Sygate 'Locked by the system"

[JohnB]

After leaving my xp pro sp1 computer alone, it goes into power-saving mode,
and is only set to shut off the monitor, everything else is disabled. I
leave the Sygate Firewall in "block all traffic" mode. I came back to the
computer later on, and the Sygate interface was whited out, as though the
system was busy or something. I tried to close it, and got a dialog that
the firewall was locked by the system. I logged off, and it never finished
logging off, so I powered down, and rebooted.

What happened here, and how can I prevent this? I don't know if this is
power-saving related, or if there is some process interference (I have
antivirus also.)

Any direction on troubleshooting is appreciated.

thanks,

John

[JohnB]

I disabled LMHOSTS lookup, and also re-added the default gateway which had
disappeared. Sygate does not lock to an unrecoverable state any more.

John

[JohnB]

Appending-Sygate eventually locked up.

I switched firewalls. Another firewall was able to close when the same
situation happened.

I found the firewall was blocking dns requests, which would somehow prevent
the re-establishment of internet communication after using BLOCK ALL
TRAFFIC in the firewall. Set the firewall to allow the dns requests
outbound. Works fine.

Someone else posted that they changed their network settings in XP from the
router's dns entries, to the public internet dns entries, and that worked.
(Same situation, or different, not quite sure.) I do not know enough, but
it looks like it may be unsafe if there are dns hacks available.

XP's inability to shutdown Sygate in this instance was really scary though,
for someone who just switched to XP Pro. A small app like that
monopolizing the system? Hrm...

John