Sophos makes Safari and other browser fail to connect to websites

Hey Gary,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble. I've escalated this issue to one of my developers, who is actively investigating.

One question for you - When you tried 'turning off' Sophos, what did you disable? If you wanted to test something out, I would recommend disabling the "web protection" feature, as opposed to the On-Access scanner. (You can do that in by clicking the Sophos shield > open preferences > Web protection and turning the first switch to "Off").

Hi Serra,

I have had the same messages since I did a reinstall of my system from Time Machine two weeks ago. And it is not every time, sometimes the websites work sometimes not. Just now I tried to go to iCloud on Safari & got the "cannot get a secure connection" message. Went to Sophos, turned off "Block Malicious Downloads", & I could get there! BTW, I have had "Block Malicious Websites" off virtually since I first used Sophos, as it caused really slow site loads, or failures.

Hi RTP,

Thanks for the followup. Curious, is there any rhyme or reason to which sites fail, when it happens? Or is it just random? Also, did you find anything interesting in your logfiles when the issue was happening?

I've passed this feedback on to the dev team, who are actively investigating, so if you have any additional info to share we do appreciate it.

Thanks,
Serra

No rhyme or reason - totally random

I checked the log straight after I could not get to a website I regularly visit, SAV was running the hourly intercheck at that exact moment. I went to another site, no problem, back to the original site, no problem. Nothing in the log except it listing excluded sites, but the timing is too perfect.

I am having the same problem on my MacBookPro, OS 10.9.5. I tried disabling the "web protection" feature (first switch only), as described, and am still having the problem in both Firefox and Safari, only not as often. Saw first issue in Safari last night, as I rarely use it. It is intermittent. Sometimes it happens when a page (in another tab) is trying to refresh itself, ie: Wunderground.com and sometimes I get the message when trying to open a link from gmail or even a link within the same web page (ie: GunBroker.com, otherworldcomputing.com). Tried everything suggested in Firefox troubleshooting. Tried resetting router. Turned off router for 5 minutes. Rebooted computer, repaired permissions, checked drive for errors (none), cleared cookies & cache… I don't have any items in my Authorization List for SAV… I know how to open Console to see the log, but don't know what to look for there, as it hasn't happened in the past 30 minutes or so.

OK: Just happened when clicking a link in eshop.macsales.com…here's what came up in log:

10/12/15 2:42:30.448 PM com.apple.launchd[1]: (com.sophos.scan[7617]) Exit timeout elapsed (20 seconds). Killing
10/12/15 2:42:31.170 PM SophosWebD[1147]: [SophosDistantObject.m:208] An exception was encountered while messaging the server: SophosNilProxyException. Retrying: 1 attempt(s)
10/12/15 2:42:31.170 PM SophosWebD[1147]: [SophosScanDClient.m:95] Exception in sending file scans :
10/12/15 2:42:31.212 PM SophosWebD[1147]: [SophosDistantObject.m:208] An exception was encountered while messaging the server: SophosNilProxyException. Retrying: 1 attempt(s)
10/12/15 2:42:31.212 PM SophosWebD[1147]: [SophosScanDClient.m:95] Exception in sending file scans :
10/12/15 2:42:31.503 PM SophosWebD[1147]: [SophosDistantObject.m:208] An exception was encountered while messaging the server: SophosNilProxyException. Retrying: 1 attempt(s)
10/12/15 2:42:31.503 PM SophosWebD[1147]: [SophosScanDClient.m:95] Exception in sending file scans :
10/12/15 2:42:31.521 PM SophosWebD[1147]: [SophosDistantObject.m:208] An exception was encountered while messaging the server: SophosNilProxyException. Retrying: 1 attempt(s)
10/12/15 2:42:31.521 PM SophosWebD[1147]: [SophosScanDClient.m:95] Exception in sending file scans :
10/12/15 2:42:31.662 PM SophosWebD[1147]: [SophosDistantObject.m:208] An exception was encountered while messaging the server: SophosNilProxyException. Retrying: 1 attempt(s)
10/12/15 2:42:31.662 PM SophosWebD[1147]: [SophosScanDClient.m:95] Exception in sending file scans :
10/12/15 2:42:31.938 PM scanserver[9748]: [main.m:119] server started!
10/12/15 2:42:39.000 PM kernel[0]: Sophos Anti-Virus on-access kext activated
10/12/15 2:42:40.133 PM SophosWebD[1147]: [WebClient.m:422] starting intercept
10/12/15 2:42:40.202 PM InterCheck[9747]: running code with pid 69 is trusted
10/12/15 2:42:40.207 PM InterCheck[9747]: running code with pid 69 is trusted
10/12/15 2:42:40.208 PM InterCheck[9747]: started...

Hi Deesl,

Thanks for submitting the logs. I've passed them onto the developer who is looking into this issue, and will let you know as soon as I have an update for you.

Cheers,
Serra

Hey everyone,

So we've discovered another user who was experiencing this issue was able to resolve it by resetting the rules on another application called little snitch. Just curious if any of you are using this, or any other third party firewall applications?

I saw the article, too, about Little Snitch. However, I am not using it, nor do I have a firewall set up or have an app for it (that I know of).