ESET GUI not showing in Kubuntu 18.04

[Cybertooth 1]

Tonight I went back to the computer and found the desktop very sluggish when not simply unresponsive. Clicking on items in the taskbar would either do nothing, or open the programs extremely slowly and then the windows would not finish opening.

I ended up doing a hard reboot, but just as I was releasing the power button I noticed that the ESET NOD32 Antivirus for Linux icon in the notification area looked red. After rebooting, the system works normally -- except that the ESET icon is no longer showing up in the notification area. And clicking on ESET from the Application menu does not open the GUI. However, I can see the ESET processes running in KSysGuard.

I am using Kubuntu 18.04 LTS with Plasma version 5.12.9. I think I am on ESET for Linux version 4.95, but I can't remember for sure and of course I can't call up the GUI to verify.

What can I do to get the GUI back? As a Windows refugee, I don't know how else I would make use of the program.

Thanks for any tips or suggestions.

 

[Marcos 4,694]

I assume that libappindicator1 needs to be installed in order for the ESET icon to be displayed (https://support.eset.com/en/kb2653). Did you install it and yet the icon doesn't appear?

[Malzahn 4]

I had the excact same problem yesterday on two kubuntu 18.04 machines, also Plasma 5.12.9.
Absolutely blocked system (only occasionally reaction slightly) with red ESET notifcation icon. Hard reboot, followed by normally working system but not ESET gui icon.
/opt/eset/esets/bin/esets_gui --version
returns 4.0.95 for me.
libappindicator1 was already installed package version 12.10.1+18.04.20180322.1-0ubuntu1
The indicator and gui was also working till yesterday earlier.

Edited November 20, 2020 by Malzahn
clarification of timepoint

[Marcos 4,694]

If you started to have issues yesterday, could you try the following?

1. Stop the esets service : systemctl stop esets
2. Delete content of modules directory in /var/opt/eset/esets/lib/
3. Delete content of update cache directory in /var/opt/eset/esets/lib/data/updfiles/
4. Start esets service, the issue should disappear : systemctl start esets

[Malzahn 4]

For further info:
/opt/eset/esets/sbin/esets_daemon --version
returns 4.0.95

And insepcting/var/log/syslog

shows many messages like the following:

Nov 20 08:37:29 mertins007 systemd[1]: Failed to start ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
Nov 20 08:37:30 mertins007 systemd[1]: esets.service: Service hold-off time over, scheduling restart.
Nov 20 08:37:30 mertins007 systemd[1]: esets.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 2943.
Nov 20 08:37:30 mertins007 systemd[1]: Stopped ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

in between these there is this message:

Nov 20 08:32:04 mertins007 kernel: [52700.292288] audit: type=1400 audit(1605857524.775:463): apparmor="ALLOWED" operation="open" profile="/usr/sbin/sssd" name="/opt/eset/esets/lib/libesets_pac.so" pid=31210 comm="krb5_child" requested_mask="r" denied_mask="r" fsuid=0 ouid=0
Nov 20 08:32:04 mertins007 kernel: [52700.292290] audit: type=1400 audit(1605857524.775:464): apparmor="ALLOWED" operation="file_mmap" profile="/usr/sbin/sssd" name="/opt/eset/esets/lib/libesets_pac.so" pid=31210 comm="krb5_child" requested_mask="rm" denied_mask="rm" fsuid=0 ouid=0
Nov 20 08:32:04 mertins007 kernel: [52700.293724] audit: type=1400 audit(1605857524.775:465): apparmor="ALLOWED" operation="open" profile="/usr/sbin/sssd" name="/etc/opt/eset/esets/info/pkgid" pid=31210 comm="krb5_child" requested_mask="r" denied_mask="r" fsuid=0 ouid=0

Maybe these infos help figuring out the problem.

