Ver. 10 Network Detection Concerns

[itman 1,659]

Before I get into this I will state that ever since I have been on ver. 10, I have not received one notification about a new network detection. This is the exact opposite behavior that occurred on ver. 8 and 9 that were "alerting" almost to a fault. I verified that the option to detect new networks was enabled. Also, this behavior persists whether the firewall is set to Interactive mode or the default Automatic w/inbound Win firewall rules applied. Note that I am currently using the Win firewall public profile.

After I had installed ver. 386 recently, I checked the known networks setting and found what is posted in the below screen shot. Most disconcerting to me was that Eset created a duplicate entry for my Wi-Fi adapter connection and didn't even set the wireless security type correctly resulting in a totally insecure connection. Also I don't know why it created a connection for attlocal.net specifically referencing  the DHCP server IP address on my gateway/router. Attlocal.net is the dns suffix used in the 2WIRE352 connection. Not sure the previous activity was directly related to the .386 upgrade since I had not checked the know network settings in a while but strongly suspect it.

 

Edited January 17, 2017 by itman

[itman 1,659]

After running for two weeks w/o issue after a clean install of ver. 10 .386, this issue started again. Pretty sure I know what is the cause of it.

Before I get into this, I did find out why I am not getting any new network detection alerts. In the "Known networks" section, "Protection type of new networks" has to be set to "Ask user." If it is set to the default "Use Windows settings", all you receive is Windows audible alert signaling new device detection e.g. same as when plug-in/unplug a USB device.

Next  my network configuration.

D-Link wireless USB adapter -> Uverse WAP -> Uverse Ethernet router.

Eset's networking for some reason has an issue with DHCP negotiation w/above network configuration. This also occurred with the prior release of ver. 10 and is most pronounced when running the firewall in Interactive mode. It is also almost always caused when resuming from Win 10 stand-by mode which initiates a new DHCP handshake process.

What happens is Eset will create a new network connection for attlocal.net which is the DNS suffix assigned to the 2WIRE352 wireless adapter shown in my prior posting. Of note is that ipconfig /all identifies the wireless connection by this DNS suffix. For this new attlocal.net Eset connection, DHCP is initialized with the IP address of the DHCP server on the Uverse Ethernet router.  Network adapter type is set to wireless network adapter. No other fields are initialized; most importantly wireless security type.

Finally the coup de gras, Eset then sets the Connected Network setting to this insecure attlocal.net connection. No amount of editing I tried would change this attlocal.net connection to 2WIRE352 which is the correct connection. Only solution is to reboot the PC at which time the Connected Network connection properly shows 2WIRE352.

-EDIT- I forgot to mention that after I had installed release .386 as noted above, I imported my previous .ver 10 settings. Eset created a duplicate 2WIRE352 wireless adapter connection. This I could tolerate. What I cannot tolerate is when it did not set the wireless security type on this duplicate connection which had been previously been set to WPA-2.

So Eset there clearly is a problem with ver. 10 network detection.

Edited January 25, 2017 by itman

[itman 1,659]

Since my last posting, this issue has occurred twice.

I can definitely state it occurs upon resume from Win 10 stand by mode but is an unpredictable occurrence.

The most recent occurrence did trigger an alert from Eset that a new network connection was detected. I hope that was not a "fluke occurrence" and that issue has been resolved via internal module update. I am getting tired of checking my connected network status each time when resuming from stand by. 

Most troubling to me is that this issue is not predictable which make diagnosis next to impossible. It may also be that my D-Link USB wireless adapter intermittently "hiccups" upon startup from standby and Eset network detection can't handle it. I long ago disabled the adapter power saving setting no to avail in regards to this issue.