Sophos Anti-Virus Update Never Ends

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KLAU wrote:

Hi Andrew, i have the same problem, updating never ends, and the major problem is that within 3 mins, my mac needs to be restart as it is too  hot because sophos is updating continously, i have a white mac, and the OX system, keeps appearing on the screen a grey sign saying to restart it as it has detected kernels, what is that? i would really like to use my mac again, i have tried to uninstall it dragging it to the trash but continues to be there, can you help me uninstalling it , as i dont think i will be needin you software anymore, please, it is really frustrating, beside, it can burn my mac down, thanks

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This issue is significantly different than the other; I would need more information to figure out what is going on, but the update process will definitely not do this to your Mac -- the on-access scanner may do this in specific circumstances.  This will not cause your Mac to melt down -- although it may cause your fan to blow harder than you're used to.

The issue you seem to be experiencing is called a kernel protection fault -- basically, a process at the core of your computer's operating system is not releasing the computer's processor to work on other things, causing it to spend all its energy on a task that will never complete.  When this happens, Apple brings up a kernel error screen, which can only be exited by restarting the computer.

If you look on these forums, you will find an incompatibility between SAV 8.0.3 and earlier and certain configurations of OS X 10.4.11 that exhibits this behavour.  SAV 8.0.4 is now out and is supposed to fix the issue.  Prior to 8.0.4, users of 10.4.11 were recommended to stay with SAV 7.3.x.

As per the documentation, to uninstall the software, run the uninstaller located at /Applications/Sophos Remove.app.

Do you know which versions of OS X (from the Apple About this Mac menu) and SAV (From the About Sophos Anti-Virus menu) you are using?

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KLAU wrote:

Hi Andrew, i have the same problem, updating never ends, and the major problem is that within 3 mins, my mac needs to be restart as it is too  hot because sophos is updating continously, i have a white mac, and the OX system, keeps appearing on the screen a grey sign saying to restart it as it has detected kernels, what is that? i would really like to use my mac again, i have tried to uninstall it dragging it to the trash but continues to be there, can you help me uninstalling it , as i dont think i will be needin you software anymore, please, it is really frustrating, beside, it can burn my mac down, thanks

---

This issue is significantly different than the other; I would need more information to figure out what is going on, but the update process will definitely not do this to your Mac -- the on-access scanner may do this in specific circumstances.  This will not cause your Mac to melt down -- although it may cause your fan to blow harder than you're used to.

The issue you seem to be experiencing is called a kernel protection fault -- basically, a process at the core of your computer's operating system is not releasing the computer's processor to work on other things, causing it to spend all its energy on a task that will never complete.  When this happens, Apple brings up a kernel error screen, which can only be exited by restarting the computer.

If you look on these forums, you will find an incompatibility between SAV 8.0.3 and earlier and certain configurations of OS X 10.4.11 that exhibits this behavour.  SAV 8.0.4 is now out and is supposed to fix the issue.  Prior to 8.0.4, users of 10.4.11 were recommended to stay with SAV 7.3.x.

As per the documentation, to uninstall the software, run the uninstaller located at /Applications/Sophos Remove.app.

Do you know which versions of OS X (from the Apple About this Mac menu) and SAV (From the About Sophos Anti-Virus menu) you are using?