File Share Encryption

I appear to have found a bug with PGP Desktop 10.2, or more specifically with PGPTray.exe.

Recently I've been faced with a lot of Explorer crashes usually triggered by right clicking on a file. Event logs indicate that ntdll.dll has caused the crash, but doesn't give much more info than that - the exception codes etc don't mean a lot, even to Google. A colleague has started getting the same with a freshly built laptop running Windows 7 (similar to my own), so I thought I'd investigate a bit.

Short story - after testing with a VM I have found that PGPTray.exe for PGP Desktop 10.2.x causes Explorer to crash. This is present in all versions of 10.2 having tested with 10.2.0 and 10.2.0MP1. Trying with 10.1.2 (Build 26) works perfectly, so I'm very tempted to roll back to this. I've only tested with Windows 7 (32-bit), so I'm not sure if this effects Windows XP or not. The best way to produce the crash is by right clicking on a folder, then right clicking on it again. Crashes every time for me.

I specifically say PGPTray.exe because ending the process gets everything working again as normal.

Has anyone else come across this issue? Any fixes available? I couldn't find anything in the KB at least. What is PGPTray doing to crash Explorer all the time?

Hi James,

What kind of crash? BSOD?

Are you experiencing the issue when connecting through remote desktop?

What kind of file are you right-clicking?

Nah, not a BSOD, Explorer just crashes and restarts (Explorer.exe, not the machine itself).

The issue has occured on the odd occasion when opening Remote Desktop Connection to RDP elsewhere, yes.

I've not tried it on a range of files, but I have noticed that it DOESN'T crash when right clicking between JPGs. It has crashed when right clicking on file types unknown to Windows though - CRW (Canon RAW image), no extension etc, but not always. I've been reproducing the issue when right clicking on a standard folder twice though (as mentioned). Any folder will do from what I've found - right click once, get the menu, right click again and it crashes, in turn restarting Explorer.exe. Normally this would just reproduce the context menu for the folder.

Well,  you can try the following:

Look for values in the registry:

PGP_INSTALL_NETSHARE  set to 0

If this doest fix the issue, try :

PGP_INSTALL_MEMLOCK set to 0

You mentioned that you are on Windows 7 32-bit. do you have SP1 installed from Microsoft or not?

Indeed I do, although the same issue occurred on my old laptop that didn't have SP1.

Setting PGP_INSTALL_MEMLOCK to 0 stops the crashing. I do now get an error about the lack of memory locking though and the possibility of sensitive data becoming available (see attached) - I don't really like the sounds of this, and this isn't ideal for the 2000 machines I will be rolling the update out to eventually :/

Well, in that case you can open a new Case so Symantec Support can start working with you in order to start troubleshooting.

Submit and Manage your Cases online at MySupport:
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=cdlogin

Will do, thanks. Currently got a case logged with our suppliers as we have a support contract with them, so they'll no doubt create the Symantec case if necessary. I'll update as things progress/if I get a solution.

Feedback from our support company regarding this issue. Hopefully there'll be a fix soon!

They [Symantec] have looked over the information you provided and have managed to recreate the issue. They have also been able to simulate the error when applying the workaround PGP_INSTALL_MEMLOCK and acknowledge this isn’t an acceptable fix.

 

Symantec have therefore logged this as a bug and have agreed to inform me when a resolution is found.