Shield greyed out band 'Sophos is not running' warning since last update

Martin Nichols said:

...The 'shield' is permanently greyed-out and in the preferences pane I can't turn 'On-access Scanning' on - it's stuck on off and the start/stop button is greyed out at 'Stopping'...

Which version of Mac OS X do you have installed? Also note DJ Kim's post (https://community.sophos.com/products/free-antivirus-tools-for-desktops/f/17/t/74079) and its link to a temporary fix. If you're using El Capitan, you can try that to see if it works since the symptoms you describe fit that issue.

Thanks ZRL1. I'm on Mac 10.8.5, so that wouldn't seem relevant, and nothing else has changed with my computer for some months. It seems to be the last Sophos manual update that's gone wrong (Auto update is 'off'.) From 'About Sophos': version 9.4.2, Threat Detect Engine 3.64.1, Threat data 5.24. From Preferences: Scan Adware and PUAs 'on'; Live protection 'off'; Web protection - Block access 'off', Block malicious downloads 'on'. Has anyone tried trashing preference files?

I don't know if this is helpful, but I just checked Sophos 9.4.2 running in 10.8.5 and it had threat data 5.23; everything was working. I forced an immediate update and got threat data 5.24. Rebooted and all the features are still working.

Nothing is ever simple.[:S]

Thanks, but I don't know which version I updated from: it was probably a few weeks since my last manual update. I'm still suspicious that a prefs file has got corrupted somewhere. Trouble is there are a LOT of Sophos prefs, so I've no idea which to ditch, or if it's safe to do so… Any suggestions? I'm tempted to uninstall and start again...

I've been having a similar problem. Also using 9.4.2. It's not happening on every start-up but twice so far this week. If I manually upload after getting the warning, the shield goes from gray back to black. If I restart immediately afterward, it loads fine upon reboot.

UPDATE: uninstalled using the 'uninstaller' app, which was rather scary as the process crashed with no way of knowing if it had completed correctly and my Mac wouldn't then shutdown - stuck at grey screen.  Had to pull the the power plug.  It started up slowly on first boot, but seemingly OK.  Disk Utility didn't reveal any issues, so re-installed Sophos AV, using the latest installer and it's now working, well mostly...

I have to turn off both versions of Web Protection to be able to use WeTransfer or similar file transfer services.  WeTransfer say this is a Sophos issue, in common with other virus scanning software.  I live in hope that Sophos can make Anti-Virus play nicely with WeTransfer.

I manually updated to ver. 9.4.2 (on a Mac running 10.6.8 Snow Leopard) and since then the Sophos shield is greyed out and "On-Access scanning is disabled"; I haven't been able to start it from the instructions given:

"To turn on-access scanning on or off:

1. Choose Sophos Anti-Virus ➤ Preferences .

2. Click On-access Scanning.

3. If some settings are dimmed, click the lock icon and type an administrator name and password.

4. Change the setting as follows:

• To turn on-access scanning on, click Start Scanning. The status changes to on and the Sophos Anti-Virus icon in

the menu bar turns black.

• To turn on-access scanning off, click Stop Scanning. The status changes to off and the Sophos Anti-Virus icon in

the menu bar turns gray."

I have tried rebooting but that doesn't make any difference either and I don't know how to reinstate it.

Any further suggestions?