Having been on the receiving end of an Apple ipad “brick”, courtesy of Comodo Firewall, I have been following posts on the subject relating to the Itunes “Unknown” error 3014 with interest. I am running Comodo program version 8.2.0.5027 on a Windows 7 SP1 64k. As most of the posts relate to earlier versions of Comodo CIS, I think I can safely assume that the problem has yet to be fixed.
The latest work round that appears to work for those that have tried it, is to suspend the “Enable website filtering (Recommended)” under “Firewall/Website Filtering”. I have to say here that I have not tried this work round as every time error 3014 appears on itunes when updating the ipad, I have to give the ipad to some one who doesn’t have Comodo on their PC to get it to work. I don’t want to use up my options here unless it is really necessary! (Switching the Antivirus and Firewall both to off doesn’t make any difference and don’t suggest uninstalling/reinstalling CIS as that appears to be a whole barrel of worms in itself!)
What I am trying to understand is what “Website Filtering” actually does. I have read the Comodo help information and I think I understand the basics but when I go through the options nothing appears to be set. For example Under Rules there are only Allowed Sites and Blocked sites, which are both operative as a default, nothing being set under Categories. If you then edit “Allowed Sites” you end up with “Safe” sites and “Exclusions” both of which appear to have no further entries other than “Restrictions” which permit “Everyone” with an “Allow”. The “Blocked Sites” has the categories of “Malware” and “Phishing” with a “Restriction” of “Everyone” with a “Block” restriction.
If you then edit “Safe Sites”, “Exclusions”, “Malware” and “Phishing” you end up with the default Categories again which don’t appear to have any data in them.
So in summary, “Safe Sites” and ”Exclusions” under “Allowed Sites” both have all users to “Allow” and “Malware” and Phishing” under “Blocked Sites” has all users to “Block”.
So what is causing the problem with the Apple Update especially as nothing additional has been set? I would be interested to see what happens if the Blocked sites under rules are temporary switched off – has anybody tried this yet?
From the help link above, the following is from the text:-
“CIS also ships with two predefined rules, ‘Allowed Sites’ and ‘Blocked sites’, both of which are modifiable. If switched on, the ‘Blocked sites’ rule will proactively block access to websites in the ‘Comodo defined Malware sites’ and ‘Comodo defined Phishing Sites’ categories. If you wish, you can add other categories to this rule to expand its coverage. The ‘Allowed Sites’ rule will permit access to websites in the Comodo ‘Safe Sites’ category and ‘Exclusions’ categories.
The fourth preset, ‘Exclusions’, is empty by default but allows you to specify websites that should be allowed. You should add URLs to the ‘Exclusions’ category over time if you find you require access to a website which is blocked by a category”
From the above, if I read it correctly, Comodo is saying that defined sites for Malware and Phishing have access automatically blocked, whereas Comodo Safe Sites are permitted access. To me it looks like Apple Sites are falling to a rogue Comodo definition somewhere or Website Filtering is picking up some routines that are not fully explained within the Comodo Firewall.
Finally, is it just a simple matter of adding Apple sites to the “Exclusions” preset because the Comodo “Safe Sites” category has a deficiency somewhere that doesn’t include all the necessary data?
Any comments/views on the above welcome.
