Why does symantec live update progress stop under the n in connecting and never complete?

Question

I have downloaded newer versions and reinstalled and checked for files or network errors - still it does nothing. Have to use smart update every week instead. Their support is useless, anybody else know why it won't run?

gregp - did you uninstall/reinstall the live-update after you removed the dial-up entries? Because I also just lately removed the dial up entries - but it goes no further than before, for me.

Answer 1

It could be any number of things. Sounds like you have done quite a bit of troubleshooting already.
Check your hosts file C:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Make sure you are opening the file that has no extension at the end of it.
Some viruses put entries in there that would foul up access to antivirus autoupdate sites. Even after they are detected and "cleaned" the hosts file might retain the damage.
if you havnt edited this file yourself and you see a bunch of entries in there, you might opt to put a file extension of .old on it and copy the one called hosts.sam to hosts
Resubmit question if this doesnt work.

Answer 2

I have fought this battle on my computer and my wife's since June 2006, and I only finally fixed it last night. The answer was on the Symantec web site as "Live Update stops at 20-30%..." Solution 2 Step 3: Remove unneeded dial-up entries. When I went to Tools>Internet Options>Connections and removed my old dialup (now I'm on DSL), LiveUpdate finally worked. This is stupid because the box "Never Dial a Connection" was checked, and I should be able to leave the dialup there as a backup. So **Symantec/Norton should fix this** and offer us downloadable updates FREE on the same page as the Intelligent Updater, right ? The link is: http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/sharedtech.nsf/pfdocs/2006052313583013
[just in case Yahoo Answers does not quote my source; I am a first time user] {rest of URL is below}
/sharedtech.nsf/pfdocs/2006052313583013
I hope this helps ! GREG
ADDENDUM for Additional Details: No, I did not UN/REinstall LU. I did NOT have it set to run automatically, because it would always getting stuck, and does not exit gracefully when you want to shut down. If you are going for a clean reinstall, Symantec has a stand-alone tool SymNRT.exe which can be downloaded. It removes all remaining traces of NAV (NRT is Norton Removal Tool). If your LU is set for Auto, re-boot and try to re-install before Norton finishes its initial analysis, and don't use Auto LU until you have it running well manually.
Remember when computers promised to be Productivity Tools ?
Cheers, G