Lightspeed Client Issues

[TurnItOffAndOn]

Afternoon all.

 

I was wondering if anyone else has suffered with the Lightspeed user client that you install on all your PC's.

 

As you are aware this program gathers all your AD details and places them into a Registry key (HKLM\Software\Lightspeed Systems\User Agent\Current User) to then present to the Lightspeed server.

 

So on boot up and initial login, these details are correctly filled in and web filtering works perfectly. If you leave the PC for a while (an hour of so) some of the details, Computer DN, Computer OU, User DN, User Group DNs and User OU seem to disappear.

 

The only remedy is a reboot or to use remote access to services and restart it. We are only implementing this on staff at the moment.

 

I have reinstalled the client and I still get the issue. I have also told the service to restart if the service should fail.

 

We logged a call with support but they did not really help that much, because a reboot or reinstall of client seemed to solve it.

 

I just wanted to see if my fellow colleagues on Edugeek had any suggests, apart from bin it or burn it!

[snagrat]

Interesting....might have the same issue.

 

Clients are forgetting who is logged on so filtering incorrect sites. A client install sorts it temporarily.

 

Be interested to know if you find a fix as I am not back at that school for a few weeks.

[TurnItOffAndOn]

Hooray! I thought I was going mad and the only person suffering from this!

 

Had a deeper look into this yesterday afternoon. We think it might be related to the network card. We have found away of replicating the error by removing the network cable. We mainly have all Dell's. Most of our OptiPlex's have Intel Gig cards whilst our laptops have Broadcom Ethernet cards.

 

If you remove the cable and plug it back in for the Broadcom's, the issue with the client does not occur. If it is an Intel card, the issue with the client occurs.

 

We are trying new drivers today and also looking at Anti-virus as well as I have heard about one or two issues with Sophos.

[dhicks]

So on boot up and initial login, these details are correctly filled in and web filtering works perfectly. If you leave the PC for a while (an hour of so) some of the details, Computer DN, Computer OU, User DN, User Group DNs and User OU seem to disappear.

 

Hmm, I hadn't noticed - I'll have to check. We have the Lightspeed authentication client set up on all machines, but in pratice we've never bothered adding anything to separate profiles, we've just blocked / unblocked sites for everyone, so there's a good chance no-one has noticed any issues.

 

The only remedy is a reboot or to use remote access to services and restart it. We are only implementing this on staff at the moment.

 

If this turns out to be a problem we need to solve, too, I can probably throw together a Windows service that monitors the Lightspeed service and periodically restarts it. We were thinking of switching to Untangle over the summer anyway, this might nudge us a bit further along.

[snagrat]

We were thinking of switching to Untangle over the summer anyway, this might nudge us a bit further along.

 

What other reasons are making you switch?

[snagrat]

Hooray! I thought I was going mad and the only person suffering from this!

 

Had a deeper look into this yesterday afternoon. We think it might be related to the network card. We have found away of replicating the error by removing the network cable. We mainly have all Dell's. Most of our OptiPlex's have Intel Gig cards whilst our laptops have Broadcom Ethernet cards.

 

If you remove the cable and plug it back in for the Broadcom's, the issue with the client does not occur. If it is an Intel card, the issue with the client occurs.

 

We are trying new drivers today and also looking at Anti-virus as well as I have heard about one or two issues with Sophos.

 

We just use the onboard card. This will be intel in some cases but not all. Then again I don't know if it is happening on all machines or just some.

 

We use Windows AV so not related to Sophos, unless it's a general AV issue.

[dhicks]

What other reasons are making you switch?

 

Admitedly, we thought one of the main reasons was the maintainance costs until the other day, but it actually turns out that that cost was from the reseller who sold us the Lightspeed Rocket device, we actually have a warrenty and support from Lightspeed themselves until next year. We're going to try upgrading the firmware at the start of the summer, that might bring some new features. Up until now, we've found that the email filtering doesn't match our requirements very well and catagorisation of sites is a bit hit-and-miss. Also, the device itself is a huge great rack server with dual power supplies, four drive caddies that draws something like 100W. We'll see what the update during the summer sorts out.

[dhicks]

Admitedly, we thought one of the main reasons was the maintainance costs until the other day, but it actually turns out that that cost was from the reseller who sold us the Lightspeed Rocket device, we actually have a warrenty and support from Lightspeed themselves until next year. We're going to try upgrading the firmware at the start of the summer, that might bring some new features. Up until now, we've found that the email filtering doesn't match our requirements very well and catagorisation of sites is a bit hit-and-miss. Also, the device itself is a huge great rack server with dual power supplies, four drive caddies that draws something like 100W. We'll see what the update during the summer sorts out.

 

After a reply to an email reminding us to upgrade our Lightspeed Rocket's firmware, Lightspeed actually phoned me just now to check everything was okay and to discuss the various issues we have. You really can't fault that kind of customer support, I was really quite impressed. Most issues we've been having sound like they are solvable, and the software update sounds like it should improve the device's performance and site catagorisation. Lightspeed do seem keen on getting end-user issues sorted out, and the chap who phoned me certainly knew what he was talking about. We'll be upgrading our Lightspeed device's firmware at the start of July, so we'll see what effect that has and what performance is like come the start of the new year.

[ADMaster]

I had this issue a while ago too. It was solved for the most part by setting a gpo to always start the light speed service, and set the recovery action from take no action to restart.

I think the issue occurred most frequently after a staff member took their laptop home. This would of course disconnect them from the network. Then they don’t actually shut down or reboot so when they come back in the service has stopped trying.

I do have a separate policy for staff, so they notice if it doesn’t work. Most of them now know they can click the not you link on the block page to be elevated to staff filtering, and to reboot.

[paradiselost79]

We have lightspeed setup as our inline filter for while at school, but students are now getting 1:1 tablets. I was able to force a proxy to the Chrome browser they are using (they are using Google Apps for Ed tablets), but the lightspeed is behind our firewall. I cannot figure out how to allow students to get to the lightspeed from outside. Here is a layout:

LAN --- Lightspeed (bottle rocket) --- Firewall --- ISP

So while internal, students are filtered using anything. But from outside, my test tablet cannot connect to the proxy. I have a Sonicwall, and it is frustrating using their 'rules' setup, I cannot figure out how to forward 8080 requests to go to the lightspeed. Any help appreciated.