Symantec Protection Engine Service starts and stops after applying some recent updates to the OS. Other SPE servers are working fine.
Release : 8.0.1, 8.2.2.7, 9.x
The file report.xml, which is in the Scan Engine folder is corrupted.
To verify browse to ".\Program Files\Symantec\Scan Engine" and try to open the file with a web browser. If it throws errors try to open it with notepad. If it comes up blank then the issue is confirmed. Other text editors show the contents as a bunch of block "NUL" entries
Delete report.xml then start the service. The service will create a new file that is not corrupted and populate it with the current data.