Hi BadAndy,

Is this event repeated for multiple different items, or is this multiple instances of the same item being called unscannable? Is this new behavior, or has this behavior been ongoing for some time?

Essentially I'm trying to narrow down the root cause to either

A. A problem with the decomposer engine
Or
B. A problem with an item, or possibly several items, and the way the original client is encoding them.

This is the type of case I'd normally recommend creating a ticket for, as we may need to do some in depth data analysis that we just can't via the forums.

There is a document created for a similar situation with PPT files the points to an update coming in a newer version of SMSMSE:

Title: 'Office 2007 Documents are Marked as Unscannable with Error Message: decomposer result 6.'
Document ID: 2009071613134554
> Web URL: http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ent-gate.nsf/...

 groberts: The event is repeated for multiple different items. It started happening about 1 week ago. This has happened with Word and Excel docs created in both Office 2003 and 2007 and also happens with PDF files.

I'm currently using mail security for exchange server 5.0.0.204.

I get a lot of unscannable file rule quarantines on PDF files and TXT files. Will also occur on office documents.

Hi Dalizay,

All customers with current valid SMSMSE licenses can download SMSMSE 6.0.9 free of charge from Symantec FileConnect.  I very, very strongly encourage anyone still running SMSMSE 5.0.0.204 to take advanatage of this as soon as possible!  Full details can be found in:

End of Standard Support and Version Upgrade Reminder

Thanks and best regards,

Mick

I have 6.5.0.67 and this is happening to me.  I am getting the following alerts for messages that have PDF attachments:

"Symantec Mail Security detected a message with an unscannable attachment or body "

I do not recall this happening when I ran 6.0.9.

Any ideas, Symantec?

6.5.0.67  and I'm getting unscannable on plain PDF files.

For those of you seeing unscannables on 6.5, take a look at this document, it covers the change that was made in 6.5 that accounts for why unscannables are showing up for PDFs that were previously called clean.

Title: 'Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange will now scan within PDF, ACE, and BZIP2 starting with version 6.5.0'
Document ID: 2010012913381454
> Web URL: http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ent-gate.nsf/...

We've found the majority of these files are being created by third party software that is not following RFCs for the PDF format (it appears the majority are accounting or shipping invoicing programs). However, we would like to do due dilligence for each of our customers experiencing this. If you can't readily find a problem in the formatting of the file that is triggering the unscannable, please open a Symantec support case so that we can diagnose the root cause of the problem and either make recommendations for how to bring the PDF in line with RFCs (if this is root cause) or fix our decomposer engine to gracefully handle those files if they do meet RFC requirmeents. Be aware you'll have to submit a sample of an unscannable file in order for us to diagnose the reason the file was called unscannable.

If you do choose this process, and you get any pushback whatsoever from the technician you are working with, please refer them to this forum post so they will know to ask me about this process.