Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition

[CALF]

It will not delete, neither the whole spam.mbox folder nor the two within it. I wait a long time, I see nothing happeneing, then I can to either cancel or force quit because I cannot use the computer during this process. Why will those items not delete?

[Agile]

Likely those files are already in a locked state.  The Time Machine copy *should* be deletable if there's no backup going on and you right-click and "remove all backups" from within the TM interface.

[CALF]

Yes, that's what I did, following your instructions. So, is there any way to unlock them? Should I just drop the whole endeavor and clear them from thr QM?

[Agile]

Ah; try this:

temporarily disable on-access scanning before trying to delete them.  For some reason, the problem solving part of my brain had forgotten that the files were quarantined (which, by definition, locks them).

Sorry!  This should do the trick.

[CALF]

Well, oddly, when I went back to the QM today, it was blank. The 3 remaining items had disappeared. Can it be that there was a residual effect after I had already quit TM? I know they were still there right after I quit TM because I checked to make sure it had done something that I could not see. Is there any point in going back to check for these items in TM?

If I have to reset my password one more time, I will tear my hair out! I even tried deleting the cookie for this website to see if that would help with the password, but it did not.

[Agile]

What is your current setup?  OS/Browser/kind of internet connection/privacy plugins/custom CSS?

Your login issue is very localized, and should not be as hair rending as it appears to be

[CALF]

Current setup: OS 10.7.4, Safari 5.1.7, U-Verse high-speed internet. I don't see any plug-in section under the privacy tab in Safari. I don't know what custom CSS means.

If by localized, you mean I'm the only with this issue, that doesn't help ) It is most annoying and time consuming.

[CALF]

Despite the fact that the threats in question disappeared from QM, I went back to make sure they were gone. The files I had tried to remove from TM are still there and on my HD. I disabled on-access, as you suggested, but they still could not be deleted by Sophos. I am asked for my password, and I insert it, but nothing happens when I click to delete all backups.

[Agile]

Hmm... try going into Time Machine using an administrator account.

There's a thread on here somewhere where someone was having the exact same problems you are, a few months back.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find it yet.  I do remember that we eventually figured it out and  they got the contextual menus inside Time Machine back (and were able to delete the files).  Admin vs. user account may have been the issue.

[CALF]

Nope, that's not it. My user account is the administrator.