I am happy to report that after a few weeks of hard work by Symantec support that most of the issues I had here, some of which were similar to the OP problems above, have been resolved. \
The worst of the issues was that the SEPM defs would not update, the AV defs that is. LU ran fine and defs like the IPS, download protection, SONAR and so on updated perfectly but the antivirus defs did not.
For anyone else with similar issues don't mess around, don't sit on it, get a support ticket started and even refer to my issue if you need to because they have seen this and have a tool to fix the definitions problem that comes about after an upgrade of SEPM. So SEPM defs issues solved!!
Other issue - exponential growth of the SQL database. We were getting by with an 80 gig drive in the SQL server for the DATA. This is a dedicated SQL server, nothing else running on it but MS SQL. C is the OS and program files, D is the SQL data and E is the SQL logs.
D went from 80 gig FULL to 250 gig with 70 gig free after the SEPM upgrade. This was SEPM only and it caused the SQL database to go from way way under 80 gig to OVER 140 gig now! They are still looking into that.
3rd issue was that the firewall logs as viewed in monitors tab, threats would not display correctly or at all on SEPM1 but did fine on SEPM2 (SEPM2 had to be fully uninstalled and then reinstalled from scratch after the initial upgrade process broke and let if SEPM-less) Odd that it worked on SEPM2 after an uninstall and reinstall but not on SEPM1 after an upgrade. So the magic tech at Symantec dug deep into the symtools results and came up with a solution - something or someone or some-whatever a year ago during other issues during another upgrade in the past changed a file or two on SEPM1 and the upgrade would not over-write said files. Makes sense so I copied the files from SEPM2 to the same location on SEPM1 and resolved the firewall log threat protection display on SEPM1 issue. That's 1 solved, 1 being looked into and 1 solved.
Ah, but wait, there's more! I happened to mention while discussing the SEPM console display issues, that I've not for a very very long time been able to sort the display of clients by the antivirus definitions column. The tech said "that's odd, I can". I proved it. He was very creative and we did some testing. He created a spreadsheet, we used the protection technology view and the default view and went through the list of columns indicating which ones were sortable and which were not. He and I both saw an instant pattern. Yes, I had discovered a bug! He had 3 he could not sort, I had 3 I could not sort. 2 of them matched between us, 1 did not. Moving the columns around, changing their order and/or position I could make the inability to sort move!
I also discovered that it was not only the order or their placement, it's HOW they got to be there! You can move a column more left by dragging it left, or, you can move it left by moving OTHER columns to the right. Depending on HOW you moved them you could cause some to lose the ability to be sorted, or gain that ability back. Sort of like shuffling cards, moving the columns in the SEPM console client view you could really shake things up as far as being able to sort the lists. So I had though for a year that there was a problem. No one believed me because THEY could sort by virus defs date and I could not - because I viewed the virus defs as so critically important I dragged that column to the left a little bit so I could always see who had what virus defs - then I was not able to sort. I got it to sort again by moving the av defs column to the right a few spots, then moving it back to the left by moving other columns to the right. Now I can sort on the av defs - but not one of the others I used to be able to sort on!
Try it for kicks - it's a bug we found, well, I told him I was going to submit a report and he got the idea to compare notes so I bet it goes up the chain fairly quickly, but if you can also trigger the inability to sort the display be a column simply by moving the column or by HOW to move the column, more info could be helpful but I'll leave that up to them. Play a trick on your co-workers, break the console display be moving columns around and causing them to lose the ability to sort on av defs and you'll be the life of the party at work, or get called into the boss's office............
My 1 single support case turned into 4, 2 are solved, 2 are in progress, 1 of those in progress is actually a bug! (an obscure one, but a bug non-the-less)
The first level fellow tried hard but was spinning his wheels, we both realized it was way over his pay grade and he gracefully escelated the case. Then James got involved and I can't say enough positive things about him. I hope that Symantec does what is needed to keep him there, better yet, get that fellow into QA as I believe that's his ultimate goal at Symantec and he seems to like working there. That's the sort you need to keep - he likes it and wants to move up into QA. Based on my experiences with him, he'd do well there. I had that goal myself but turned the offer down as I did not want to move to CA. Had I been able to do the work from here, where I live, I'd have accepted the offer as I believe in the products and enjoy QA work (even though I'm really picky and at times anal).
Yeah, sometimes I question upper management but isn't it like that anyway, you can like the person but not always like their deeds. In this case I like the product and have mostly positive experneices with the company even if I disagree with some of their moves or decisions now and then.
Got issues with a 12.1.5 upgrade - get a ticket going and if first level can't help,. escelate and hope James is your tech. He helped me and was positive the whole time.