Is Sophos doing some email scanning?

Question

For the past 2 days I can't get my emails to go out. I can receive email (using Mozilla Thunderbird) but can't send any. It takes over a minute, and then a message comes up that I have timed out and email can't be sent.

My server's tech support said that that often happens when outgoing emails are being scanned. The scanning takes so long that the email won't go.

How do I get Sophos to STOP SCANNING MY OUTGOING EMAIL? (if that's what they're doing.) If a recent upgrade created this problem, I want to go back to the way it was; that worked fine. I'm concerned that I can't send email, and I have some very important business to conduct asap.

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QC · Accepted Answer

Hello ubarb,

no need to shout (especially on an unverified assumption, Sophos scans files and thus an effect would only be noticeable when you attach larger stuff). 
 A timeout is detected on the client side when the initial connection can't be established or a response from the server is not received - not when it takes an excessive amount of time (i.e. transmission is slow).. 
 your server's tech support said: scanning takes so long 
 Let's be reasonable here: One minute is quite some time during which you can scan a lot more than just a few kilobytes. But even if this were the case the timeout would occur on the server (and probably logged).

It's quite simple though (and doesn't take long) to check if Sophos is involved: Turn off on-access scanning - if the symptoms are the same then you can rule out scanning.

Christian :1012388