 

[Malzahn 4]

6 minutes ago, Malzahn said:

For further info:
/opt/eset/esets/sbin/esets_daemon --version
returns 4.0.95

And insepcting/var/log/syslog

shows many messages like the following:

Nov 20 08:37:29 mertins007 systemd[1]: Failed to start ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
Nov 20 08:37:30 mertins007 systemd[1]: esets.service: Service hold-off time over, scheduling restart.
Nov 20 08:37:30 mertins007 systemd[1]: esets.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 2943.
Nov 20 08:37:30 mertins007 systemd[1]: Stopped ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

in between these there is this message:

Nov 20 08:32:04 mertins007 kernel: [52700.292288] audit: type=1400 audit(1605857524.775:463): apparmor="ALLOWED" operation="open" profile="/usr/sbin/sssd" name="/opt/eset/esets/lib/libesets_pac.so" pid=31210 comm="krb5_child" requested_mask="r" denied_mask="r" fsuid=0 ouid=0
Nov 20 08:32:04 mertins007 kernel: [52700.292290] audit: type=1400 audit(1605857524.775:464): apparmor="ALLOWED" operation="file_mmap" profile="/usr/sbin/sssd" name="/opt/eset/esets/lib/libesets_pac.so" pid=31210 comm="krb5_child" requested_mask="rm" denied_mask="rm" fsuid=0 ouid=0
Nov 20 08:32:04 mertins007 kernel: [52700.293724] audit: type=1400 audit(1605857524.775:465): apparmor="ALLOWED" operation="open" profile="/usr/sbin/sssd" name="/etc/opt/eset/esets/info/pkgid" pid=31210 comm="krb5_child" requested_mask="r" denied_mask="r" fsuid=0 ouid=0

Maybe these infos help figuring out the problem.

 

For clarification this was the status before trying marcos steps.

[Malzahn 4]

48 minutes ago, Marcos said:

If you started to have issues yesterday, could you try the following?

1. Stop the esets service : systemctl stop esets
2. Delete content of modules directory in /var/opt/eset/esets/lib/
3. Delete content of update cache directory in /var/opt/eset/esets/lib/data/updfiles/
4. Run update manually : sudo /opt/eset/esets/sbin/esets_update --verbose
5. Deleted modules will be replaced with fresh
6. Start esets service, the issue should disappear : systemctl start esets

I could not see a "modules" directory in /var/opt/eset/esets/lib/ . The only directory is data
Neither removing only the *.dat and files in /var/opt/eset/esets/lib/data/updfiles/ (one machine) nor removing everything in lib (other machine) resulted in success.

I do not have a /opt/eset/esets/sbin/esets_update file the only files in sbin are
esets_daemon  esets_scan  esets_set

Restarting with sudo systemctl start esets resulted in:
Job for esets.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status esets.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

systemctl status esets.service resulted in:

● esets.service - ESET NOD32 Antivirus
  Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/esets.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
  Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Fri 2020-11-20 09:35:54 CET; 4min 41s ago
 Process: 4587 ExecStart=/opt/eset/esets/sbin/esets_daemon (code=exited, status=69)

Nov 20 09:35:50 mertins007 systemd[1]: Starting ESET NOD32 Antivirus...
Nov 20 09:35:54 mertins007 esets_daemon[4587]: error[11eb0000]: Cannot initialize scanner: Module init
Nov 20 09:35:54 mertins007 esets_daemon[4587]: error[11eb0000]: Cannot initialize scanner: Module init
Nov 20 09:35:54 mertins007 systemd[1]: esets.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=69
Nov 20 09:35:54 mertins007 systemd[1]: esets.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Nov 20 09:35:54 mertins007 systemd[1]: Failed to start ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

 

 

[Cybertooth 1]

7 hours ago, Marcos said:

I assume that libappindicator1 needs to be installed in order for the ESET icon to be displayed (https://support.eset.com/en/kb2653). Did you install it and yet the icon doesn't appear?

Thanks, but I had never heard of "libappindicator1". I tried searching for it from the Search window in the Application Menu, but there were no results. After using ESET for Linux for two years, I don't understand why suddenly now I would need this to get the icon to show up.

Anyway, I tried the instructions in the link you provided; libappindicator1 and libappindicator7 got installed, but the ESET icon did not appear. Do I need to reboot?

 

[Cybertooth 1]

6 hours ago, Malzahn said:

I could not see a "modules" directory in /var/opt/eset/esets/lib/ . The only directory is data
Neither removing only the *.dat and files in /var/opt/eset/esets/lib/data/updfiles/ (one machine) nor removing everything in lib (other machine) resulted in success.

