[Merged]Firewall appears to be blocking iTunes 10

[Guest]

[ged99]

I'm having the exact same problem as chiefmongo. Running Windows 7 64-bit with all available updates installed.

There's no way with Comodo installed to get iTunes to see my NAS iTunes server, my AirPlay speakers are not available and I'm unable to pair the Remote iPhone/iPad app with iTunes.

Defense+ is completely disabled and all iTunes related files have been added to Trusted Applications. I've also tried adding the rules suggested by Ronny, as well as unchecking Comodo Firewall Driver from the adapter options. No go.

The only thing that helps is completely uninstalling Comodo from my system. Then everything in iTunes works perfectly. Running iTunes with either Windows Firewall or Zone Alarm enabled also works fine. by the way.

Let me know if your staff wants remote access to my computer as well. I agree with chiefmongo that this is a major issue and I really want to continue to use Comodo Firewall.

[chiefmongo]

ged99,

Ronny informed me that he passed on my information to the comodo team, and they are setting up a test environment to try to reproduce the behavior.  If they can't reproduce it, they might contact me (or you) in order to remote into our machine.

So, in the mean time, I'd just hold off until they let us know of a workaround or have an updated version to fix the issue (I'm guessing it'll be the latter...).

[kriegaex]

Feel free to censor this comment if you think it is inappropriate, but: I have been posting in and watching this topic for such a long time and seen workaround ideas come and go, people discuss etc. But the thing is: Comodo staff are embarrassing themselves and their clients by basically ignoring this topic. There must be a relatively easy fix for it - in the product itself, not in cryptic settings. Shame on you, Comodo! Shame on you! This is just ridiculous.

[chiefmongo]

I'm sure this bug is anything but easy to fix... with disabling all the background services iTunes should start working, but obviously isn't.  Trying to track down what is conflicting with it is going to be tough... take it from me, I'm a fellow developer.

Plus, the majority of us are using their FREE firewall... if you don't like it, just switch to something else!  Not like you lost money or anything!  I'm personally going to switch if I don't hear of any progress being made in the next few weeks...

But, I agree with you... changing your settings does nothing.  It is almost certainly a bug in the software, and they just need to track it down (and hopefully release a fix soon ).

[kriegaex]

It should be easy to debug because all they need to do is to either just install iTunes and use it with their own AirportExpress or whatever they have. If they do not have anything like it, many of us users would have volunteered to grant remote access to their respective devices ages ago.

And by the way, I am a developer too. Trust me, debugging gets a lot easier when you actually *start* doing it instead of trying to do blind remote diagnosis and give general hints, pushing away the problem.

And yes, I was one of those using their free firewall too. Windows Firewall is free, Sunbelt/Kerio is/was, Zone Alarm as well, not to speak of iptables on Linux and many more. Why do companies provide free versions to private clients, if not to promote their products to those people who might also have a corporate life and may then buy or recommend the very same products? And to use the big number of free users as debugging helpers? They also do it for FREE.

[Ronny]

Guy's I don't have all details but the issue is under investigation... If they need more details they will let it know.

[skickahit10]

The very odd thing about it is that AirFoil e.g. works fine, meaning I can listen to iTunes on remote speakers through AirFoil, but not through iTunes itself.....so maybe it's some crappy bug in iTunes that's causing this that the Comodo-people have nothing to do with?

[Ronny]

Could very well be a 'combination' of unexpected events in both applications...

[imar]

Hi I' new here but have been frustrated trying to get airplay to work on Denon Ceol using Comodo fw on W7 64 bit but this may help:

Open Comodo and go to the Firewall tab, if you have problems getting a program to connect to the internet instead select the option to "Alert me to incoming connections and make my ports stealth on a per-case basis. This will configure the firewall to ask your permission any time there is an incoming connection that Comodo Internet Security doesn't already know to allow or block. Confirm setting and retry Itunes.

Let me know if it works, good luck!

[chiefmongo]

Ronny,

It has been over a month since the dev team started looking at this issue.  Could you give us a status update on this issue?  Has the problem been identified and possibly lined up to be included in a future release?  Please let us know.  Thanks.

