Sophos Update Issue-Cannot Connect to Server

Discussions around the setup, operation, replacement, and disposal of clerk computers, not to include using MLS
drepouille
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Location: Plattsmouth, NE

Re: Sophos Update Issue-Cannot Connect to Server

#21

Post by drepouille »

Did the GSC tech I just talked to know about this?
Dana Repouille, Plattsmouth, Nebraska
russellhltn
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Re: Sophos Update Issue-Cannot Connect to Server

#22

Post by russellhltn »

drepouille wrote:I would rather have anti-virus than firewall.
Depends on how much you trust the users of your network to be malware free. If the Windows firewall is running, that's good enough until you can fix it.
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
drepouille
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Re: Sophos Update Issue-Cannot Connect to Server

#23

Post by drepouille »

bfromm wrote:After doing some research, it looks like the latest Sophos 10 installer we posted was not packaged correctly.
I don't know which version I get when I download Sophos10_ClerkPC.exe.

The download page says:
Last Updated: 27 June 2013 at 10:38
To Download and Install Sophos:
Download the Sophos installer.
Double-click Sophos10_ClerkPC.exe to start the installation.
When the User Account Control dialog box appears, click Yes to allow the file to run.
When the setup window appears, click Next.
When the installation finishes, the computer will automatically reboot.

By the way, when my Sophos installation finished, the computer did NOT automatically reboot.
Dana Repouille, Plattsmouth, Nebraska
bfromm
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Re: Sophos Update Issue-Cannot Connect to Server

#24

Post by bfromm »

drepouille wrote:Did the GSC tech I just talked to know about this?
No, they did not know about this. I just became aware of the thread today and tracked down the information. Once we confirm that the instructions I posted work, I will let them know. I'm also still waiting for a new Sophos package so I can replace the one currently posted. What a mess! You will be happy to hear that we have an active project going on right now to fix the outstanding Sophos issues. We got clobbered by a few things in the last year that really messed things up.
drepouille wrote:By the way, when my Sophos installation finished, the computer did NOT automatically reboot.
I updated the instructions a few days ago to reflect what the new package behavior will be (it will automatically reboot). They weren't supposed to publish the changes until I told them the new file was in place...

Regarding the firewall, you will continue to see the firewall error until the last reboot in my instructions. After putting the file in place, rebooting, forcing an update, and rebooting again, the computer should start up without any Sophos errors. One of the reasons the firewall is important is the fact that wireless users are on the same network as the Clerk Computer. The firewall prevents connections to the Clerk Computer which keeps it more secure.
russellhltn
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Re: Sophos Update Issue-Cannot Connect to Server

#25

Post by russellhltn »

bfromm wrote:What a mess! You will be happy to hear that we have an active project going on right now to fix the outstanding Sophos issues. We got clobbered by a few things in the last year that really messed things up.
Does it include fixes for dial-up users?
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
drepouille
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Re: Sophos Update Issue-Cannot Connect to Server

#26

Post by drepouille »

bfromm wrote:Sophos should now be up-to-date and working properly. Please give this a try and see if it fixes the problem!
The reboot seemed to fix the Sophos Client Firewall service, since it appeared normal after the reboot.
Your iconn.cfg file pointed to S031 rather than S040, and doing a manual update caused a download of some cmanifest files, and the installation of a package i had not seen before.

Everything appears to be working normally now.
Thanks for your help.
Dana Repouille, Plattsmouth, Nebraska
jirp
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Location: Greybull WY

Re: Sophos Update Issue-Cannot Connect to Server

#27

Post by jirp »

Running into the same problem. Somehow McAffey ended up on the system and Sophos quit running. The stake told me to contact Unit support which I did. They deleted McAffey and moved Sophos to the start up menu to make it run. Only that wasn't working. So that tech passed me to someone else today who set up an appointment time for me to be online only to then tell me that because the clerks office computer was a different class he couldn't help me and he passed me back to unit support who called me later and gave me a number to call which while different also goes back to unit support. So I called them tonight and they downloaded a forced sophos uninstall and ran it and then he had me download and do the sophos reinstall. Sophos now runs on start up but it won't update(when done manually the server connection times out and gives the cannot connect to server message) and it won't connect to sophos end point security & control(when clicked nothing happens). I have tried redoing the install and that didn't help and I have waited almost 2 hours to see if it would get where it connected on its own. I have also done a complete power down restart in case there was a problem there that a simple restart cycle wasn't solving. All 3 web browsers run fine so there isn't a connection problem there. Still nothing. Suggestions?

