User Preference Replication alerts are reported on the Symantec Messaging Gateway (SMG). You would to like to understand why these alerts are received.

An Email alerts shows the folllowing:

Task : User Preference Replication 
Host : HOSTNAME (IP address)
Last Run Time : DATE

Details about this failure have been logged to BrightmailLog.log. Access this Control Center console log on the Logs page of the Symantec Messaging Gateway Control Center.

From the "BrightmailLog.log" log file, you also notice the following Error

ERROR - com.symantec.smg.controlcenter.BrightmailException: The Agent running on IP Address is temporarily unreachable. Please check the specified host. ; nested exception is: java.net.SocketException: Connection timed out 

The most common cause of this error, is if a Scanner host (that the Control Center host manages) is disabled, preventing User Replication data from being sent to the Scanner.

Other common causes include:

1. The agent service on the scanner is not running.
2. The agent service on the scanner is not listening, i.e. port not open
3. Firewall or router not allowing connections from the control center host to the scanner host on port 41002

This Alert is expected behaviour if a Scanner being managed by the Control Center is disabled.

The following options can be considered to prevent the Alert from being reported:

1. To re-enable the disabled Scanner.
2. To restart the agent service on the scanner
3. To modify firewall rules to allow https communication from the control center to the scanner on port 41002
4. Check to make sure there isn't a proxy that is scanning https traffic

If these steps have been completed and you continue to see this Alert, please contact Symantec Enterprise Support.