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Re: JLink Problem, Fixed More or Less

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg87489] Re: JLink Problem, Fixed More or Less
• From: David Bailey <dave at Remove_Thisdbailey.co.uk>
• Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 01:48:36 -0400 (EDT)
• References: <ftkbdh$bi8$1@smc.vnet.net>

Helen Read wrote:
> Several months ago I reported a problem with Jlink that has become 
> rampant on University-owned and home computers since approximately 
> December or January. Basically what happens is that some / most of the 
> time when launching Mathematica, Mathematica will hang, and eventually 
> pops up an error about failing to connect to Jlink. Usually you can 
> ignore the message and go on, but sometimes worse things happen unless 
> you restart Mathematica. We have also had problems with Mathematica 
> hanging when trying to open up the Documentation Center (though I think 
> the Documentation Center issue may be a bit better with the 6.0.2 release).
> 
> We never saw the Jlink problem until we began switching machines from 
> Norton Antivirus to NOD32 in December/January, at which time the problem 
> became rampant, even on quite speedy new machines. We were hightly 
> suspicious that the problem was related to NOD32, but WRI Tech Support 
> never was able to tell us what the issue was or how to fix it, and 
> several people from WRI assured us that NOD32 was not the culprit.
> 
> Well finally, the whole thing had become so aggravating that we tried 
> temporarily disabling NOD32 on a few test machines. What we found was 
> that the problem stopped when NOD32 was disabled, and returned when 
> NOD32 was turned  back on. We then tried adding the Mathematica 
> installation directory to the NOD32 exclusions, which seems to fix the 
> problem.
> 
> All's well that ends well I guess, and I suppose we should have trusted 
> our own instincts about NOD32 and tested it ourselves far sooner than this.
> 
Great - I am glad that issue is resolved - anti virus software is 
inevitably very invasive because of the problem it is meant to combat. 
Many years ago, the company for which I worked received reports that one 
of our programs contained a virus. After a great deal of hassle, it 
turned out that the anti-virus software in question had tested just 
three bytes at the start of one file, and deduced that it had an infection!

David Bailey
http://www.dbaileyconsultancy.co.uk