Symantec Protection Engine Will Not Start Due to Report.XML error: XML path not found

Products

• Protection Engine for Cloud Services
• Protection Engine for NAS

Issue/Introduction

Symantec Protection Engine crashes and will not start. Shows this error:

"Windows could not start the Symantec Protection Engine service on Local Computer. 
The service did not return an error. This could be an internal Windows error or an internal service error. 
If the problem persists, contact your system administrator."

Cause

The Report.XML file has become corrupt. To verify this look in the log: SymantecProtectionEngineAbortLog.txt located in the protection engine working directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\Symantec\Scan Engine

Similar entries will be in the log:

2017/02/10-07:06:42 301 XML path not found : report.xml:/report/SinceInstall/VirusFound/@value.
2017/02/10-07:06:42 0 Symantec Protection Engine is shutting down; logs may contain more information

Resolution

• Copy a Report.XML over from a known good protection engine server and restart the Symantec protection engine service.

 

• Reinstall the product:

1. Take screen shots of current configuration in the web console
2. Remove Symantec protection engine. Go to add remove programs in Windows and uninstall Symantec protection engine. To remove from Linux see here: https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.TECH89740.html
3. Install Symantec protection engine again. Run the Symantec protection installer as Administrator. To install on Linux see here: https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.HOWTO79614.html#v15196887
4. Add back your configuration by referencing your screen shots

    *Note: On Symantec protection engine 7.8, there is no web console. In this case make copies of all the XML files in the Symantec protection engine working directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\Symantec\Scan Engine (/opt/SYMCScan directory for Linux). Reference these files for configuration after installing Symantec protection engine 7.8 again