Re: "Microsoft Reporting Error" bug in Tiger?

On 9/3/05 3:23 PM, in article BF3F7070.4338E%daiyaNOSPAM@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
"Daiya Mitchell" <daiyaNOSPAM@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi Norman,
>
> 3) I did check to make sure the MacBU had picked it up from here, and will
> report it again if I don't get confirmation.

Thanks very much for doing that and for your thoughtful response, Daiya.


> 1) That's an interesting guess...is this just the OS firewall or a
> third-party product? Do you have Little Snitch or NetBarrier installed,
> both of which have been implicated in other issues? Or any other similar
> product?
> [Could everyone seeing this problem answer that? Three people should be
> enough to sort out a common trigger]

> Do you have funky settings on the OS firewall?


I'm using Norton Personal Firewall 10.0.3.
The following are checked:
Enable Stealth Mode
Enable Stealth Mode for Bonjour traffic
Deny outgoing suspicious traffic.
Deny incoming suspicious traffic
Enable UDP Protection
Allow access to essential services
At the moment, I have "protect a range of UDP reports 1 through 1024. (When
I started having MRE freezeups, I unchecked "protect all UDP ports" and
"protect outgoing UDP connections.")
>
>
> Except, when Entourage crashes on me, MERP (MS Error Reporting something,
> Program I guess) says it doesn't check for a network until after I say "OK,
> send the report." At what point does MERP crash on you? After you say OK,
> or as it launches?

It freezes up before ANY dialogue appears just as the MRE icon begins
bouncing in the dock. It has never given me a chance to send a report.
>
> I guess Office isn't crashing regularly enough for you to temporarily
> disconnect from the internet, turn off your firewall, and see if that works?
> :)
>
> 2) I don't have a clue about port numbers...
>
> Corentin, in answer to you, actually, said a while back:
> " You can also set NPF [Norton Personal Firewall] to allow Office to
> communicate through these ports.
> You don't have to make an entry for every port. You can select a range
> of ports instead.
> I think Office uses port 2222 and ports greater than 3000. "
> And there's a mention of 3464 somewhere, but all this with reference to the
> license-checking, no idea whether it would use the same ports. Have you
> tried giving Office wider access?

I have special settings for ports 2222, 3464 and all other ports between
3000 and 4000 with the exceptions of ports needed for my fax program and
program linking. Initially, I had denied incoming and outgoing traffic for
the suspect ports that used to conflict with Entourage. Since the problems
have arisen, I allowed outgoing, but left incoming denied. I'm experimenting
one by one now. A couple days ago, I went back to "deny all" on outgoing on
port 2222. If a couple weeks pass with no problems, I'll do the same on
3464. On "all others" outgoing is allowed, but incoming denied.
>
> Or give the application Microsoft Error Reporting (in apps/ms office/office)
> some privileges of its own?

I changed nothing there since installing Office 2004. I just now checked
and MRE has "read & write" for "You can", for "owner" access, and for for
"group" access. "Others" are "read only." Does that sound OK?
>
> 4) I didn't suggest a safe-boot, just a safe login. Boot regularly, then
> hold down shift as you login to your user account. All it does is prevent
> account startup items from loading (and you could turn those off manually,
> this is just easier). I think a shift-boot does a *lot* more than just
> prevent startup programs from running.
>
Thanks, too, for the lesson on bypassing account startup items.
>
Respectfully, Norm


> On 9/3/05 2:36 PM, "Norman R. Nager, Ph.D." wrote:
>
>> Thanks for responding, Daiya. My very strong hunch is that my particular
>> firewall settings that deny traffic through certain ports somehow are
>> interfering with Microsoft Reporting Error "calling home."
>>
>> 1. Is there any way to disable Microsoft Error Reporting and, thus, prevent
>> its inability to complete its task with causing Tiger to freeze?
>>
>> 2. Is there a way to figure out which port/s Microsoft Error Reporting
>> needs to have open? If so, does that port or ports need to be open for
>> outgoing, incoming or all traffic?
>>
>> 3. If at all possible, could you report the bug through your channels,
>> please?
>>
>> Because the incidents are spasmodic as well as occasional-to-rare, safe
>> boots (shift-down) would not be helpful in focusing on the cause.
>>
>> Respectfully, Norm
>>
>> On 9/3/05 8:42 AM, in article BF3F125F.43280%daiyaNOSPAM@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
>> "Daiya Mitchell" <daiyaNOSPAM@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>> Haven't a clue re the error reporting bug, sorry Norman. :( Obviously, not
>>> everyone is seeing this.
>>>
>>> Norman, John, and Mark: Can you shift-login into your user account (to turn
>>> off all startup programs) for a little bit and see if possibly one of them
>>> was interfering? Or see if the same happens in a new user account?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 9/2/05 7:50 PM, "Norman R. Nager, Ph.D." wrote:
>>>
>>>> Unlike some of the others in this thread my biggest problem is in the
>>>> Microsoft Reporting Error process.
>>>>
>>>> Office 2004's "Microsoft Reporting Error" sub-application or script,
>>>> itself,
>>>> appears to have bugs.
>>>>
>>>> On every single occasion that it's been activated during Entourage or Word
>>>> operations, "Microsoft Reporting Error" ITSELF freezes.
>>>>
>>>> Force-quit, then, has failed to quit either "MRE" or the in-trouble Office
>>>> application.
>>>>
>>>> Usually, after after MRE is dancing in the dock (but never functioning),
>>>> it has jammed even Activity Monitor and normal Finder shutdown. It has
>>>> never responded to Force Quit and only on a couple occasions responded to
>>>> killing the MRE and other frozen Office process in Activity Monitor.
>>>>
>>>> On re-starting the computer, no problems can be found when running Disk
>>>> Utility, DiskWarrior 3.0.3, or TechTool Pro 4.0.5. Rebuilding Entourage
>>>> 11.1 does not prevent the problem from re-occurring nor does removing the
>>>> Word normal template.
>>>>
>>
>

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