Message says "Sophos Anti-Virus is not running"

Has anyone figured this out? I'm running OS X10.5.8. The program worked when I first installed but the icon was grayed out after restarting. I uninstalled then reinstalled and it works but when restarting, not working.

I read through all the posts here and it is getting too complicated for me. Andrew asked if "Intercheck" was running in Activity Monitor and if SophosAntiVirus was listed (as opposed to Sophos Anti-Virus) but he didn't explain what to do. In my case, I did NOT see Intercheck" and the Sophos listing was Sophos Anti-Virus.

I ran a scan first time I loaded it and had no problems found. I can still double clidk the application and do a scan but I'd like to know that the program is simply running in the background.

Is the final solution to uninstall and wait for a better version of Sophos? Is there something else that can be used? Any advice (stated simply, please) would be appreciated. Thanks.

I went to wikipedia -eicar but don't see a sample on that page to try. 

My problem went away once I uninstalled, the reinstalled the program. If you're still getting a grayed-out Sophos icon after each restart, contact Sophos tech support directly.

Didn't know that. It's not really the best way to make people want to upgrade to the paid version, you know.

Sophos doesn't provide a paid version -- the main product is an Enterprise solution for corporate groups.  The only consumer version available is the free one.

Has anyone at Sophos ever questioned the wisdom of offering a free anti-virus app without any technical support? Unless it works perfectly, which it evidently doesn't, you're bound to end up with some unhappy users. How is this a benefit to your company?

Hi alansky,

Has anyone at Sophos ever questioned the wisdom of offering a free anti-virus app without any technical support? Unless it works perfectly, which it evidently doesn't, you're bound to end up with some unhappy users. How is this a benefit to your company?

This is a fair question to ask, and yes we challenge ourselves on this topic regularly. I really believe you have it backwards though: the benefit isn't for Sophos, it goes to those people who are successfully using our product. Sophos does not sell licenses to the home user market, we make the product available for free to those who can use it but wouldn't otherwise be able to due to cost.

Admittedly Sophos does derive some benefits (knowledge about the world of Mac users, for instance), although likely those are the same benefits gained from our corporate and enterprise users. We do offer 24 x 7 support for our business customers who choose to purchase their license. This seems fair, as people who gain the most value from our products and services can contribute to keep us in business.

I can also say we definitely want to make our product better. I accept there will be people who find the product lacking and therefore will be unhappy. My goal is to try to minimize complaints because of the feature set or product reliability. I can probably accept it when the lack of real-time 24 x 7 technical support for our free product is the reason people don't use our free product.

Hi Bob,

It is certainly true that users benefit, but Sophos must hope to benefit in some way also. At the very least, they hope to earn the good will of the Mac user community. Only a saint does anything purely out of benevolence. My point is that Sophos only earns the good will of their users if they are happy with the product, whether they pay for it or not. I don't mean to belabor the point. Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Hi alansky,

It is certainly true that users benefit, but Sophos must hope to benefit in some way also. At the very least, they hope to earn the good will of the Mac user community. Only a saint does anything purely out of benevolence. My point is that Sophos only earns the good will of their users if they are happy with the product, whether they pay for it or not. I don't mean to belabor the point. Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Yes, I agree, we are generous and kind but probably not (yet) saintly. We can always improve. Thanks for the feedback, we really do listen. We might not always do what you ask or want or expect, but we do take your opinion seriously.

I had the same problem yesterday on both of my Mac's 10.5.8.  It happened shortly after installing Microsoft Office 2011.  The little Sophos icon turned grey with an X mark in it, and a message poped out that Sophos Anti-Virus is not running...   The only Sophos processes running are Sophos Anti-Virus and SophosUIServer.

I am going to re-install Sophos and see if it helps.  Let me know if there is any update on this issue or anything else that I can try to resolve it.  Otherwise, I found Sophos to be a great tool, thanks for making it available for free and hope my bit of information can help resolve this issue.

emre