SABnzbd Forums

Version: 0.3.0 Final
OS: Vista
Install-type: Windows Installer
Template (if applicable): default
Firewall Software: Windows Firewall, then ZoneAlarm, Windows Firewall again
Are you using IPV6? No clue
Is the issue reproducible? Yes

I was using Windows Firewall and Sabnzbd fine until a few days ago. In my infinite wisdom, I installed Zonealarm and of course, Sabnzbd failed to work. So I figured that I would uninstall ZA and everything would be fine. Even after multiple reinstalls, restarts and putting all of the settings to the previous ones, it still reads port 8080 as in use. Port 8081 or anything else allows it to start but it doesn't load any NZBs or even verify the connection is there at all.

Any ideas on how I can restore things? I think ZA might have changed something or left something behind to make it inoperable.

I'm not sure of the option (as I dont use windows) but I know that in vista you can use netstat to see what applications are holding ports. try netstat /? from the command line and you want to use the option which shows you processes. Then you can see what's taking up port 8080... or you could do telnet localhost 8080 and see if you get an clues from that

Last time I installed ZoneAlarm, I had to use Windows XP's System Restore to get rid of it.
(look for un-install info on the ZA website).

I can recommend the Comodo firewall. But get rid of ZoneAlarm completely before installing it.

Did what you suggested and used Vista's system restore. All works fine now.

Found out after some digging around that it wasn't Zone Alarm after all, but NOD32. I just upgraded to 3.0 and you need to remove port 8080 from the advanced settings to make it work.

The more you know, eh?

Good that it works now 

BTW you use another port if you want to.
8080 was chosen as default because it's a port that's free on most
systems (both Windows and Unix).
But it's still a gamble and as you have found out, some firewalls consider
"high" port numbers as extra special.

We have been looking at automatically detecting a free port. This can work,
but the problem is that software firewalls will probably make life even more
difficult in such cases. A firewall would consider an application that starts probing for
free ports even more suspicious than one that just uses a single one.