Troubleshooting
Nothing is listed, an app broke after blocking, rules vanished, the service won't start, license problems.
Ordered roughly by how often each one comes up. If your problem is “something stopped working after I blocked things,” start with Performance and side effects — the Monitor-only test there settles it in 10 seconds.
Nothing is listed at all
Almost always permissions. Windows only reveals per-process network activity to an elevated process, so without administrator rights NetSecWall genuinely cannot see anything. It isn't that your machine is quiet.
- Close the app and relaunch it, accepting the elevation prompt.
- If it never prompts, right-click the shortcut and choose Run as administrator.
- On a managed or work machine, policy may block elevation entirely. That's a decision your IT department has made, and the app cannot work around it.
An app broke after I blocked something
- Open the Rules tab. Every rule you have is listed there, with where it came from.
- Remove the one that matches. It stops applying immediately.
- Restart the affected app. Some programs cache a failure and need a restart to notice the network is back.
If you can't tell which rule is responsible, switch to Monitor-only, confirm the app recovers, then re-enable and remove rules one at a time.
My rules disappeared
The usual cause is another security product managing the same Windows Firewall and overwriting NetSecWall's rules. Switch to the packet-filter engine or Companion mode so the two stop competing — see Blocking.
Rules can also stop matching after an app updates into a new path, because a rule is keyed to the executable. The rule is still there, but it no longer describes the program.
The background service won't start
- Reinstall from the setup wizard, which registers the service properly.
- Check that nothing else is holding the service name. A previous install that didn't uninstall cleanly is the common case.
- Without the service, monitoring runs only while the app is open. Everything else still works.
My license key won't activate
- Activation needs a working internet connection once. Behind a proxy or a captive portal it will fail.
- Check that you pasted the whole key, including the
NETSECWALL-prefix. - A key blocked for sharing shows a reason on the lock screen. That text is the actual explanation.
- Lost the key? Use Help ▸ Open my account in browser in the app. It signs you into your account automatically, without needing the key or the email you bought with.
The trial ended and the app stopped
That's the intended behavior: there is no free tier, so without an active license, monitoring and blocking stop. Nothing is deleted. Your history, rules, and settings stay on the PC, and activating a key later picks up exactly where you left off.
A site loads but looks broken
Typically a country or category rule catching the CDN that serves the page's images and styles rather than the site itself. Watch the Live tab while loading the page and look for blocked connections belonging to your browser.
Getting help
Open a support ticket with your app version (Help ▸ About) and, for anything license-related, your order reference or key. Those two things remove most of the back-and-forth. Monday–Friday, replies within 1 business day.
Still stuck? Open a support ticket — we reply within one business day.