Norton System Works ccApp.exe memory usage Options

[klutek]

I recently did a clean install to upgrade from Norton System Works 2004 Professional to NSW 2005 under Windows XP SP2.

Since that time I have been getting low virtual memory errors. When I open Windows Task manager it shows ccApp.exe is using 500,000+ MB. Immediately after a reboot ccApp.exe task manager shows usage of 24,000-32,000 KB. The system has 1 GB of RAM installed, and immediately after booting has 400,00-500,000 KB of physical memory available. CPU usage in both cases is minimal 0-1%.

The low virtual memory error usually shows up after the system has been sitting idle for several hours. This problem did not occur with NSW 2004.

The Symantec automated support assistant detected no problems with NSW 2005 or AV 2005. A search of the knowledge base for ccApp.exe or low virtual memory yielded no helpful results. There doesn't seem to be any email support available on Symantec's website.

Norton AV scans find no problems. Malware scans by SpyBot Search & Destroy, Lava soft Ad-aware SE, and the Microsoft Anti-spyware beta detect no problems.

Anyone have any suggestions on solution of this problem or know of any software conflicts that may be causing it? Thanks for any help.

The low virtual memeory seems to cause problems for Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) 4.45 which is set to run when the computer is is idle on seti@home, Einstein@home, LHC@home and ProteinProdictoratHome projects. I started seeing projects being returned for computational errors. This did not happen when NSW 2004 was installed.


Hardware Configuration
Pentium 4 3.20Ghz CPU with Hyper-Threading Technology (Northwood mPGA-478 package)
Socket 478
Lvl 1 Data Cache 8KB and 12KB Execution Trace Cache
LVL 2 cACHE 512K
800 MHz FS Bus
1.00 GB RAM PC-3200 DDR-400 (2 x 512KB) 184 pin DIMM (max 4 GB)
Intel Motherboard D865PERC AAC28180-405 ATX Form factor
Intel BIOS 10/14/03 RC86510A.86A.0024.p09.0310141226
INTEL 865P/PE/G/i848P Rev. A2 cHIPSET
ACPI
1 8x/4x AGP 3.0 compliant slot (0 free)
6 32-bit Bus-mastering PCI slots (4 free)
onboard primary and secondary
onboard floppy drive controller

Microsoft Windows XP Professional Version 2002 SP2

Samsung SP1614N 3.5" HD 160GB 7200 RPM UltraDMA ATA/100 (c:) (master Primary IDE channel)
JLMS XJ-HD1665 DVD-ROM 16x (d:) (master secondary IDE channel)
LITE-ON DVDRW LDW-851S DVD+/-RW 8x4x12 (e:) (slave secondary IDE channel)
3.5" 1.44 MB Floppy Drive (A:)
NVIDIA Geforce FX 5200 8x AGP 128 MB DDR SDRAM s video, VGA 15 pin, DVI
56k Lucent Win V.90 Fax/Modem PCI PCI slot 5
PS/2 Windows Keyboard
PS/2 Optical scroll Mouse
Integrated 10/100 Ethernet MB
Integrated AC97 SoundBlaster compatible Audio Chipset 16 bit Stereo 6 Channel
IEEE 1394 Firewire 6 pin PCI (3 ports) PCI slot 3 com3
USB 2.0 Type A (6 Ports)

[klutek]

PS

I have run Live Update on the Norton System Work 2005, and it reports all products and compoments are up to date.

[dlacey]

I have a fix for this problem. It seems to me that ccApp.exe had a memory leak that was activated each time the alert box shows - about 470K each time!. I noticed that the personal firewall was generating the message "Rules generated for the program: Microsoft Generic Host Process for Win32 Services" every few minutes, and eating into my virtual memory each time.
This can be solved in the following way
Open NIS - click personal firewall - click configure - click programs tag - in the Manual Program Control Listbox look for the program Microsoft Generic Host Process for Win32 Services, and change the Internet Access setting to "Permit All". Click OK and thats it - don't remember if I had to reboot.

Let me know if it works

Dave

[klutek]

Thanks for the reply, it put me on the right track.

Norton Systemworks 5.0 does not include the Norton Internet Firewall, but the Norton Antivirus part does include Internet Worm protection. I had not considered that was the problem since the memory leaks would mainly happen when my dialup connection was off line.

I could watch ccApp.exe memory usage in the memory manager go up about 40-50k every 2 seconds or so. As soon as I disabled the Internet Worm Protection, the memory usage stopped increasing.

Checking under Antivus, reports, view activity log, Norton Internet Worm Protection, Activities - I could see it was showing a default block on a time synchronization program about every 2 seconds. It was never showing any type of alert popup though.

Details: No logged in account. The present default action is to "block" communications.
Local address: All local network adapters(time(37)).
Process name is

I went to Norton System Worksworks, Options, Norton Antivirus, Internet Worm Protection, Program Control, and added a permit rule for that program. When I reactivated Internet Worm Protection, the memory usage stopped increasing.

ccApp.exe seems to behave better now. If found that I did not reboot frequently, the memory leakage would eventually crash ccApp.exe. Caught that fact the first time I tried to download email to Outlook and it could not connect to the mail servers.

I had stopped running BOINC projects. restarted them after making the change to Norton Internet Worm Protection and it seems to have eliminated the client errors.

Again thanks for the help.

[dlacey]

I used to work in the software industry, but became disillusioned with the industry, partly because of pressures to release products that were not properly tested. Isn't it amazing that a company like Symantec can produce memory leaks that can bring down a machine, especially on absolutely standard usage. So much for QA control of releases.

[caitie]

I want to thank glacey for sharing the information about Norton Internet Security and the
memory leak. I tried their solution and it worked. Thanks!

[Juliet]

If in the future you need to contact Symantec here is a link to reach email support...
Submit your question

[caitie]

It was dlacey who helped me, not glacey, sorry.
I contacted Symantec via email and they gave me a document about
how to clean up my machine to optimize it. They didn't address the specific
issue I was having. Following dlacey's instructions fixed my individual problem, however