System becomes unresponsive

I installed the Sophos AV for Mac yesterday afternoon and started a full system scan.  It identified roughly 3,700,000 files to scan.  That was over 15 hours ago and it still has 3,142,340 files left to scan.  At this rate it will take several days to complete the scan.  Why is it so slow?  How can I speed it up? 

I have a MacBook Pro 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB of Memory, Mac OS 10.6.4

 installed sophos yesterday but it brings my newer-ish MBP w/ 4g to it's knees. if you're just browsing the web and reading email you probably won't notice, but if you stress your system in any way, forget it. file system access times and memory usage went way up...that's what happen with free products like this..... everything i've read says the only reason to have antivirus software on your mac is to avoid passing on email-based viruses to PC users. an alternative to this is software called "little snitch" or "intego virusbarrier"  that monitors and reports all network usage.:manindifferent:

Sorry Marf, I missed your post before. I created the scan you asked for and will run it right after i post this and advise following. 

Do you have a bootcamp partition? How about some dmg's?

No Bootcamp Partition.  I do have Parallels installed but not running.

As far as dmg's, I have a few on my desktop and probably in my downloads folder from prior software installs, but none are currently mounted.

I also have similar issues.  Installed and updated Mac Home Edition yesterday, updated to Version 7.2.1C, threat engine 3.12.11, threat data 4.59.  Running i7 iMac, Mac OS X 10.6.4.  I started "Scan Local Drives".  I have a BOOTCAMP partition and a large VMWARE file.  I excluded both for "on-access scanning" but don't see any way to exclude from "Scan Local Drives".  I noticed that the number of items remaining was not decreasing quickly.  In fact it seemed stuck for a long time.  I also noticed that "Time Machine" and "Mobile Me syncing" also seemed stuck.  I canceled "Scan Local Drives" and my system eventually hung completely with the spinning color wheel of death for every application and Finder.  I had to power the system off and reboot.

This morning I turned "Time Machine" off and started the "Scan Local Drives" again.  Items remaining is decreasing but very vey slowly.  "Activity Monitor" shows very little CPU or disk I/O, however the system hasn't hung and the count is decreasing, albeit very slowly.  Other than adding the exclude items to "on-access scanning" all other options are default.

I've always heard great things about Sophos and I'm very appreciative that you are offering a free Mac version for home use.  I'm hoping that these issues are just growing pains and that they will be solved quickly.  I am surprised that the CPU and Disk I/O activity isn't much higher during the scan as I have 1.3M items left and this will take weeks if no months at the rate that it is performing the "Scan Local Drives". 

Please let me know if there is anything that you would like me to test.  At the moment, "Time Machine" is off, "Mobile Me syncing" is still on, and the system has not hung.

Rand

Hello,

I'm having the same problem.  Home Ed gets about 80% done and then there is not further GUI activity.  I can not quit or force quit and the more I try it get the system back (terminal & ssh "reboot now", remote desktop "Restart System") etc. Will lead to a totally frozen system.  Have force rebooted multiple times and still does the same issue.

I have a i7 MBP 2.6GHz (MacBookPro6,2) with 8GB of RAM.

Thanks.

"However, the temperature is running at about 208 degrees farenheight"

Chogidog,

    The overheating issue is related to Apples SMC cooling solution built into the machine. This is of NO FAULT caused by SAV I ASSURE you. As a test, feel free to do ANY heavy cpu intensive work with your MBP (handbrake encoding, gaming, watching 720p flash video, etc) and you will also see the temps rise significantly.

This is due to the fact that Apple sets the machines up to run a SILENTLY as possible before ramping up the fans to cool it down, which ineffect sometimes leads to the machine getting TOO HOT.

I, as well as many other MBP owners use SMC fancontrol and set out fans manually to prevent this from happening. This has been an issue since I bought my original 2006 Intel 15inch MBP(now sold), and my 2009(15inch) and 2010(13inch) models as well. It's Apple, you learn to live with it, or find your own solution like some of us do. Thats the problem  with Apple using Steves "vision" to try to appease everyone.

In additon, prior to installing SAV, when was the last time you repaired disk permissions??? If you can be bothered to do so, would you mind uninstalling SAV, rebooting and repairing permissions? Then reinstall SAV and try scanning again

Hope this helps...

Happened again this morning.  Running Mac OS X 10.6.4, iMac i7, Sophos version 7.2.1.C, 3.12.11, and 4.59.  Time machine was turned off.   I had among other things, "activity monitor, "safari", "mail", "calendar", "text wrangler" running.  "Sophos Anti-Virus" was doing a "Scan Local Drives".   I looked at the log file as it was scanning and it apparently was scanning the BOOTCAMP partition because it logged that a file was corrupt on that partition.

Here is what I noticed:

1.  Apple mail became unresponsive.  Indicated mailboxes were attempting to update but cursor became color wheel of death.

2.  Activity monitor showed very little CPU or IO activity.

3.  Most items in menu bar caused cursor to become color wheel of death when hovering except Sophos and Meterologist (the two non-Apple items)

4.  Attempted to start "terminal" from dock.  Showed it started but window never opened and it became unresponsive.

5.  Safari was still responsive after Apple mail had become unresponsive but eventually Safari also became unresponsive.

6.  Sophos Anti-Virus "items remaining" had stopped decreasing.  Although I'm not positive of this, I think it may have stopped at the exact same point as last night when the system hung.

7.  The clock in the menu bar was hung.

8.  Attempted to "sample" Sophos Anti-Virus using "Activity Monitor" but that eventually hung.  Never got the sample.

9.  Dock became unresponsive.

10.  "Textwrangler" window dragging was extremely delayed.  Window dragging of non-responsive applications was normal.

11.  Attempted to attach to system using "ssh" from another mac, but would not connect.

12.  After the menu clock had stopped for 40 minutes, I quit Sophos Anti-Virus.  It didn't disappear from dock (but it was unresponsive).  Didn't see it in "Activity Monitor", but system was still not operating properly.

13.  "Activity Monitor" eventually became unresponsive but it still had the sample window showing it was trying to perform sampling.

14.  At this point there was nothing else to do but hit the power button and reboot.

Will try a "Custom Scan" on "Macintosh HD" so that BOOTCAMP is not scanned and see if that completes or hangs.

Rand

Same problem here, just made custom scan omitting bootcamp and have un ticked scanning archives.  Will report back when finished.

I hope they can sort this irritating problem.