[Ronny]

Ronny,

It has been over a month since the dev team started looking at this issue.  Could you give us a status update on this issue?  Has the problem been identified and possibly lined up to be included in a future release?  Please let us know.  Thanks.

Hi,

I don't have any updates on this. I assume it's on their list of things to do...
Guess we'll have to wait till next version.

[chiefmongo]

Since it appears that this isn't a priority to fix for the Comdo team, I had to uninstall the firewall.  I'm back to windows firewall and found out how to do more advanced application level restrictions, so I don't necessarily NEED comodo anymore.  That being said, I'd still prefer to have a little better security on my computer and would consider it again when this problem is fixed.

This problem seems to affect anything that uses Bonjour.  I tried to install an AirPrint utility on my computer (which uses Bonjour, see http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1293865), but didn't work until I uninstalled Comodo.  It was the last straw, and I just had to remove it.

[Xerxes_0002]

I just looked up posts I made about this back Jan 2011.  They keep talking themselves in circles and blaming everything else under the sun.  Your right we can just use something else.  Its sad.  The reply about a year ago was that somehow itunes was interfering in sharing of folders, and that it is a problem not with CIS but with itunes.  I replied back then but then never heard back again. 

[laserfan]

I just looked up posts I made about this back Jan 2011.  They keep talking themselves in circles and blaming everything else under the sun.  Your right we can just use something else.  Its sad.  The reply about a year ago was that somehow itunes was interfering in sharing of folders, and that it is a problem not with CIS but with itunes.  I replied back then but then never heard back again.

Surfing on iTunes issues, this thread appears as good as any to bump. I have had different problems than described here, primarily that after some time iTunes forgets how to connect to my i-devices i.e. iPhones, iPad and iPod touch. I have to either uninstall CIS or use Autoruns to disable each/every Comodo exe, sys, etc shown therein. Then iTunes starts working again.

What is odd in this case (WXP Pro SP3) is that not only does iTunes not see connected devices (for syncing or backup) but the device(s) also stop appearing in Windows i.e. no "Apple iPhone" shown in Explorer as a camera. Disabling all COMODO results in its working again.

I'm surprised there isn't more interest in this--wouldn't you think the most popular smartphone on the planet is used by some of the Comodo devs?

[laserfan]

Well I seem to have fallen victim to that corollary of Murphy's Law which states: "Right after you make a PIA of yourself on the Internet, you'll find the solution to your problem". And re-reading this thread now I've noticed that Ronny had mentioned one piece of the solution a page back (in Dec 2011).

I was experiencing extreme slowness of iTunes loading, but the worst problem was that iTunes would fail to see my iDevices and as a result I couldn't sync or back them up. Further, sometimes Windows would not recognize that these things are Cameras. I believe the answer may be this simple: after launching iTunes with an iGizmo connected, go into Network Security Policy under Firewall settings and change all the Apple executables to Trusted Applications. Before, they were Custom, with various & sundry ports listed & whatnot. Well, I just Trusted (Predefined Policy) all of them:

distnoted.exe
AppleMobileDeviceHelper.exe
iTunes.exe
ATH.exe
APSDaemon.exe
MDCrashReportTool.exe
AppleMobileSync.exe
AppleMobileBackup.exe
mDNSResponder.exe
AppleMobileDeviceService.exe
iTunesHelper.exe

Yeah with all those flippin' executables, it's a wonder the bloody thing works at all! 

But not only does everything work, iTunes starts-up again very fast, where before it was taking a minute or more.

In the past when iTunes started "not seeing" my iPhone/iPad/iPods, I would do a System Restore to a point where it DID see them (e.g. a date when I did a backup) and recently not even that worked. I can only assume that somehow one of these things kept changing the comm ports and Firewall lost track of them (I had tried Training mode but that didn't point-out any problems).

Anyway while I think it's fixed, maybe it's not, but for the time being I have a high degree of confidence in the above.

P.S. one more thing: for Windows to see a device as a Camera (it's mounted & visible in Explorer) there apparently needs to be at least one photo on your iDevice. So Apple's driver is very sneaky in not letting Windows at it until it satisfies Apple's needs I guess.

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