Firewall always Disabled - cant enable - high CPU

Thanks for your quick response Ken. As far as I am aware there is no other app that affects the Windows Firewall API.

@j9ksf

If you are unable to use the firewall at all I’d recommend the following:

Uninstall GlassWire in add/remove programs
Go to your Windows Firewall control panel and choose “restore defaults”
Reboot
Reinstall GlassWire using its “clean install” option and its “reset firewall” option.

Now try using the firewall.

Thanks for your hints Ken but the firewall remains greyed out.

Are you sure you are not using another application that disables the Windows Firewall API? It seems your Windows Firewall is disabled somehow.

Did you reboot when it was required during the instructions? If you skipped that test then it’s possible that’s why it did not solve it.

Maybe try one more time? If it does not work still I’d recommend reinstalling Windows because it seems there is something seriously wrong with the Windows Firewall as part of Windows Defender and that’s a bit scary. I don’t recall anyone else with this type of issue where a third party application was not disabling the Windows Firewall.

Solved it Ken. Main panel had firewall in off position.

Thanks for your patience.

1 Like

So hello again

after nearly a year this problem still persists on my PC. Maybe resetting the whole thing would have helped but I’m a bit too lazy kind of. Yesterday I went into the firewall of GlassWire and deleted all inactive apps since there was hell of a lot things listed in there that I haven’t had installed a few years from now… I deleted them and see here, it utilizes again 20% of the CPU. Maybe because it’s cleaning up? I have used Bittorrent a few years ago maybe there are so much connections left in GW I am not aware of.
I’ll let it clean now and we’ll have a look if it’s making troubles again after it’s done. I’ll report back :smile:

Greetings!

1 Like

@EddyT95

Bittorrent connects to thousands of hosts simultaneously. GlassWire logs hosts, so it has to work very hard to do this. You can try making Bittorrent apps “Incognito” and see if it helps some.

We’re preparing a “hostless” version of GlassWire for people who want to use Bittorrent, but not have GlassWire log hosts. It will be much lighter but the downside is that GlassWire won’t log hosts.

Hello everyone and thanks for all the answers! I managed to eliminate the problem.
I wanted to add a Firewall rule by myself in Windows Firewall Advanced settings and suddenly saw
a few thousand Rules that I dont even use anymore like this one {Glasswire.app.in_1679} leading to a unused path and/or Application. I remembered CCleaner is able to delete unused / invalid Firewall Rules. So I went ahead and fired up CCleaner. It turns out 3541 Rules are not valid anymore and can be safely deleted. Most of them were created using GlassWire and collected over time (~4 Years now).
After cleanup and a reboot GlassWire only took 2 minutes to activate the Firewall again. Now my CPU isnt running at 20% for 10mins or longer^^

Maybe you should consider setting something up so GlassWire will clean the created Firewall Rules that are not being used anymore. It was simply not cleaning anymore. CCleaner did the Job.

With greetings and stay healthy everyone!

@EddyT95 We would not recommend this. Deleting all your firewall rules with a third party application will usually cause major GlassWire issues.

If you want to reset your firewall just download GlassWire and install it over itself, then check the “reset firewall” box in our app.

We have also found some cleaning apps will delete the programdata/glasswire folder causing GlassWire to revert from paid to free.

I’m glad this worked for you somehow but it’s not recommended.

Also with the Windows Firewall API we group all our rules neatly into the GlassWire group so they can be easily reviewed.

1 Like

Registered to add some comments about this one, I come across it a couple of times a month, sometimes a little more often and it always seems to be after a Windows 10 update of some sort. My CPU will be very very high on start-up, with the LocalServiceNoNetworkFirewall right at the top of it all in Task Manager, when expanded it will show Windows Defender Firewall. Looking in GlassWire, the firewall is always off and disabled and all connections are allowed.

I have no torrent software installed and only a limited set of services are set to start on start-up (GlassWire is one that I allow at start-up). Sometimes a solution is to exit GlassWire and then re-open it, that solves some cases but not most. What I do to solve it for me is to close GlassWire, open Windows Defender as admin and then turn it off, once done I turn it back on, then re-open GlassWire. That seems to do the trick for me.

1 Like

@gwbf

Strange. “LocalServiceNoNetworkFirewall” is not made by GlassWire. Maybe it was caused by a previous app you installed?

We don’t touch the Windows Firewall API if GlassWire’s firewall is switched to “off”. We made GlassWire work this way on purpose because many IT/Infosec professionals like to use our software just for monitoring and they may have complex rules they don’t want touched.

I searched my services and task manager for it and couldn’t find this myself in Windows 10, but I found this thread https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/what-is-this-serviceprocess-in-windows-task/ef80d678-aa17-44b9-a45d-6ccfcf2e95d5 that recommended choosing “restore defaults” for the Windows Firewall.

