To identify the specific error
- Attempt to start the service for Protection Engine.
- Look at the next to last line in SymantecProtectionEngineAbortLog.txt
- Search the BROADCOM KB for the matching error.
- If you are unable to find a match, open a support case for further assistance.
To quickly assist, support will need you to supply answers to the following questions:
- What Operating System is present?
- What version of Protection Engine is installed?
- What patches are applied to Protection Engine, if any?
- What is the exact error on the next to last line in SymantecProtectionEngineAbortLog.txt?
- Is the UI for SPE enabled?
- Has Java JRE been updated recently?
To attempt to start the Protection Engine service
- Do one of the following:
- On Windows, within the services.msc (the Services console) right click on the Symantec Protection Engine service, then click Start
- On Windows, at the cmd prompt, type:
net start symcscan
- On Linux, at the bash prompt, type:
service SYMCscan start
To look for the most recent error in SymantecProtectionEngineAbortLog.txt
- Do one of the following:
- On Windows, at the cmd prompt, type:
type SymantecProtectionEngineAbortLog.txt
- On Linux, at the bash prompt, type:
cat SymantecProtectionEngineAbortLog.txt | tail -2
- Look at the next to last line of output. For example:
<timestamp> 900 Unexpected exception thrown : XML file did not validate - configuration.xml <--- The next to last line always contains the error related to the stop
<timestamp> 0 Symantec Protection Engine is shutting down; logs may contain more information. <--- Ignore the final line. it will always be the same
NOTE: In the example output above, the configuration.xml file is corrupt, preventing the start of the Protection Engine service. Usually, this sort of corruption occurs when you directly edit the .xml files which contain the configuration of SPE, instead of using xmlmodifier.exe. Support almost never sees this as a support case. Expect that your error and cause is different.