Scan stuck on dslocal-backup.xar. Yes I am only scanning my hard drive and no Time Machine.

Question

Happened both on Yosemite and again last night on El Capitan. Scanning Hard Drive Only (about 2.1M files). Finds a file dslocal-backup.xar and hangs (8 hours + on both Yosemite and El Capitan). File is not large 896K and in directory /private/var/db/. If I exclude this directory, there is a bunch of stuff that I would miss. Suggestions?

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serra · Answer

Hi Stentorian, 
 
If you want to add a scheduled scan (to run, at say, midnight every night) you can definitely do that. 
 
1. Click the Sophos shield > Open Scans... 
2. Alt-Click the white space around "scan this mac" > select "Scan settings" 
3. Click on the 'schedule' tab > check "enable schedule" 
4. Configure schedule as desired 
 
Also, from the same menu, you can select "View Scan Log" which should give you more details about where your scans are getting stuck.