I use a clean Windows 7 installation (with all MS updates) image on real hardware to test CIS.
CIS runs with its default clean configuration (with some small tweaks) created at CIS install time.
I didn’t try that, unplugging the network cable is much quicker and easier to do in my case.
Some Windows 10 users have this issue but not all of them, you’re one of the lucky ones.
But still some customers are reporting this problem and they are not sure about when this happens. I will request our developers to focus on this issue.
I suspect its cause by the "fast startup" feature in the power settings which is in default. I suspect disabling the "fast startup feature" should fix it. I havent had that issue in a long long time, so I cant test it myself. Maybe someone here can try it for windows 10 and 8. I dont think windows 7 has that feature, but i could be wrong
I have “fast startup” disabled and the icon is still flickering for me, like a candle in the wind.
With the amount of people reporting this issue, it’s fascinating that the dev do not encounter it. The question I think should be reversed: What settings should the program tell the users to apply in order to have a stable icon?
Not that I purposely look for the icon too much, but the fact that it is sometimes there, sometimes not there, I’m just curious as to how long this hide and seek game can go on.
Maybe someone could try the “network cable unplug re-plug” trick (see my previous post #51) to see if that brings back the icon when it is hidden on Windows 10 or 8.
If that brings back the icon than that could presumably guide the devs in the right direction I guess.
Your description fits what I have observed pretty well. On Windows 7 the icon is always there. On Windows 10 it’s really weird. On one of my Windows 10 Home desktop, the icon always shows fine. On my daily driver Windows 10 Pro, the icon disappears and reappears on boot randomly. Sometimes it’s there, sometimes it’s not.
And no it is not related to “fast boot”. I always have that disabled.
Here’s the interesting part though. Like what you observed, unplug/replug network cable, will make the icon appear. For me personally, I have a script that disable/enable the LAN adaptor so I don’t have to physically unplug/replug.
This is with icon traffic animation enabled in settings:
on boot, the icon is invisible, my network adaptor is disabled. I always disable before reboot/shutdown.
enable network adaptor.
Connection established, traffic animation begins, which brings back the icon! It is visible again at this point, and it also stays visible even after I disable the adaptor again.
However this will only last until the next reboot/shutdown, then it is invisible again at boot. Although sometimes it is visible at boot, but VERY RARELY. So it is quite random.
Also for anyone interested in this but do not want to physically unplug/replug the actual network cable.
Look into a very neat tool from Microsoft called “DevCon”, from Microsoft Driver Kit.
You can go to this Wordpress link to find the tool kindly extracted by the blog author from the Driver Kit: Device Console Utility (DevCon.exe) Repository – Networchestration If you don’t trust this source then you’ll have to download the entire Driver Kit (600MB-ish) and extract the DevCon.exe (80KB) file yourself…
edit: nevermind the above, the article changed a lot from last time I visited and now the download links are directly from Microsoft…
The syntax for this tool is:
devcon.exe -enable
devcon.exe -disable
Make a shortcut and pin to taskbar for easy “hardware” network switch! ;D
ive already longer noticed that since the last update to v12.2.2.7098 CIS does not appear in the systray after start up Windows (10). It is very randomly and unregulary - sometimes 15 Windows restarts CIS will appear and then start upping Windows 2 times in a row then CIS does not appear in the systray if you see this:
IVe already tryed everything like the command to delete the icon cache with following command which always helps if icons of shortlinks missing:
“taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
cd /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local
del IconCache.db /a
start C:\Windows\explorer.exe”
And it does not help. If CIS systray again missing only help is shortly sign out your WIndows user acc and sign in again but this is of course annoying. Then CIS systray is again there if you see this:
Explorer.exe crashes one or two times daily on my Windows 7 machine.
After explorer is restarted firewall icon is ALWAYS missing from systray.
Other non-system software properly restore their icons.
SOMETIMES problem is fixed when I log out and log in again.
But SOMETIMES (less often) after log out and log in icon is invisible,
ie. there is empty reserved space on systray.
Then I need to restart computer to fix it.
An explorer restart simply isn’t the same thing as rebooting or restarting your system.
At boot time the system is initialized from scratch and all background applications and services are started anew.
This full initialization does not happen when you just perform an explorer restart, when you restart explorer only a few background applications and services are started anew but certainly not all.
FYI, after boot I have 9 systray icons, when I kill explorer.exe in Task Manager and then restart it I only get back 2 systray icons, so 7 are missing.
The point is, when you explorer crashes it is best to reboot you system as it has become unstable.
And if I where you, I would check why explorer crashes so often and try to fix that.
I have lots of tools with shell integration installed. Must be one of them.
Explorer.exe just shows desktop and folders. All state is saved to disk. It’s safe to restart it.
Some program handle explorer restart and others not. Requires some extra code.
Eg. GDATA antivirus restores icon.
Update on my computer shows that 12.2.2.7098 is latest version…
I had similar problem year ago. I had to use uninstall tool
and download latest installer manually.
Might be another bug???
BTW. I use Comodo Firewall since 2005 or maybe 2006
I agree it should update automatically to the latest version but for some reason Comodo didn’t push latest version to the program updater yet.
For your convenience, it is possible to install the latest version on top of your current version (so without having to uninstall your current version first).
Export config and File List first if need be.
As a long time CIS user you know where to download the latest version. :-TU
Just received a brand new Windows 10 Home system, applied all latest Win 10 Home updates (build 20H2 19042.1055), installed latest (v 12.2.2.8012) CIS Premium, deinstalled Comodo AV as I use a different antivirus, installed Comodo Shopping.
After a couple reboots, systray icon is invisible (I see the placeholder for it and I can right-click on it as well as mouse-over to see status, but it’s a blank square!)
Subsequent reboots sometimes help and other times not - still blank square!
I’ve seen other reports of blank icon and claims this was fixed in 2020 and then again in 2021 but apparently still not - I’ve never seen this issue on my Win 10 Pro system where it always shows up.
V12.2.2.8012 (Firewall only) Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (clean install with all MS-updates)
Usually I have “Turn traffic animation effects on” switched on (ticked, enabled) so I never noticed the following before.
When I do switch the setting off the CIS tray icon is hidden after reboot and instead an empty placeholder is shown in the tray.
Right clicking on the empty placeholder works normally and shows the CIS context menu as usual.
The CIS tray icon appears again after selecting “Exit” from the CIS context menu and restarting CIS from the desktop (double clicking on COMODO Firewall desktop icon).
So in short:
Animation on : no issue at all on Windows 7.
Animation off : icon is hidden after reboot, exiting and restarting CIS brings back the icon immediately.
Then CIS systray is again there if you see this:
