OS X 10.9 and AutoUpdate never finishes?

I've also starting having this problem on Mavericks.  The menu item to cancel update is greyed out.  How do I restart updates. 

Thanks.

Hi jdgmd,

Two options, one is easy and one is easier.

Option 1) open Activity Monitor, select "All Processes" from the View menu, find SophosAutoUpdate, and tell it to Quit. The process ID will change after it gets restarted by the system. I'd be interested to know if you can use Quit or you need to use Force Quit.

Option 2) reboot.

If you go down the path of option 1 can you try to get a Sample of the process before telling it to Quit? So far we've been unable to get one (window is always blank) but I figure its always worth asking since we have a limited number of instances to examine.

When I try to update the sophos anti virus software it gives me the following error message:

"could not contact primary server http://its-...."

I tried re-booting and also the instructions for "force quitting" SophosAutoUpdate followed by re-booting

but still get the same error message.  After force quitting the spohosautoupdate it still appears in the Activity

Monitor.

Not sure what else to try. 

Hi KBLawrence,

Your problem is not related to the AutoUpdate issue I described at the top of this thread.

The error message indicates that AutoUpdate is unable to reach our update servers. Can you tell me the whole error message? Seems to have been cut off in your message. Also, what do you see in the AutoUpdate preferences panel?

Option 1 didn't work.  Neither quit or force quit would stop it.  Restarting has worked so far.

After about 5 min autoupdate started and it is hanging again.

Hi jdgmd,

Thanks for the follow-up. What happens if you try to get a Sample (using Activity Monitor) of the SophosAutoUpdate process? Also, can you tell me a little bit about your setup e.g. do you reach the internet via a proxy? do you have other network-intensive apps or firewalls on your Mac? So far we have observed the problem being related to network resources, but haven't narrowed it down beyond that.

No proxy, firewall, or network intensive apps.  I've sent sample to your email.

Thanks for the sample, yes your machine is suffering from the problem we are trying to isolate. Symptoms are that AutoUpdate wil be "stuck" for a long time (hours or more) and the Sample from Activity Monitor will contain these lines somewhere in the middle:

+ 2578 std::basic_streambuf<char, std::char_traits<char> >::uflow() (in libstdc++.6.dylib) + 16 [0x94aaceb6]
+ 2578 http_stream_buff_mac<char, std::char_traits<char> >::underflow() (in libSULObjC.dylib) + 88 [0xb0814]
+ 2578 void (anonymous namespace)::download_chunk<char>(http_stream_buff_mac_data<char>*) (in libSULObjC.dylib) + 59 [0xb04e9]
+ 2578 CFReadStreamRead (in CoreFoundation) + 367 [0x9c1b754f]
+ 2578 CoreReadStreamCFStreamSupport::_stream_read(__CFReadStream*, unsigned char*, long, CFStreamError*, unsigned char*, void*) (in CFNetwork) + 64 [0x95892de0]
+ 2578 CoreStreamBase::_streamInterface_Read(unsigned char*, long) (in CFNetwork) + 141 [0x95892ea7]

The call CFReadStreamRead is the Apple API to read network data. Sometimes in OS X 10.9 it simply never finishes and there is no explanation why. We've escalated this to Apple's developer support team and we continue to work the issue.

The only known workaround as of now is a combination of restarting SophosAutoUpdate plus patience - for everyone else who has reported this, eventually it will complete the update cycle. Keep me updated with your progress.

Bob, yes after reading other posts I realized my issue is not the same. Here is what I am seeing:

Could not contact primary server http://its-w2ks42.ur.rochester.edu/CIDs/S003/ESCOSX

Based on the other posts I read, I don't have the "sophos remove tool" anywhere on my computer.  I tried using a zip file from someone else's post but I was unable to open/find the remove tool either.  Can you tell me how to proceed: either a fix of what I currently have or getting the remove tool on my computer so that I can un-install version 8 and install version 9?

Also, I forgot to mention I have a MacBook pro from 2009 using Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 (maybe I need to update my OS first?)