PGP Desktop 10.1.2 (Build 9) - Delayed Write Failed

[Migration User]

Has anyone else upgraded to the latest release of the Universal Server and Desktop client (10.1.2 Build 9)? Have you been getting Delayed Write Failed errors from Windows since updating the client on your machine? I've installed the new client on 20 or so machines and 2 are reporting write errors, which is slowly crippling them!

Has anyone else come across this and knows of a solution? In the process of trying to install 10.1.1 again at the mo, but it's rather worrying if this is what the latest release will bring.

Any help appreciated. Thanks.

[Migration User]

That has always been due to bad sectors knocking an external disk off-line to me.

Has happened with disks encrypted and unencrypted.

Suggest scanning for unreadable sectors.

[Migration User]

I can only try, but I don't get why this has only happened after installing the latest update (straight after installing it), where it was fine before. Managed to decrypt the one machine, but it's in a bad shape now so having to rebuild it. Will see what disk scans come back to me with on this other machine I guess.

 

Thanks for the suggestion.

[Migration User]

chkdsk gave me nothing and the systems were getting in a bad shape, so I had to decrypt them and install 10.1 again (1 of them needed rebuilding). Very strange... Got nothing back from Support either, so I think I'll play it safe with 10.1 for now I'm thinking.

[Migration User]

I have been seeing that error since last May with version 10.0.2  all the way through 10.1.1 on roughly 30% of my laptops and have worked extensively with PGP technical support to get a fix.  If I decrypt any of the systems affected, the Windows Delayed Write Failure errors go away immediately.  In all instances, drive diagnostics have come back clean, no corrupted or damaged sectors.  I even went as far as sending a new laptop that was just encrypted that received the Delayed Write errors almost immediately.  Apparently there is/was an issue with the PGP software that monitored some critical PGP files and was supposed to replace them if they got moved or corrupted for any reason.  The internal workings of the program was not replacing the moved/damaged files properly and would cause the Windows Delayed Write error.  PGP has said they fixed it in rev 10.1.1 sp1 and later.  I asked them if utilizing a Disk Defragmentation program could cause issues and they said YES......especially when their software was "broken" and not replacing the critical files when they were moved.  We utilize Diskeeper as our automatic defragmentation software as a standard as it really keeps your system running as fast as possible from a file access perspective.

PS...the Delayed Write Failure errors were received on a wide variety of laptops and disk technologies.

Dell C640, D600, D610, D620, E6400, M4500, E6410

Hard drives:  IDE 5400rpm, IDE 7200rpm, SATA 7200rpm, and even Solid State Drives (SSD)

OS : Windows XP sp3, Windows 7 Enterprise 32bit.

 

At the momemt I have uninstalled from the systems affected until I can validate in the lab that the issue has been resolved in 10.1.1 sp1 and later.

Hope this helps.

[Migration User]

Thanks, definitely reassuring to know that it's not just me. So far I've only seen it with those 2 laptops out of 20 that have had 10.1.2 pushed to them - they were a Dell D610 and Dell D620, both in WinXP SP3. I'm not aware of any degrag programs in use that would have moved any files though. Decrypting them and reinstalling 10.1.1 solved the write errors, although I didn't want to chance trying to reencrypt to 10.1.2 to see if that helped at all.

I'd say about half of our laptops have 10.1.1 on currently and no-one else has reported such problems. The rest are still on 9.12 that I was attempting to update to 10.1.1 when 10.1.2 was released, so I jumped on that instead. Holding off updating now until I hear back from Symantec or our suppliers with a resolution. Might have to keep an eye on 10.1.1 if the same issue is present there too...

[Migration User]

I just heard back from our suppliers who have been liasing with Symantec regarding this issue:

Bottom line being that this is a known issue as was suspected. They have issued me with an 10.1.2 SP1 patch which is claimed to fix the problem.

 

So I'm now due to give 10.1.2 (Build 22) a go in the hope that this issue doesn't re-occur. Either way, it's a known issue that doesn't appear to be limited to 10.1.2 (Build 9) from hawk22's info and another forum post that I have recently seen for 10.0.x. Let's hope this 'patch' works...

[Migration User]

James,

During our testing we didn't see this at all however, when we started deploying to new images we were seeing it about 10-20% of the time.  I'm still discussing with platinum support but we are also testing 10.1.2 Build 22 on new installs now to see if we can replicate it.

Additionally, I'd recommend changing your kernel dump to be a full dump vs. mini dump so PGP/Symantec can get a good look at the problem.  We just made this change and hope to have more info to them if it happens again on either 10.1.1.x or 10.1.2.22.

 

[Migration User]

I have just received some internal communications about this issue. Yes, development is looking into it. Part of that communication included a potential work around, which I have received the go ahead to post here. The work around is to restart the PGPtray process. As a note, if you are using PGP messaging to secure email or instant messaging, you will want to close the relevant programs and then use either task manager to kill the PGPtray.exe process or clisk on the lock and select "Exit PGP Services...". You can then restart the tray by opening PGP Desktop or by using the link under Start => Programs => Startup. (If you closed you email or IM programs you are safe to open them once the lock shows in your system tray.) Doing this should trigger the self healing capabilities of PGP Desktop and prevent issues.

[Migration User]

Restarting the PGP services does not help, in addition corruption is happening in a way that chkdsk is reporting the HD format as RAW. After decrypting chkdsk runs normally and deletes all the erroneous index entries. We may need a major update to fix this.

[Migration User]

This is a known issue with PGP Desktop 10.1.x. We have addressed this problem with PGP Desktop 10.1.2 SP3 for Windows (Build 50).  You will need to contact support to obtain the service pack for download. We cannot provide it here for download in the forum due to Export laws (since our product contains cryptography).

These are the ways that you can open a case are:

1) Call [phone], Option 1

2) Go to mySupport portal at https://mysupport.symantec.com

When opening the case, just let the agent know that you need access to the PGP Desktop 10.1.2 SP3 for Windows download. This has to be requested through suppport via our PDC portal.

If they direct you to the forum, then you could also try to send one of us a message on here asking for the download.