Hi guys,

I recently installed ZoneAlarm Firewall on my Win 7 setup.
I use Ableton 10.1 from R2R and always had turned off the auto-update option in the preferences.
I can use Live whenever connected to the internet or not, never had a problem with it.

So, now when I launch Live, the firewall tells me that it wants to access the internet, so I reply no. Then Live crashes and doesn't load. I then say yes, and the firewall asks me if the Plugin Scanner can access the internet..in doubt I say no, and ableton crashes...

So, question is, is there something I missed from ZoneAlarm? Or is it just a trick that R2R uses to keep Live authorized? As I could use Ableton with and without the internet with no problem before that, I'm curious about the real issues that could happen with VST wanting to connect themselves in the future...

Any help or tips are welcome!

 

Had the same problem for more than a year
I had to turn off third party's antivirus and firewall. ( one would crash ableton, the other would crash sylenth1 )

 

Really interesting. Now i'm curious to know why would ableton feel the need to connect to the internet and if not allowed just crash. R2R is trusted, but this feels just strange. It would be good to know if the legit Ableton, if blocked by firewall, crashes too or if it runs smoothly.
If anyone can provide more info, please do so.

 

ableton's internet connection hast to be blocked, of course. but it communicates with its indexer via tcp/ip, dont block it! this connection is on the same host, easy to filter.

 

Just curious, why would it not crash when you block the exe from windows defender, and when you block it from third party firewalls it crashes? this is what i'm not understanding

 

thomas78 I wonder how you can achieve that? because in ZoneAlarm I can see that Live and Plugin Scanner have access (otherwise Live won't load), but no sign of Indexer... also again I wonder why it needs to be able to connect as it's working fine also disconnected...strange

 

I block it using malwarebytes windows firewall control never had issues

 

So I'm guessing that it's not Ableton per-se but rather a newly installed VST that itself wants to go online (for whatever reason - authorization, usage data tracking etc)

Have you installed a vst recently? If yes, this is most likely your culprit.

 

Legit Ableton here on Win10. Malwarebytes Windows Firewall Control set to "block everything" and "ask" since the OS install (and I can see, ableton blocked). Not a single crash.. if this helps.

 

What's the difference between Malwarebytes windows firewall and just windows firewall? is it a separate app from normal malwarebytes antivirus?

 

Very simplified, it is an additional user interface for management of windows firewall. Some people (like me) find windows firewall powerful enough, but not very user friendly to work with. Among other things WFC has a context menu to quickly block an app (out, in, both), notifications when app is trying to establish a connection, you can permit access of an app to the net for a set time, manage rules, find duplicates, non valid, etc etc..

Yes, it has nothing to do with MB AV. It was developed by binisoft and bc of it's popularity, Malwarebytes just bought it ;)
You have all the features (and download) here: https://www.binisoft.org/wfc.php

 

Some plugins try to access the internet when Plugin Scanner checks them. I've seen the same behavior with other hosts when they scan for plugins, so it's not an Ableton only thing. You could let Plugin Scanner have access or maybe stop Ableton from scanning for new plugins at startup. I'm using Comodo Firewall here, not getting any crashes with Ableton blocked.

 

so yes I removed ZoneAlarm, and installed WFC instead, blocked Abelton and it runs fine for now!