I do not have a /opt/eset/esets/sbin/esets_update file the only files in sbin are
esets_daemon  esets_scan  esets_set

[...]

My directories are structured the same way as those of @Malzahn. That is, I don't have a "modules" directory under /var/opt and the only one there is "data". Nor is there an "esets_update" file under /opt/eset--my files there match Malzahn's. I haven't tried removing any files anywhere.

The log files show thousands of instances of a sequence that runs as follows:

Nov 20 09:30:28 xxxxxxxx systemd[1]: Starting ESET NOD32 Antivirus...
Nov 20 09:30:32 xxxxxxxx systemd[1]: esets.service: Control process exited, code=dumped status=11
Nov 20 09:30:32 xxxxxxxx systemd[1]: esets.service: Failed with result 'core-dump'.
Nov 20 09:30:32 xxxxxxxx systemd[1]: Failed to start ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
Nov 20 09:30:32 xxxxxxxx systemd[1]: esets.service: Service hold-off time over, scheduling restart.
Nov 20 09:30:32 xxxxxxxx systemd[1]: esets.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 8572.
Nov 20 09:30:32 xxxxxxxx systemd[1]: Stopped ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

And then the cycle immediately starts over again with the first line.

 

Edited November 20, 2020 by Cybertooth
typos

[Malzahn 4]

Hi @Marcos, Your previous suggestions didn't work for me or @Cybertooth as posted by both of us on Friday. We also could not completely execute them, since we don't have an esets_update program. Maybe these instructions are for a different linux software version (e.g. the buisiness version)? We also provided additional information on Friday in case they might be useful. Please advice how to proceed.

[Marcos 4,694]

16 hours ago, Malzahn said:

Hi @Marcos, Your previous suggestions didn't work for me or @Cybertooth as posted by both of us on Friday. We also could not completely execute them, since we don't have an esets_update program. Maybe these instructions are for a different linux software version (e.g. the buisiness version)? We also provided additional information on Friday in case they might be useful. Please advice how to proceed.

I've tried it myself and edited the steps for NOD32 Antivirus for Linux desktop as follows:

1. Stop the esets service : systemctl stop esets
2. Delete content of modules directory in /var/opt/eset/esets/lib/
3. Delete content of update cache directory in /var/opt/eset/esets/lib/data/updfiles/
4. Start esets service, the issue should disappear : systemctl start esets

[Malzahn 4]

Concretely I've done the following:

sudo systemctl stop esets
sudo rm /var/opt/eset/esets/lib/*
sudo rm -r /var/opt/eset/esets/lib/data/updfiles/*
sudo systemctl start esets
Result in a a few minutes of downloading data (network load) etc with no terminal output followed by:

Job for esets.service failed because a timeout was exceeded.
See "systemctl status esets.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

sudo systemctl status esets

Results in the following terminal output:

● esets.service - ESET NOD32 Antivirus
  Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/esets.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
  Active: failed (Result: timeout) since Mon 2020-11-23 10:50:16 CET; 1min 20s ago
 Process: 5292 ExecStart=/opt/eset/esets/sbin/esets_daemon (code=killed, signal=TERM)

Nov 23 10:48:45 mertins007 systemd[1]: Starting ESET NOD32 Antivirus...
Nov 23 10:50:16 mertins007 systemd[1]: esets.service: Start operation timed out. Terminating.
Nov 23 10:50:16 mertins007 systemd[1]: esets.service: Failed with result 'timeout'.
Nov 23 10:50:16 mertins007 systemd[1]: Failed to start ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

Trying sudo systemctl start esets fails with the same message as above, but sudo systemctl status esets results in:

● esets.service - ESET NOD32 Antivirus                                                        
  Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/esets.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled) 
  Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Mon 2020-11-23 10:53:48 CET; 31s ago
 Process: 5582 ExecStart=/opt/eset/esets/sbin/esets_daemon (code=exited, status=69)
Nov 23 10:53:44 mertins007 systemd[1]: Starting ESET NOD32 Antivirus...
Nov 23 10:53:48 mertins007 esets_daemon[5582]: error[15ce0000]: Cannot initialize scanner: Module init
Nov 23 10:53:48 mertins007 esets_daemon[5582]: error[15ce0000]: Cannot initialize scanner: Module init
Nov 23 10:53:48 mertins007 systemd[1]: esets.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=69
Nov 23 10:53:48 mertins007 systemd[1]: esets.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Nov 23 10:53:48 mertins007 systemd[1]: Failed to start ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
 

So for me unfortunately no success for me.
Please let me know if I interpreted your instructions wrong and or how to proceed.

