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Applies to: Sophos Home Mac
What is happening
On macOS 14 Sonoma and macOS 15 Sequoia, Apple may trigger a full disk access requirement for the Sophos Updater to update the Sophos files on the system. This was intermittent on Sonoma, but has increased significantly on Sequoia.
Notifications to customers
On October 23rd 11:30 AM Eastern Time, we started an email campaign to alert users who might still be impacted to take action. The Email comes From: Sophos Home <sophos.home@sophos.com>, and the Subject is: Sophos Home Advisory - Update Failures on macOS
October 1st, we set up In-Product-Messages to inform users about the situation.
Symptoms
- Update failures.
- Sophos Home shield might get stuck in download mode (arrow animation)
How to check if you are affected
Check via the Antivirus
- Click on the Sophos Home Shield>...>Check for updates.
- Click About to see the installed version.
- See the Release Notes to find the latest releases.
- If the version does not match the latest version, and updating does not work, or it gets stuck, you are likely impacted.
Check via Terminal
Alternatively, you can use the terminal to run the following command in a terminal:
sudo log show --predicate "subsystem == 'com.sophos.macendpoint'" --last 1d | grep -i 'Error renaming Installer directory'
- Hit Enter and type your Mac's password *(you will not see it while you type), then hit Enter again
- If there are any returns, you are impacted by this situation.
- If nothing is returned, you are not impacted by the problem.
What to do
The first step is to update your macOS version to the latest available for your system.
Then:
- Open System Settings.
- Select Privacy & Security.
- Select Full Disk Access.
- Locate SophosUpdater
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Click the slider or checkmark to enable if needed (note: you might need Administrator credentials)
- If SophosUpdater is not on the list, use the + symbol, select your Mac's hard drive, and search SophosUpdater to add it to the list.
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If unable to find it, use the left panel to navigate to Macintosh HD (your hard drive) > Library > Sophos Anti-Virus and select SophosUpdater - Click below to see the video in full size:
- Once added, ensure the slider is checked.
- Restart the computer
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Perform an update by clicking on the Sophos Home Shield>...>Check for updates
- Before doing this, the macOS version must be up-to-date!
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Click About to verify the installed version matches the latest version available
- See the Release Notes to find the latest releases.