Yes I am only a ward clerk but please don't tell me to contact the stake technology specialist as there isn't one and there isn't likely to be one at any point in the foreseeable future. My networking experience is extremely limited but I am a solid computer nerd in most other realms.
russellhltn
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Re: Sophos Update Issue-Cannot Connect to Server

#28

Post by russellhltn »

The server is a church server. Are you connected to the church network? Perhaps it won't update if it's not connected properly to the church system - such as if you were trying to build this at home, or if the firewall has been bypassed. You can do a check by going to filter.lds.org. If you are connected properly, you'll get a check mark. Otherwise, you'll get a "X".

If you can, you might ask another ward to do a manual check and see if they can update. Perhaps the server is down.

The last question is where did you download Sohos? It should be from the clerksupport.lds.org page (although there are different ways of getting to it. You'll end up somewhere under http://www.lds.org/callings/melchizedek ... gy-support)
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
jirp
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Re: Sophos Update Issue-Cannot Connect to Server

#29

Post by jirp »

My problem is solved but I will share what I learned along the way. The final solution after spending about 11 hours on the phone with a total of 6 LUS techs trying to fix sophos was to download the drive image and reinstall everything.

First to answer the questions. Yes I had the check mark and also MLS was working properly and bringing in file updates so the church network was working properly. The other wards computer was updating sophos so no problem with the network and no problem with the hardware firewall. And I was downloading sophos from the right location.

One of the things the first tech tried was verifying that windows firewall and defender were not operational so this should be on the list of things to try.

Another one tried at 2 different points after reinstalling sophos was to wait 24 hours to see if it went to working so this must be another one to try. Apparently it fixes itself some of the time if you just wait following an install where it isn't working.

Now on the issue of the forced uninstaller. There is a problem here that you can help the techs fix. When the uninstaller runs it immediately closes the command line window that it was running in and you can't read what was on the screen at the end. I had multiple techs rerun the program multiple times so they could try and read the end screen. This probably accounted for an hour of wasted time. When I looked after this I found the uninstaller is a plain batch file. If you right click the extracted file you have the option of editing it. Editing it should open it in windows notepad(simple text editor).(if it opens in a word processor instead exit without saving because word processors can add characters that foul up batch files) There you want to make a single change in the file. About 3 or 4 screens of text in you will find an end loop command followed by an EXIT -B O. Between these 2 commands you want to add a line with PAUSE Then simply save the file and run. This will cause the computer to ask you to press any key to continue before it exits the program so you have time to read the screen. This change should probably be made in every copy of the uninstaller to save time and it only takes 5 minutes to make. The other thing to know is that there are multiple version of the uninstaller so if one isn't working another can be tried. But the problem is only 2 techs in LUS have these so you need one of these 2 techs.(only 1 of these techs has several versions) Also know that if this program is running in less than 10 minutes something is wrong and either things were already uninstalled or it is failing to do its job.

As for the sophos installer download here is another place you can save some time. The techs will want to try multiple paths to the download in case there is a problem. There are 5 distinct paths to it. And they will want to try it in at least 2 browsers just in case that is a problem giving you 10 permutations to try. 8 of ten were tried in my cases. The catch is the last 2 steps/links in the path are identical for all 5 paths. So trying this on more than twice is almost certainly wasted time. Maybe 2 from each browser for a total of 4 tries should probably be worst case. The techs need to be shown that all 5 paths lead to exactly the same spot. It may be they didn't used to but they do now. Trying a total of 8 permutations was a stupid waste of time. If you are going beyond this I would suggest asking for a supervisor as you need better help.

That concludes what I learned dealing with LUS techs. I have seen numerous comments on problems with techs in this section and a few others. I will have to say everyone I dealt with was really friendly and polite. Their skill levels varied. Biggest irritation was the guy who hit the wrong button and hung up on me 3 times. The lesson here is be sure you write down each techs name so you can get back to the same person if disconnected. Over all their basic computer skills were decent but upper level skills that I would expect from tech people were a little lacking. For example no one ever looked at the log files for the uninstaller to see what it had done and/or not done and you see the other suggestions above.

Okay now for what I learned in the time I spent researching manually pulling sophos out by the roots after it became obvious tech wasn't working but before being told to just download and install the drive image. Current information on removing sophos manually is almost non existant. Probably it is necessary to be a member of a user group to get to the good stuff here. The best information I was finding was from 2011. Sophos is incredibly difficult to remove manually because it has a bunch of files that can't be deleted or changed directly. The cure then was hacker tools to crack the file securities plus then deleting them from a safe mode start. If it had been my own machine I probably would have tried this route rather than the drive image but with the church computer I felt I had to do it right.

The forced uninstaller does a crappy job of cleaning sophos out of the system. There are about half a dozen sets of directory branches that contain sophos stuff and over a dozen registry entries still left untouched and a system file to be disabled. Add in the files that can't be easily deleted and this would be a pain to clean up manually. I saved all the sophos install and uninstall logs and registry before I wiped the drive in case I wanted them in the future for diagnostics.

Now I will change threads and go to the fresh install thread in this forum to share was learned putting the drive image on.
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