Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition

Just in case you did not see this in the PMC News widget.

I received this email yesterday after having spent over two hours dealing with the described issues on Tuesday morning (and ripping and replacing software that, apparently, did not need to be replaced).

We are aware of the recent connectivity issues with SEP SBE. We are investigating and have determined that this is an issue with communications to our server caused by a recent Microsoft Update (KB3076895), however the Microsoft patch is a critical security update and is not recommended to be removed. The Endpoint Protection agent is functioning normally and systems are still protected.

Symptoms related to this issue:
System Tray icon shows it’s in an unknown state
Policies are not being updated
Client GUI may not open
The Portal is not being updated with the status of the client

We will be providing more information as it becomes available.

Sincerely,

The Symantec Customer Communications Team

 

Hello...

Any news about this issue? I tried to looking for it, but just found this post!

Thank you!

I'm aware of this, but I have multiple Windows 7 computers (20 in all) that are adversely affected by this update.  However, Symantec's phone support says I have to contact Microsoft about this, and after contacting Microsoft my only alternative seems to be to start a paid support case (we don't have a paid support agreement), which raised objections from my superiors (and me).  Googling the issue has led me to the support page for KB3076895, which I was told to try to download by my boss.  The attempt yielded a message that stated that the update was not applicable.  Does anyone know of any other way to get this supposed hotfix from Microsoft other than a paid support case?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

The Hotfix is currently only available from Microsoft. While their automated messages frequently provide information about fees involved with contacting their technical support they will create what they call a "Grace Case" for you which will not cost you any money.

Unfortunately the Hotfix is not available directly from us as the issue was with a change that Microsoft had made to the operating system itself which has also affected other vendor's software.

We have confirmed with Microsoft that if you reference Internal Article 3092401 or provide this link to the support technician - http://bemis/8/Pages/3092401_en-US.aspx - they will provide the fix for you. Initially there were some issues wherein not all of their staff had been informed of this fix but as of now that appears to be resolved.

Regards,

James Mitchell

Thanks for the update James.  I finally got in touch with Microsoft again regarding this, and I'm waiting to hear back from their support engineers.  I was able to make more progress the second time because one of our company's servers is affected by this issue.  I suspect the lack of information you cited was what happened with the first MS support rep I contacted.

Just an additional, annoying, note about this problem.

Because the portal is not being updated, neither are we.  The communication issue is also preventing the product from sending out the informational emails about problems encountered on client computers.

I have not been able to find anyone who seems to know what actions to take to fix this, short of pulling a hotfix down and installing it on all of my clients' computers - and I won't do that unless it is absolutely necessary.

I am willing to give this a shot, simply because I can't wait for any more "help" from either Microsoft or (especially) Symantec.

September 2015 update to fix Windows or application freezes after you install security update 3076895

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3092627

I can confirm that KB3092627 does indeed fix the problems with SEP.cloud without uninstalling or reinstalling any Symantec software.

After installing this update, you must reboot the computer (or server).