also have a download manager running?

[weaker]

Disabled Orbit monitoring for Browsers but I still get the error. If there are no other suggestions I may try to uninstall Orbit. Will first try to change back "Do NOT show automatic update screen" to default.

[1RosFan4Ever]

Hi,  I have Comodo Pro Firewall and love it and I have used the previous version of BOClean with no problems.  I downloaded BOClean 4.26 and now a three or four days ago, now it is having problems. 

I get this message, "Missing Module! Can't find BOC4UPD.EXE to perform auto update.  On Vista, this error means  you need to permit the 'Updater', through windows firewall settings because the updater is being blocked."   I use Windows XP Pro SP2. Comodo Firewall does allow BOClean and is not blocking it.  It was fine the day before yesterday, then Thursday it freaks out.  Please help!

[1RosFan4Ever]

I forgot to mention that I have already uninstalled BOClean 4.26 and Reinstalled it hoping that would fix the problem, but no joy.  I welcome help on resolving this problem.  Anyone else have this happen? 

[Kevin McAleavey]

Hi,  I have Comodo Pro Firewall and love it and I have used the previous version of BOClean with no problems.  I downloaded BOClean 4.26 and now a three or four days ago, now it is having problems. 

I get this message, "Missing Module! Can't find BOC4UPD.EXE to perform auto update.  On Vista, this error means  you need to permit the 'Updater', through windows firewall settings because the updater is being blocked."   I use Windows XP Pro SP2. Comodo Firewall does allow BOClean and is not blocking it.  It was fine the day before yesterday, then Thursday it freaks out.  Please help!

Hmmm ... mystery and a half there. I actually suspect it might be the firewall causing that but since I don't use the COMODO Firewall (it tends to block nasties we're trying to work with in research) I don't know quite where to find the settings for it. So I'll explain what I think is happening and how BOClean works in hopes that someone else here might pick up on it and come up with a suggestion for you to try. Once we're sure of what the problem is, I'll see what we can do to prevent it happening elsewhere.

 The THEORY ... in BOClean, when it goes to do an automatic update, we designed 4.25 to do that *inside* the BOClean program, however many XP systems would eventually choke on it being done that way. Since this "internal" was only required for Vista to avoid that error, we changed 4.26 to do an external call to BOC4UPD to do the update. This prevented that mysterious "runs for a week and then locks up" problem owing to how XP fails to unplug WININET libraries after it's done doing the update. Not a problem in Vista, but we had to do this under XP. Your symptom is identical to the way Vista behaves, and that ain't normal. Yes, I did write a trick into 4.26 "just in case" but I'd really prefer not to use that trick and find out what the actual problem is first before I suggest the "trick."

 So BOClean does its thing, and when it's "update time" it then invokes a "child process" (BOC4UPD.exe) and calls it. In order to maintain BOClean's compatibility with everything from Windows for Workgroups 3.11 through Vista however, we have to call this "child process" using a function which exists in ALL versions of windows, and that call is "CreateProcess" wherein we call BOC4UPD.exe. And while Microsoft may recommend "ShellExecute" for later versions of windows, that call is dumb as a box of rocks and won't work on earlier Windows versions.

 I suspect that the firewall objects to this child process being called. Now I know in the COMODO firewall, there's "Defense+" and I suspect that the problem might be in the settings there.

 So ... anyone else know how to guide this person through checking that before I invoke the "tell BOClean it's running on Vista" trick that I'd really rather not do?

--------------

Edit: Better explain myself about the firewall and my lack of knowledge on it lest it be taken the wrong way ... CFW works SO well that it actually interferes with our research in letting unknown nasties run free in the lab, and thus I don't use it simply because we have to take care of BOClean and having nasties stopped elsewhere doesn't allow us to do our research. Thus, I need to depend on someone who knows the ins and outs of it as to my theory that it's probably stopping BOClean from spawning BOC4UPD ... that's what I suspect might be going on here ...

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