[Cybertooth 1]

14 hours ago, Marcos said:

I've tried it myself and edited the steps for NOD32 Antivirus for Linux desktop as follows:

1. Stop the esets service : systemctl stop esets
2. Delete content of modules directory in /var/opt/eset/esets/lib/
3. Delete content of update cache directory in /var/opt/eset/esets/lib/data/updfiles/
4. Start esets service, the issue should disappear : systemctl start esets

Thank you for the new set of instructions. Two notes about the new instructions:

1. I don't have a directory named "modules" under /var/opt/eset/esets/lib/. There is only a "data" subdirectory and several files with names em0XX_32.dat.
2. I tried to delete the contents of /var/opt/eset/esets/lib/data/updfiles/ in Dolphin by using Ctrl-A and then Delete, but nothing happened, they are all still there.

 

[Cybertooth 1]

Since I cannot carry out the instructions (as described in my previous post), is there anything else I can do to fix this problem?

 

[Marcos 4,694]

What about the easiest way - uninstalling ESET and installing 4.0.96 from scratch?

[Cybertooth 1]

After uninstalling, would you recommend that I download a new copy from this page, or that I re-install the copy I already have in my Downloads directory?

The difference is not trivial. The ESET downloads page says that file is version 4.0.90.0 with a filename of eset_nod32av_32bit_en_.linux (file size 83.6 MiB), while the program file I already had in the Downloads directory is eset_nod32av_64bit_en95.linux (file size 103.9 MiB). Which one should I use when reinstalling?

Thank you.

 

[Marcos 4,694]

On ESET's download page there is version 4.0.96 for download:

[Cybertooth 1]

Weird, I am not getting any choices for 4.0.96, only for 4.0.90:

 

Whether I select the 32-bit or the 64-bit version in the dropdown menu, it's still 4.0.90 and not 4.0.96.

 

[Marcos 4,694]

Please post the url from the address bar when you're on the download page.

[Cybertooth 1]

I posted it above as an embedded link, but here it is again: https://www.eset.com/us/home/antivirus-linux/download/

 

[Marcos 4,694]

Really weird, everything seems be same but I'm offered the latest v4.0.96:

The download link is as follows:

https://download.eset.com/com/eset/apps/home/eav/linux/latest/eset_nod32av_64bit_en.linux

[Cybertooth 1]

Yes, very strange. I can't imagine what could be going on. I even tried visiting that page using a different browser (Pale Moon) and got the same result, 4.0.90.0.

OK, so it looks like I have three choices:

1. Uninstall the current broken version and then reinstall it. (I think that's the "en95" 64-bit file mentioned above.)
2. Install the 64-bit version from the downloads page that may or may not be version 4.0.90.0.
3. Use a direct link (if you have a way to provide one) for the 64-bit 4.0.96 version.

 

[Cybertooth 1]

Of the three choices listed in the post above, which one should I go with? My preference would be to use a direct download link to the new version, to avoid this weird issue where I'm not seeing the correct one (4.0.96) on the download page.

Second choice would be to reinstall my current version.

If the version on the downloads page is indeed 4.0.90, I would rather not install that one because that version made my Chromium-based browsers crash repeatedly. A fix for that was issued in a later version of ESET for Linux.

 

[Cybertooth 1]

I went ahead and uninstalled, then reinstalled, the version that I currently have (4.0.95). The icon is back and the GUI is working again. But they already disappeared once, so we will see how long they last.

BTW I visited, in Windows 7 on a different computer, the same Downloads page that was linked to above, and it too gives version 4.0.90 as the only choice for downloading.

 

[Malzahn 4]

Uninstall and reinstall worked for me, too. While working, this is not a satisfactory solution since I had to redo all the configuration. And as Cybertooth pointed out - let's see how long it lasts.