Scan never completes

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rick-m650 wrote:

I tried to run my initial scan and it froze 

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Depends what you mean by 'froze'.  The scan can hit a large file (or more likely a file with a bundle of files inside it) at any point during the scan and it looks like there is no progress being made.  If you give it time (sometimes hours) it will get through it.

I assume you're running the default 'Scan This Mac' scan?  If so try unchecking the compressed files option and see if the progress is any different.  Like this...

Thank you the reply Diz.  I did what you said once I got back home and unclicked the box.  While the Scan seems to be working it is SO sloooow!  I have a new 27" iMac with a 1 TB Fusion Drive and a External Seagate 2 TB Backup Drive via USB 3.0.  On the Mac HD (Fusion) there is 952 GB free... so there's not too much on this computer's hard drive.  How long would you expect an initial scan to run??  At 8:00pm after the scan had been running for almost 1 hour, it showed 5,787,507 files remaining.  An hour and a half later at 9:30pm, there was still 5,787,135 files remaining.  Is 372 files scanned reasonable?  At 11pm, there was still 5,786,835 files remaining.  So, for the 3 hours that I was monitoring this, the scan got thru only 672 files.  What could be causing this to progress so slowly.  There are 3 other family members that have their own User Names and profiles on this iMac... could that be a factor?  What info would you need to help troubleshoot my issue.  If my experience is typical, I don't understand why your program is so highly regarded.  Thanks.

-Rick

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rick-m650 wrote:

If my experience is typical, I don't understand why your program is so highly regarded.

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Was that 'your' aimed at me?  Hey, this isn't my program!

If it's scanning all three drives at the same time it may be too much.  What does the scan log in Console say?  Can you post that?  Example of where to look...

Sorry, no offense intended.  Should has said "why Sopos is so...".  But I digress.  

Here's the log file.  Not sure what it says.  Thanks.

The log shows you gave it several hours (good test), that it is a 'Scan This Mac' scan and that the scan detected (and is scanning) the main hard drive and the backup drive all in one go.

If it was me I wouldn't bother with scanning the backup volume.  Why is it really needed?  Let's say that there may be malicious files in backup...they aren't going to cause any problems being in there - they are locked up in the backup.  The backup with them in will eventually be deleted when Time Machine fills up the drive and needs the space.  You may decide to pull files out of the backup and one or more may be malware.  However the real time scanner will immediately detect them at that point.  My advice: exclude the backups and just scan the main system drive because that's the important bit.

If you agree it's not required then you can either create a custom scan (which you can schedule to run whenever you like - the computer has to be on though).  In the scan include the main drive, but exclude the 'Backups' volume.

Main drive scan:

Include items: /

Exclude items: /Volumes/Backups

Or you can re-configure the 'Scan This Mac' scan in the same way - to exclude the /Volumes/Backups folder - and whenever you run it, it's just going to check the main drive.  To re-configure this scan just double-click the white area in the 'Scans' window and access the 'Scan This Mac' settings.

Optional: If you really wanted to set up a scan for backups volume then you should create a standalone custom scan where the 'Scan Items' tab has just the /Volumes/Backups listed.

In summary:  I suggest you either configure 'Scan This Mac' to exclude the backups volume or create a custom scan with the same exclusion  - your choice.  Then see how long that scan takes.

If the scan still takes a really long time (give it time on the first run) you need to identify if it's a particular file etc. that is causing a particularly slow scan time with the Sophos sweep program from Terminal to log the files being checked.  Example:

sudo sweep / -dn 2> ~/Desktop/manualscan.txt

Hope that helps.

BTW:  Post back the Console scan log and (if you run it) the sweep scan log if the scan still has problems.

Thanks... that did the trick.  I created a custom scan as per your suggestion which I ran and it completed.  I then then ran the normal scan but with the backup drive disconnected.  Both got thru the 800K files (as compared to 4M) OK.  The custom "Main Drive Scan" found 2 issues however, but no threats.  The regular scan didn't detect those same 2 issues (corrupted files).  

Thanks again!

I solved the problem of scans stopping on my iMac after less than an hour into the scan.  After suffering through this problem for months, I suspected the default hourly auto update was stopping the scan. Now, I deselect the auto update and run the scan of all files , including the remote iomega backup, without a hitch.  The suggestion to restrict the scan to the macHD alone would shorten my scan time and I may try that  if I can convince myself that it's necessary 

On my iMac (Snow Leopard) how long do you think (estimated time) it would take for
Sophos to scan a 2 TB recovery file I did with Disk Drill drive
recover program? I am currently going on 5 days plus and no end
insight. I am worried about my hard drives constantly running for so
long. Should I be worried? It says and it does say issues detected.
I checked the internal main drive and found a file that said infected
files. 4 were in there so I deleted them while Sophos was still
scanning. I am about ready to give up and stop it.  Other programs take about 2 hours. 

Hi JFK

Did you make the recovery file because your hard drive was failing? 

The 'issues detected' message can normally be safely ignored - this just indicates the scanner encountered an issue while scanning a file - possibly because of corruption or encryption. This is fairly common, especially if your hard drive was failing. 

How long the 2TB scan would take can vary drastically between systems, but 5 days is way longer than I would expect. I don't think you need to worry about the hard drive being running, but I would still probably stop the scan, restart your computer, and try again. 

You could also check the logs to see if they tell you where the scan got hung up. Below I've posted a video that show you how to check the logs.