Failed To Download Update (Sophos Primary Server Down?)

As of Sep 23rd, 2:00pm, this problem was fixed.  Thanks.

How did you fix it? Haven't been able to update for the past 10 minutes or so with the same "Could not contact primary server" message :-(

Hi bruinsgirl3337.  It came back automatically.  May be the main server was temporary out.   Your Sophos should be OK by now.

The servers were under extremely heavy load at that time... is this issue fixed for everyone?

Andrew,

No, it is definitely not fixed for everyone.

The daily update has failed every day for the past week, and attempts to do it manually have also all failed.

The AutoUpdate form in Preferences does not allow me to check the box to use a secondary location.

This has been a persistent problem on my wife's computer, too.

Paul Campbell

It continues to be a problem for me as it has for at least a week.  I purchased a version of Sophos years ago -- before the free home Mac version.  It stopped updating at least a week ago.  I ended up uninstalling and then downloading the free version.  Still can't contact the primary server!  Definitely need help here!

Ralph Waechter

If you have a purchased version of the product, please contact Sophos technical support -- the support, after all, is the biggest thing you get with the paid product that you don't get with the free one.  They should be able to help you resolve your issue, and letting them know your problem will provide feedback to the product team that has no official route through these forums (as this is not a problem affecting the Free product).

Hallo to all.

I have the same Problem. Still trying today for an hour.

It starts downloading but after a few seconds the message appears "primary server down"

Any help would be nice....

yours mike

Thanks, Andy.  I purchased from Digital River a few years ago, so I am not all that sure I still have the invoice and related information.  Seems this problem exists on the iMac since my other one seems to use the Sophos tool perfectly. 

The issue isn't hardware-related (I've had no issues on any iMacs) -- but is more likely to be some combination of routing and location -- we use Akamai to distribute the updates, so your local pickup point could be down/unresponsive, or there could be some problem getting from the update process out of your computer to the local network -- sounds like a more likely problem, considering your other Mac isn't having a problem.

So, my best-guess is that this is related to the network configuration in your iMac -- are you using WiFi on it?  Does the problem persist if you switch to a cable connection?