Source: https://secuniaresearch.flexerasoftware.com/community/forum/thread/show/6828/psi_2_0_not_working_stops_at_verifying_internet_connection
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 01:49:19+00:00

Document:
I have been sucessfully running earlier versions 1.5.1 and 1.5.2 of secunia psi on my XP Pro SP3 Laptop and have religiously been maintaining a 100% score. Yesterday I got a psi notification that a new version was available and I chose to install it. Since then I have been unable to use the new psi 2.0.
The psi icon appears on the task bar and hovering over it says "Secunia PSI 96%", but when I try to open the user inteface I get Secunia PSI window which is blank white for about 5 minutes untill evetually a small box appears within it saying "Secunia PSI 2.0, Personal Software Inspector, Verifying Internet Connection..." this box remains in this state constantly!!!
So far I have >un-installed psi >re-booted >set IE8 as the defaut browser >re-booted >downloaded and re-installed psi 2.0 >re-booted.
I have also checked the IE settings as per the FAQ's info including adding the secunia web addresses to the trusted sites list but none of this has had any effect.
Any suggestions to help resolve this would be most welcome as I have always found psi to be such a useful and reassuring tool and really want to continue benefiting from it.
Running windows firewall on the machine which is behind a wifi firewall/router.
I'm having similar issues with 2.0.x.
"An unhandled exception ('Invalid argument.") occurred in psi.exe"
I have sorted my issue out by installing "Client for Microsoft Networks" in the network properties for my network adaptor and then re-booting.
Hopefully this bit of info will help many others with a similar issue.
I can now see and use version 2 and it looks good.
I'll have to take a look after the holidays. Thanks for the information!
Thank you for providing us with the steps that helped you resolve this issue. Providing us with your experiences help us help the community.
Hi, not for me. I plan a clean setup during holiday and then I shall find out the problem, probably caused by some tight settings like disabled services or etc. I suspect some requirements, which are mostly enabled by default, like that network adapter, so they are not mentioned in the FAQ.
Try enabling the Workstation Service. Has this allows you to connect with the PSI?
I had forgotten all about it , sorry , most remiss .
Yes Tom, this happens because we`ve optimised our OS to run fast and low on resources , disabled services that we don`t need and other settings ... but I have problems only with SecuniaPSI . Version 2.0 will fail to load and 1.5 will load in a long period of time ( but this is not a bit issue with 1.5 , I can live with it ) .
I`ve asked here in my first topic on this forum what services must be started to get SecuniaPSI running , but no answer .
Now I need the SecuniaPSI 1.5 installer , since 2.0 will not load . Please somebody provide the link to 1.5 since I don`t havet it anymore .
Yes, it works just fine now. Thank you for a sugestion.
Back to 1.5 , thanks !
I enabled the Workstation Service back , and it`s working perfect !
It`s the first time that I see SecuniaPSI`s 2.0 interface and it`s very nice .
Thank you very much . Pin this topic please , or add the answer to that troubleshooting SecuniaPSI section of the site .
I found out it was because the system clock in BIOS/Windows and date wasn't set correctly.
I had just replaced the CMOS backup battery and because of this the system date had been reset to sometime in 2003.
The wrong date means PSI can't start up, but is stuck at "Verifying Internet Connection".
Quite confusing that PSI reports that it's verifying the internet connection, when in reality it's just because the system date is not set correctly. You think there's some settings in IE or the network card drive that is set incorrectly so PSI can't connect to the Secunia server. But it turned out the problem was something entirely different and not related to the internet connection.
I can recreate the PSI startup error by setting the date back to 2003 again.
Even though Windows was set to synchronize the time with an internet time server, it can't set the date or time correctly when the date is so far off. So I had to set the date manually before it could synchronize to the correct time.
The wrong date also resulted in IE reporting all certificates for all https sites I visited were invalid. IE just said there was a certificate error or the security certificate had expired or was not yet valid.This is how I figured out the system date was set to the wrong date. Once I set the correct date the PSI tray icon turned from red to green and PSI could open again without getting stuck at verifying the internet connection.
So what are we supposed to do to get this program to work?
I did the steps in the FAQ, but to no avail.
I did not note it on this list as posted but I and others with MS office installed resolved this issue by removing enable handwriting.
We are still investigating other possible issues.
Last edited on 9th Jan, 2011 17:11 I have the same issue.
The workstation service is running..
For me and some others the issue was resolved by stopping enable handwriting recognition in MS office.
In XP Pro go to control panel>regional and language options>languages>details>select handwriting recognition>remove.
I suspect 7 is similar.
The problem was the security settings.. I just resetted the IE Settings and added (again) the secunia website as safe site and it worked now..
Secunia should remove these dependencies in the future. PSI should work stand-alone..
PS: Is someone owns the windows version without IE then what?
