[tpotter2]

I upgraded to OS X 10.5.2 on Monday February 11 and Symantec AntiVirus 10.0 (the prior release) stopped working. I emailed Symantec with the problem and they indicated that I run a patch for StuffIt 12/NAV 10. That did work until I rebooted my Mac.

After the re-boot Norton AntiVirus Would not start again. I opened a new support problem and they had me run the MAC disk utility to fix permission bits in files. That did not work. I found if tried to start Auto-Protect off and on for a couple hours it would sometimes start. I told the support person that also. He then sends me an email that the only way to fix it is to upgrade to Norton AntiVirus 11.0.

I have a real problem with that. I bought the product about 9 months ago, so I still have about 3 months of support on a product that does not work. I could understand Symantec telling me to go to the new release if I had the current product for more than a year. Also they committed to a year of protection of my MAC when I bought Norton AntiVirus. Now they have lied about the year coverage.

It told the support person that was not acceptable, I had still more support on product coming, and I did not like their lazy support approach. I then got an email that the problem is closed.

Symantec has outsourced their support to India in the last year. One of the problems might be is when you move your support to an external company they do not have the incentive to support your products like you would since they don?t work for you. A support contract is used and if the contract is not well written they will drop customer problems, where if the firm was running the support they are more likely to go the extra mile (and put the support in the larger context of overall customer sales and satisfaction). Another problem is when you move your support to half the world away to a country that will operate their businesses differently, this will create other issues of where they do not put support into the context of the business they are contracted to support.

1. Anyone having problems with OS X 10.5.2 and Norton AntiVirus 10.0?
2. Anyone else having Symantec support problems with OS X 10.5.2 and AntiVirus 10.0?
3. Anyone having more support problems with Symantec since they out sourced support?


Some of my Symantec emails:



Email 2/18 (note the lack of quality where they can?t spell the word ?compatibility? correctly)?.

Subject
---------------------------------------------------------------
Technical Support


Discussion Thread
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Response (Prxxxxx) - 02/17/2008 12:48 AM
Hello xxxxx,

Welcome back to Symantec Technical Support.

I understand from your message that you are unable to start Auto-Protect after downloading the MAC OS X 10.5.2 update.

I recommend that you upgrade to Norton AntiVirus 11 for Mac for full compatiblility with MAC OS X 10.5.x and this should resolve the issue that you are facing.

You can purchase Norton AntiVirus 11 for Mac upgrade for $29.95. You can browse through the list of Upgraded products in the link given below and then purchase Norton AntiVirus for Macintosh (NAVM) 11.0:


Email 2/19 ?.

Response
---------------------------------------------------------------
Greetings xxxxx,

You had recently contacted us for assistance regarding your Norton/Symantec product. This e-mail is a follow-up to the solution we had provided. Please let us know if this issue has been resolved to your satisfaction.

If the problem still persists, we are always here to assist you.

Thanks and regards,
Symantec Customer Service

[smax013]

tpotter2 said:

I upgraded to OS X 10.5.2 on Monday February 11 and Symantec AntiVirus 10.0 (the prior release) stopped working. I emailed Symantec with the problem and they indicated that I run a patch for StuffIt 12/NAV 10. That did work until I rebooted my Mac.

After the re-boot Norton AntiVirus Would not start again. I opened a new support problem and they had me run the MAC disk utility to fix permission bits in files. That did not work. I found if tried to start Auto-Protect off and on for a couple hours it would sometimes start. I told the support person that also. He then sends me an email that the only way to fix it is to upgrade to Norton AntiVirus 11.0.

I have a real problem with that. I bought the product about 9 months ago, so I still have about 3 months of support on a product that does not work. I could understand Symantec telling me to go to the new release if I had the current product for more than a year. Also they committed to a year of protection of my MAC when I bought Norton AntiVirus. Now they have lied about the year coverage.

While I will agree that Symantec's support these days leaves a LOT to be desire, I would argue that it is NOT their problem. You bought a version of their product that was released prior to Leopard being released. Unless they made statements saying that version would work fine with Leopard, they did not lie to you. It is a WELL know fact that new versions of OSs tend to "break" utilities (and even some applications). Thus, it is well known that upgrading to a new OS is generally more than just buying the OS...it is also typically upgrading some or many of your applications, especially if they are utilities.



You would have something to stand on if there were a version that was actively sold and advertised to work with Leopard, but I doubt that is the case (personally, I don't use Norton Antivirus for the Mac anymore, so I have not kept track of its upgrades and stuff). If you had bought a new Mac with Leopard installed on it and that was the only version of Norton Antivirus available, then you would have a point (and this did happen to me WAY back when I had a Quadra 840AV...I had the latest version of Norton/Symantec Antivirus available when I bought the machine and ultimately learned a feature did not work...they tried to say I had to pay for an upgrade, but that did not sit well with me as I was running the currently sold and availble version when I bought the Mac...a letter to the CEO resulted in a letter back from some VP with a free upgrade...feel free to try the "you have lost a customer letter" to the CEO. or someone high up...it might work...it might not).



