Brightmail Conduit Service Stuck in "Stopping" state.

Article:TECH145916

Created: 2010-12-09

Updated: 2011-03-10

Article URL http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH145916

NOTE: If you are experiencing this particular known issue, we recommend that you to receive email notification each time this article is updated. Subscribers will be the first to learn about any releases, status changes, workarounds or decisions made.

Article Type
Technical Solution

Product(s)

Show all

Languages

Show all

Problem

Antispam rules are out of date.
Attempting to stop and start the Brightmail Conduit Service results in the service entering a "Stopping" state.

Error

There are no errors reported when the Brightmail Conduit service is in a "hung" state.

To identify if Brightmail Conduit is currently in a hung state please do the following:

Determine if the Symantec Brightmail Antispam rules are out of date by navigating to <Install Path>\Symantec\SBAS\Scanner. Determine if the newest BM_Ruleset directory is older than one hour.
If the newest BM_Ruleset is older than one hour attempt to Stop / Start the Brightmail Conduit service.
If an error occurs refresh the services.msc by pressing F5 and determine if the Brightmail Conduit state is "Stopping".
If the Brightmail Conduit Service stops then starts without an error the Conduit service is not currently experiencing the issue outlined in this article.

Environment

The issue is only known to impact Symantec Brightmail Message Filter 6.2 when used with Small Business, Standard and Enterprise versions of Windows 2003 X86.

Cause

Two Conduit threads are entering a deadlock state during the processing of Antispam rules.

Solution

This issue has been resolved with the release of patch 221 for Symantec Brightmail Message Filter 6.2.

Please see the following KB for information on how to implement this fix:

Release Notes Symantec Brightmail Message Filter (SBMF) Patch 221
http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH152630

Workaround

The following workaround is designed to restart the Brightmail Conduit service every hour regardless of the service being in a stopping "hung" state. This is achieved by utilizing the SBMF_SRDC tool in a Windows Scheduled Task. The below instructions step through the process of deploying the tool and setting up a Scheduled Task.

Download & extract the attachment SBMF_SRDC.zip
Navigate to Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Scheduled Tasks
Double-Click "Add Scheduled Task".
Click Next, Choose Browse. Navigate to the extracted location for SBMF_SRDC and select the runMe.bat file. Click Open
Confirm the "Daily" raidio button is selected. Click next.
Confirm "Every Day" is selected. Set the start Date / Time to 12:00 am of the next day. Click Next
Specify a user\password with Local Administrator access. Click next.
Check "Open advanced properties...". Click Finish.
Click the "Schedule" tab. Choose Advanced.
Click the "Repeat Task" check box. Set Every: to "1" and set the other drop down minute to "hours"
Set the Duration to 24 Hours. Leave minutes blank. Click OK. Click Apply. Click OK

The scheduled task is now completed and will go into effect at midnight. If you wish to immediately put the task into effect you can right-click the newly created Scheduled Task and choose the Run option.

Attachments

SBMF_SRDC tool is used to restart the Conduit Process when stuck in a hung state.

SBMF_SRDC.zip (149 kBytes)

Supplemental Materials

Source	ETrack
Value	2209721

Source	ETrack
Value	2245969

TECH152630 Release Notes Symantec Brightmail Message Filter (SBMF) Patch 221