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the response, when I say that the Firewall is Off in GlassWire, that’s not by my choosing, I have the Firewall on at all times. However, when I encounter this high CPU and LocalServiceNoNetworkFirewall issue and then open up GlassWire, the Firewall is showing as Off and it’s disabled by the fact I can’t turn it on (even though it should be on and obeying the blocks I have setup via GW). When I stop + start Defender, as mentioned in my previous post, and then open GlassWire, the Firewall in GlassWire goes back to showing as ON and ‘Ask to Connect’ as I have it set to work.

Does that add anything extra to the issue? I’m reluctant to restore defaults as I have things setup how I want and it doesn’t happen everytime but does, and it could be anecdotal, seem to be more prevalent after a Windoes 10 update.

I should add, I’m a big fan of GlassWire, it gives a great overview of what is going on under the hood with various programs and I like the ability to easily block network access for some services.

Regards,
Steve

1 Like

@gwbf

Usually if GlassWire’s firewall will not turn on then GlassWire will give the reason. For example it might say an antivirus has blocked it from turning on.

What other security applications do you use?

It’s not really a usual issue for your Windows Firewall API to be completely non-functional.

I can confirm that what @gwbf has documented happens to me as well. I do not torrent.

Windows is strategically disabling Glasswire’s firewall while Windows installs Windows defender updates. During this time high cpu is witnessed as well as the program called “LocalServiceNoNetworkFirewall” runs. Once this program closes Glasswire’s firewall restarts and is finally enabled. During this time Glasswire shows no notification to the user that Glasswire’s firewall is off.

Windows 10 Pro 1909 (x64) [Version 10.0.18363.778]
Glasswire Version 2.1.167

2 Likes

@QualisCorp

GlassWire has no firewall to get disabled. We use the Windows Firewall API. It means that even if GlassWire is completely killed or non-functional our rules will continue to be present, even on startup before GlassWire ever starts.

I don’t believe Microsoft is disabling its own API. With over 20 million installs of GlassWire nobody has ever reported this behavior, or anything like it. If this is some kind of real change with Windows that happened recently please provide details and documentation so we can understand why you think this is happening.

Many IT and Information Security professionals use the Windows Firewall API on mission critical systems and I find it unlikely Microsoft would disable all their work suddenly, then re-enable it as if nothing happened. Behavior like that could cause massive problems for many corporate and government systems.

Also you’re using an old GlassWire version. Our latest software is 2.2.210.

I just updated Windows Security (formerly Windows Defender) and I could not reproduce this.

I also had Edge blocked during the update and I tried to use it and it continued to stay blocked.

The Windows Security update went fine with no problems in our “ask to connect” mode. We don’t block Windows security updates.

If anyone is seeing something different please give me detailed numbered steps on how to reproduce this.

I found a machine here that needed a major Windows Update. It went fine with no issues and I did not experience the problem you described.

GlassWire was in “ask to connect” mode.

If anyone is experiencing similar issues please give me numbered steps on how to recreate this and I’ll try. Please be sure you’re using our latest software version. @QualisCorp @gwbf

Hi Ken, I’m pretty sure I have the latest version, same as @QualisCorp but an older Windows build:

  • GlassWire v 2.1.167
  • Windows 10 Pro. 1903. OS Build 18362.959

I also have Webroot running as my anti-virus software, maybe it’s a conflict with that?

I’ve had this issue happen a few times since late last year, it will happen in batches and then be fine for a prolonged period and like I say it always seems to be around the time of a Windows update I’m sure. It took me a while to realise that each time the CPU was high and that LocalServiceNoNetworkFirewall service was there and the fans were going (which almost never happens on my laptop), the Firewall ON state flag in GlassWire was set to OFF and wouldn’t allow me to turn back on and all the program / service blocks I had in place were set to be allowed.

This would only happen on start-up, once I’d restarted Defender (once I figured that worked each time), the problem would never re-occur until a future reboot might have the same issue.

Now it’s running fine again and in the last couple of days it hasn’t happened again. Next time it happens I’ll take some screen grabs showing various bits to help.

Within the Defender settings there’s no mention that it’s not functional or there’s an issue but I’ll also try and see if any rules in there fail the next time the issue arises.

Thanks

1 Like

@gwbf

Is it possible for you to update to the latest Windows version, or do you have data usage limits or something like that?

Please keep me updated on our progress. Sorry for the issue and thank you for these details.

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the quick responses on it, like I say it’s not so problematic especially as I know how to resolve it but thought I’d help by highlighting it.

I’ll sort an update to Windows soon - I’ll leave until the weekend to save me scratching my head tomorrow with any Windows related issues instead of working!

Will post back when done.

Thanks

1 Like