Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition

[ali]

Apple just launched their latest operating system OS X 10.7 (Lion) today and we wanted to let you know that your version of Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac already supports it.

In anticipation of the Lion launch, we released an update at the end of June that automatically upgraded SAV for Mac to v7.3.1. This version is compatible with OS X Lion so whenever you upgrade to Lion, you’ll be fully protected.

If you are a home user and don’t have Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac already installed, or have not been upgraded to v7.3.1, you can download the latest version for free here: http://www.sophos.com/freemacav

[cwaig]

I think you need to qualify "compatible", as 7.3.1 appears to be incompatible with networked Time Capsules - it causes a lockup on my Mac if it's enabled when a Time Machine backup occurs.

[bobcook]

Hmmm, seems odd, our testing never showed any issues like this. My home machine (also using a networked Time Capsule - aren't those great products?) works fine through the upgrade from 10.6.8 to 10.7, and of course I was running SAV Mac 7.3.1 at the time.

Any more people seen issues with SAV Mac at the time of their 10.7 upgrade? Its been very, very quiet.

Thanks!

[lemon]

I have also real problems with Sophos 7.3.1 and Lion. An app called 'intercheck' uses all of the CPU power. I understood it is a sophos app..?

[bobcook]

Yes, Intercheck is the app that actually performs the scanning operations when files are accessed.

I've observed that the very first Time Machine backup will end up finding ~8GB of changed files, and the process of finding then backing up will definitely perform a lot of disk activity (and those operations are going to trigger the on-access anti-virus scanner). On my own MacBook Pro (first unibody model, 4Gb RAM, with about 400Gb of files) it took about an hour for the first backup to complete. The machine was slightly sluggish, although depending on your h/w, "sluggish" might either be an understatement or an overstatement.

Can you provide some details about your experience so far? What is your system currently doing and how long ago did you perform the upgrade?

If you switch off the on-access scanner does the performance improve? You should only do this temporarily, and avoid downloading files from the internet or untrusted servers (your machine won't be protected from accidentally copying a malicious file until you re-enable the on-access scanner).

Thanks for your feedback!

[Claude]

Hello

Since the installation of  Lion, approximately 24 hours before, the protocol lists dozens of error messages:

"com.sophos.intercheck: Schwerwiegender Fehler: Virus Detection Engine kann nicht initialisiert werden [0x00250760]

com.sophos.intercheck: Sophos Anti-Virus kann nicht fortfahren"

Translated:

Fatal error: virus detection engine can not be initialized [0x00250760]

com.sophos.intercheck: Sophos Anti-Virus can not continue

In the preferences I can not make changes, each time comes a new error message.

I have downloaded and reinstalled Sophos again. The same.

[Agile]

Have you restarted your computer during this process?  If the engine cannot be initialized, I've personally found that the only reliable fix is a reboot.  In Lion, this would likely need to be a clean reboot.

[Claude]

I have since started more than 10 times again, and after every reboot the same message comes.

What is a "clean reboot"?

[Agile]

Lion has introduced a "resume" feature that is on by default.  When you shut down or reboot/restart, the dialog box asks if you'd like to "Reopen Windows When Logging Back In?"  In order to prevent all your software/windows from starting back up after you restart, you need to disable this.  That's what I was referring to as a "clean reboot".  Holding down the Shift key while starting will disable some more features, such as non-essential kernel extensions and login items.

[lyoko37]

I am also having this issue with Lion on a Mid-2010 MacBook Pro running Sophos 7.3.1 

If On-Access scanner is running it causes networked Time Machine to hang after a few hundred megabytes. The moment you turn off On-Access scanning the performance returns to normal and the entire OS seems a tiny bit less slugish. I think something is hanging.