Standard scan stalls on dslocal-backup.xar file. OS X 10.11.1, Sophos 9.4.0

Question

(I thought I'd managed to inadvertently click on something dodgy accessed via CNN news website; a strange website loaded; I shut everything down but wanted to do a scan just to be safe). Scan sits on file dslocal-backup.xar for hours. I see others have had this issue. Should I try to send in my dslocal-backup.xar file?

This thread was automatically locked due to age.

KathrynAlbee · Accepted Answer

Hi everyone. 
I was having this same problem & read the 3-4 similar posts on the dslocal-backup.xar problem. 
Here's what I did: 
Followed instructions for excluding the file by double-clicking the white space in the "Scan This Mac" box. 
Ran scan & it still got stuck on this file. 
Followed instructions for excluding the file from Sophos - Preferences - OnAccess - Excluded items. 
Ran scan & it still got stuck on this file. 
Explored some more & realized that I have this file in 2 places because I have 2 partitions on my hard drive. 
Added exclusions to both places for both copies of this file. 
Success - well mostly. 
 
Then I had a problem with the scan hanging on jdk-8u60-macosx-x64.dmg. In this case, however, I could stop the scan with the button without having to resort to rebooting computer (as I had to when it hung on dslocal). So I exclude this file in both locations. 
Reran scan & it still hung. 
Deleted file (I can download java installer if I ever need it again) 
Reran scan & this time it finished (in about 3.5 hours). 
 
Please read the other posts regarding dslocal-backup.xar for instructions on how to exclude the file from BOTH areas (double clicking white space in "Scan This Mac" box AND the OnAccess areas). One or two of the posts will explain how to open the folder even though it is "hidden." 
 
Good luck & hope this helps.