stop flare trying to connect to the internet

[cayennep]

I don't want the news and connection, for either flare or capture, when running this from home. I'm on a vm and when I turn on my work vpn on the windoze side, it blocks internet connection. Need the vpn to use/capture/doc the software.

Most programs allow this to be turned off, but I don't see this anywhere.

any help, as ever, appreciated, thx!

[enricosavazzi]

I believe Flare "phones home" at regular intervals to verify that its license is valid. If you stop it by blocking it with a firewall or other similar method, most likely the program will detect this and simply exit or crash. Older versions of Flare did the same thing also when the computer was simply not connected to a network, but newer versions behave in a more reasonable way and let you e.g. work while commuting.

[i-tietz]

Let me guess: It happens when you open a Flare help topic?
Then that's the feedback functionality, and no: I don't think you can switch it off. I entered an enhancement request about two years ago (?) and didn't hear from MadCap that it's now part of Flare ...

[cayennep]

well, I noticed Capture trying to connect, not sure if Flare also does. Don't know when it happens either, just seeing the message.

Every other software program has a way to turn this off, so if not it's one more thing that might make me switch tools.

I need to work offline, and also on a vm that has only vpn or internet connection, not both, so when I'm on the vpn to look at the software, it will not connect. Suggest you don't even start with how to fix this, I've been round and round and this solution is fine for everything except madcap trying to connect and slowing things down.

thanks, will log support issue too

[heather r]

I just had our IT check why the network is so slow and they pointed it back to my machine. We found while I have flare running, it appears to be pinging a number of destinations about every second.
It does slow down my machine and I think every second is extreme. Please let me know how I can stop this.

Heather Revanna
http://www.lawbase.com

[i-tietz]

The only thing I noticed ever tried to get online is the Flare Help. I believe they're trying to get online to tell the feedback server what topics are opened and to find out whether there's a newer version of the opened help topics.
Are there any other occurences? I switched it off so I don't know ...

[heather r]

How did you switch it off?

[i-tietz]

You should ask for making it switch-offable ( ): https://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx
The more users do that the more probable it is to see it changed in the next version ...

[mattbnh]

How did you switch it off?

I think he meant that he closed the Flare Help Pane, rather than leaving it open. It is open in the default factory layout, so if that causes pings, closing it might help.

[heather r]

This is what our network sniffer sees from my pc every second
Can someone tell me what this is?
Closing the help pane/start pane does not make this go away.
thanks
Heather http://www.lawbase.com

flare pings.png

[RamonS]

And once you close Flare that network traffic is gone? Hard to say what it is and where it is going just by the summary. Further, do I assume that the blanked out portions are blanked out for privacy/security reasons?

[i-tietz]

What about the start page. Is that open all the time? Or some Help topics?

[RamonS]

Uh, one more thing, when you installed Flare did you enable the IM function? AFAIK that can only be enabled / disabled during installation.

[heather r]

Inge
yes I have the help and start pages closed.

Ramon
I did obscure some things in the screenshot that don't pertain.
But your suggestion of disabling IM is good. I'll have to check that out.

thanks
Heather

[Ken Billing]

Not sure if this will help or not in your cases, but I discovered that Flare does a lot of checking for valid publishing destinations assigned to targets. I wound up turning all destinations off.