I still have a problem using PSI 2.0 (Build 2001) using a slow dial-up internet connection (I have no problems on WiFi) , and I found that if I disable the "Start the Secunia PSI on boot" option and manually start the PSI serivces in a specific order then I am able to get the PSI 2.0 interface to load and then run a scan.
There's no way I'm going to disable the server certificate verification in my IE browser as descibed at http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal... just to get the PSI 2.0 interface to load. PSI v. 1.5.0.2 works fine on my computer and I'd rather roll back to v. 1.5 than start fiddling with my browser security settings.
Any official word from Secunia on whether they're trying to fix the problem with server verification for users with slow Internet connections?
We will be looking into the issue and considering a solution for future versions.
I'm giving up. I spent the past three weeks testing three different builds of PSI 2.0 (1003, 2001 and 3001) and posted multiple times in this forum, but I still can't figure out how to get the dashboard to load over my home dial-up Internet connection in under 10 minutes (if I can get it to load at all).
I've uninstalled PSI v. 2.0.0.3001 and reverted back to v. 1.5.0.2, which seems to run on my system without any problems. I'll keep an eye on the PSI change log at http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal... for notifications about future releases, and hope that Secunia posts something more descriptive than the usual "Various minor bug fixes" so that v. 1.x users can gauge when it's time to jump back in and try v. 2.x again.
It's a shame, because I was able to load the PSI 2.0 interface and run a scan using a public WiFi connection, and I really liked the design of the new GUI.
I am having the same problem as you with it stopping at trying to verify internet connection. I am just a stand alone PC on dial up. No networking or network adaptor. Using XP. Any other thoughts on what is holding it up?
Description: 'length' is null or not an object"
It refuses to scan or do anything else.
Edit: My apologies if this is in the manual, but I was able to get it working when I added an exception, "psia.exe" to Windows 7 firewall. I have Windows 7 firewall locked down to block all outgoing traffic except what I allow. I had allowed "psi.exe", but obvious to me now, I needed more.
As I stated, If this is in the manual, I didn't see it. If it's not, please add it.
I just tried the suggestions in item #3 of http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal... but no luck. I have already uninstalled my older working version. How can I get an older version the works?
To anyone still experiencing this problem.
Have you configured Windows Firewall to blacklist outgoing traffick? (ie. disallow everything by default).
If so, you need to allow "psi.exe" and "psia.exe" with "Allow the connection".
"Allow the connection if it is secure" only refers to IPsec, so the PSI won't work if this is how your firewall rules are configured.
Can you tell me what I need to do exactly?
Have you blacklisted outgoing traffick by default? Obviously the PSI needs to be able to reach our servers.
Go to question number 3 and allow the "psi.exe" and "psia.exe"
I installed an older version and everything works. I unistalled and insatlled 2.0 along with the steps you suggested and 2.0 just stops at "verifying internet connection". So still having the trouble.
In response to your earlier question about downloading the old PSI v. 1.5.0.2, the link is posted on the main PSI home page at http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal... Look for the text "Older version of the Secunia PSI can be downloaded at:" below the download icon for the current version. The link there starts the download from http://secunia.com/PSI1Setup.exe.
If you'd like to continue testing PSI v. 2.0, ensure that you have the latest build (currently PSI v. 2.0.0.3001, released January 10, 2011).
Same problem here. Tried suggestions in this Forum: no luck.
OK. Will stick with older version until here further updates.
Have you blacklisted outgoing traffick by default?
And did you follow the steps outlined in the ZoneAlarm FAQ for both "psi.exe" and "psia.exe"?
I don't know if this will help because I'm using windows 7 64 bit.
P.S. By the way, this extra zone prevents desktop gadgets to be shown correctly.
Always back up your registry before making any changes.
The answer is yes. I still have the same problem. will stand by for new updates.
So outgoing traffic is blacklisted by default?
And if you disable your firewall temporarily and try again, are you able to connect with the PSI?
I have gone to the ZoneAlarm link you had provided question #3 and I have allowed access to both internet ans server to the psi.exe and psia.exe.
I don't deal with computers all the time so if you can geive me a little help with blacklisting I will be happy to learn.
After following the steps from ZoneAlarm, if you reboot your system, are you still unable to connect?
Blacklisting, essentially, disallows all traffic unless specifically allowed. We don't need to unable this, but having it enabled already without proper exceptions for the PSI could cause a problems like this.
OK. With that definition I don't have blacklisted enabled. I do have out going traffic allowed to other sites and am not having trouble connecting. SO after following the Zonealarm steps and making sure that psi.exe and psia.exe are checked as allowed and rebooting I am still unable to connect.
Last edited on 20th Jan, 2011 16:59 Easy solution: Starting it as administrator solved the connection problems for me.
Was that an answer to why PSI"S tops at Verifying Internet Connection"? Can you expand a little on your reply?
Yes, right click on the icon and choose "Run as Administrator".

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.