Recent issues with Skype shutting down

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

London, UK, December 5, 2009: The Skype communications platform to all intents and purpose will appear to users as having gone wobbly as it tends to stop working.

Many a user will put it down to the latest update but that is not the case. More to that in a minute.

The “fault” manifests itself in that as soon as the other side accepts the call or a few seconds into the call Skype stops working and has to shut down and on restarting and attempting to make a call again a repeat performance will happen.

The culprit has been found, however, and it would appear that this problem only occurs with ThreatFire and seems to b e a problem with an update of that program that arrived sometime around December 1, 2009.

The only solution is to uninstall ThreatFire entirely from the computer on which Skype is to be used, as suspending the program does not help in that matter at all.

It took me some time before I found the solution and that only thanks to the Skype Forum where several threads dealt with this issue.

ThreatFire is a rather tough, as in strict, firewall anti-malware program but there have been issues with it before when it would not – after a while – work in conjunction with another firewall such as ZoneAlarm.

The only way, if you are a ThreatFire user and want too make use of Skype, as a new user or an existing one, is to entirely uninstall ThreatFire and that includes the logs and all. Otherwise Skype will no longer work – not until such a time, I should guess that ThreatFire has an update where the fault gets repaired. Don't hold your breath thought for the moment.

I have uninstalled ThreatFire, though very reluctantly as I know how good a product it is, and as soon as that was done and the PC was restarted Skype worked again perfectly.