Desktop Email Encryption

Has anyone else run into this problem and know of a solution?

I have two Symantec security products in stalled - Norton 360 and Encryption Desktop Professional.  After upgrading Encryption Desktop to 10.3.2 my Outlook 2010 email client was no longer able to connect to my POP3 email service provider (Earthlink, in this case).  Thanks to excellent trouble-shooting assistance from a Symantec Encryption Desktop technical support specialist, we isolated the cause to an incompatibility with Norton 360.  ie. Outlook 2010 POP3 email works fine when only one of the Symantec products is installed.  It fails when both are installed.

There were some Outlook and POP3 messaging problems that start with v10.x but this problem that makes Outlook POP3 email unusable started with Symantec Encryption Desktop 10.3.2.  The problem still exists in the recently released 10.3.2 MP1.

Currently, I can get by using the older 10.3.1 MP1 with up-to-date Norton 360 but my system does not have the benefit of the security fixes and other updates in the recent releases that I cannot install.

Symantec supported escalated this as a defect for further investigation over 3 weeks ago.  No hotfix or maintenance pack, yet.

Does anyone else have a solution or have additional information that might help isolate to further isolate the root cause?

 

Have you tried disabling the email protection feature of 360 whilst its installed?  Sound like 360, which is infamous for being over protective, is living up to its reputation.

I know that this may sound silly. But have you tried a manual live update via the Norton quick menu in the system tray? Also, check that you are running the lastest version and build of Norton?  I am actually surprised to hear of this incompatibility considering that we have lots of customers who run Symantec Endpoint Protection in combination with Symantec Encryption Deskop and Norton and SEP are actually very much the same under the hood now.  Live update may have a very recent patch done by Norton in case it's that product which is intefering with the operation of Encryption Desktop.

Did they gave you any information on the defect number (which they filed) by chance?

Can you list what version of Norton you are using? Is it Norton 360 or just Norton Internet Security?

No, I was not given the defect number.  I should have asked and will do so in my next enquiry about the status.

I am using Norton 360, updated at least twice weekly -- both to check for next version and to run Live Update.

One possibly unique characteristic of my configuration is that I use Outlook without Exchange.  I am using Outlook 2010 running on Windows 7 Pro SP1 -- both updated at least twice weekly via Microsoft Update.

Fortunately, Symantec diagnostic methods for such problems include enabling verbose logging then reproducing the problem to capture details. That was done and Symantec has the verbose/debug logs.

All I can do now is wait.  In the mean time, I am not able to take advantage of the enhancements and fixes released in new versions of Symantec Encryption Desktop as long as the incompatibility with Norton 360 is unresolved.  Eventually, I'll have to consider finding an alternative security product that is compatible with the latest releases of Symantec Encryption Desktop. That seems counter-intuitive to me, so I'll stick with two products from the same vendor as long as I can.

 

The procedure that verified the incompatibility was to set windows startup to disable all services except Windows and Symantec Encryptions Desktop.  Outlook worked fine.  Repeating the procedure but with all services enabled except Norton 360 also worked fine.  Repeating with the Norton 360 service enabled reproduced the failure -- Outlook connection to the POP3 email services was disrupted.

I need all of the Norton 360 services including email protection, so running with that protection disabled is not an option for me.

Actually, I need both services Symantec products, but if a solution to the compatibility problem is not available soon, I have to consider switching to a different anti-virus/firewall product that coexists with Symantec Encryption Desktop.

 

We have seen a smilar issue wherein the POP3 is being blocked by PGP 10.3.2 and Norton 360 installed and running together. I would request you to please help us with the case numbers which would help us to find the latest status of the defect.

The case number for my situation is:  06142234.  It is currently open, under investigation.

 

Hi rmilling,

Do you have mail encryption policy in place?

We have thesame issue here. We are facing this not only for Norton 360 but for Norton Internet Security and Avast as well. Currently, the workaround is to disable Email protection but that's not acceptable for us.

The only component it used is Drive Encryption.

Rinoa21,

I also use the Whole Disk Encryption (WDE) feature of Symantec Encryption Desktop. 

At the moment, I cannot recieve any email through my POP3 email service provider, Earthlink.  I also created a GMAIL account, set it to use POP3, and duplicated the problem -- I cannot connect and receive POP email through either Earthlink or GMAIL.

Curiously, sending mail via these POP/SMTP email service providers is working fine as long as I create the correct service definitions for SED messaging -- specifically, the default inbound and outbound servers that SED defines were not correct.  For both Earthlink and GMAIL, the outbound server is different from the inbound server. The SED default was to define the same for both inbound and outbound.  I simply adjusted the SED service definitions to align with the correct/different inbound/outbound servers and now I can send outbound POP/SMTP email in the clear through either Earthlink or GMAIL 

So, on-going trouble-shooting is focusing on inbound.  If I simply uninstall Norton 360 then inbound works fine (for both Earthlink and GMAIL).  Like you I need the email protection in Norton 360 and cannot simply disable it to get email working.  Similarly, I need the messaging encryption feature of SED, although quite infrequently.

 

Hi rmilling,

thanks for the information, in my case we don't need mail encryption. I am currently coordinating this issue with Symantec Support and we are trying to disable MAPI, LPS and NOTES component of Encryption Desktop thru msi switches. Will update your thread if disabling this Encryption Mail component will resolve the issue without touching any Antivirus components.

Rinoa21,

The first SED Support engineer who worked with me led me through the same approach.  Indeed, installing with msi switches set to exclude the messaging component worked for us.  In my case, however, I need the messaging encryption component, although quite infrequently. 

Unfortunately, the SED Support engineer who is currently working with me is unable to duplicate the problem that I am having.  His test system is 32-bit (mine is 64) and his system does not have the same history as mine (I upgraded many times thorugh prior versions).  So, he will try the same in a 64-bit environment like mine.  I am looking at rebuilding my system on a spare disk to more cleanly/simply duplicate the problem.  All very frustrating that it is taking so much effort to trouble-shoot a problem that surfaced with a recent product update.

 

Hello - Did this get resolved? I am having the identical issue with Symantec Encryption Desktop 10.3.2MP3 and Avast Premier 2014.9.0.2021.

This has not be resolved, yet, but there may be a solution on the way.

I was contacted by a support engineer who seemed quite aware of the problem and not just my case, but others, as well.  I understand that a fix is in the works and will be incorporated in a future release - after adequate testing, etc.  I was forewarned that it is unlikely to be in the MP that is coming out about now, if not already out, but barring unforseen issues during testing, it is more likely to be in the next one  (v11?)

No specific future release dates/commitments were given, of course.

 

Hi Bill Supe

 

In our case, we disabled mail components such as MAPI, LPS and NOTES on machines and everything works fine after that.