The ultimate point is that you are the one who decided to upgrade to Leopard. If you still were using Tiger, the version of the Symantec product would be working just fine.

[tpotter2]

The situation you describe is not true in this case. Before I upgraded to Leopard I checked the Symantec web site. They indicated that Leopard was supported by V10.0. One exception was I had to do was upgrade LiveUpdate to 4.0.4 in order to download virus patches. They indicated that Leopard was supported.
If you think about it it makes since for a vendor to support one+ version. It gives the customer time to migrate or time out of the current support window.

[tpotter2]

Sorry hit the wrong key before I finished. Your point about going higher up the food chain is worth considering. However it represents not a great state of the affairs with Symantec of trying to get support. Thanks.

[smax013]

tpotter2 said:

The situation you describe is not true in this case. Before I upgraded to Leopard I checked the Symantec web site. They indicated that Leopard was supported by V10.0. One exception was I had to do was upgrade LiveUpdate to 4.0.4 in order to download virus patches. They indicated that Leopard was supported.
If you think about it it makes since for a vendor to support one+ version. It gives the customer time to migrate or time out of the current support window.

If that is true, then it is a completely different matter. As I noted (or tried to note) I am not up to speed on Norton products, I don't know what they claimed or not. If they claimed that it was supported with Leopard, then their response and attitude appears much less than appropriate then what I first thought.



A letter never hurts. Worst that happens is that they crupple it up and toss it in the round recycle bin (aka the trash).

[macnuke]

Just my humble thoughts on AV.

a "For Profit" company tells you that you need their product to protect you.

against an unknown threat.

with no real protection against the threat should it surface until the cure can be written and patched.

but will waste your processor/ram/hard drive resources at will more than any known item the product was designed to protect you from.

and you pay for this.

and with customer support such as you are experiencing, I would be more afraid of having Symantec in my Mac than I would a virus.


personally, I would count the 3 months as a loss and run from it with a lesson learned.

[arkman]

I have 10.5.2 and Norton AV 11.0. It works, sort of. I had to remove all sign of 11 and reinstall because of file corruption. I have had problems with Quick Menu and Auto Protect.

Help has gone east to India and I find that disturbing. Service has suffered.

[tpotter2]

Symantec did finally support my problem. As you saw above in my originally post the last thing Symantec had sent was an email indicating the problem was closed:

Partial email?
?You had recently contacted us for assistance regarding your Norton/Symantec product. This e-mail is a follow-up to the solution we had provided. Please let us know if this issue has been resolved to your satisfaction.
If the problem still persists, we are always here to assist you.?

I sent them an email back indicating that I did not like the way the problem was being closed, I was still under support for V10 and being told to buy a new version while still in the year of support of current product was not acceptable, and I was going to do some posting myself about Symantec customer service.

In about a day the support person came back with an email now saying the problem was not closed. They reiterated in their email the solution was to upgrade. The body of the email was about the same as the one I listed in my original post (e.g. other than the sentence the problem was open), except they now added the following sentence in the middle of it:

?Also, you can avail a refund for your Norton AntiVirus 10.0 and then purchase the Norton AntiVirus 11.0 upgrade.?


I took them up on it. They actually gave a reasonable partial refund for V10 (i.e. discounting the time I used it). I am not having any problems with V11.

Clearly in this situation to get it resolved you have to yell. If Symantec determined they were not going to fix V10 why not offer an upgrade/refund to customers under current support from the start? Why wait for the customer to go ballistic and then give a second email, which then offers upgrade/refund (especially when Symantec posted that V10 is support in OS X 10.5)?
I originally picked Symantec because I have had good experiences with them over the years both on Mac and PCs (I know some of you prefer other products and have had other experiences). My experience here with Symantec was pretty poor. I still believe they have some disconnects between their sales and support.

Note:
During this problem incident Symantec changed their tech support website at: http://service1.syma...seg=hho&src=hot
To now state that ?While some features of Norton AntiVirus 10.x are compatible with Mac OS X 10.5, only Norton AntiVirus 11 is supported on Mac OS X 10.5.? I hope that is not positioning to avoid supporting other people in my same position. Hopefully it is just a statement of the issues with V10.

[macnuke]

simple.....

BUY a new version or do NOT upgrade your 10.5.x
that's what the new message from Symantec states without actually saying it.

I still prefer to upgrade my OS and keep it current.
it's symantec that wants your money.
the OS upgrade is free.... and it's virus free.

I still say when your A/V breaks your OS and other apps it's trash material.

but I do agree... you paid for a year... it should be free for a year regardless of THEIR cost.... not yours.