A common problem customers have been experiencing recently involves the automatic email scanning feature found in Norton Antivirus. This problem causes people to be unable to send and receive mail, but they can get on the web, telnet, ftp, etc., without any problems. The problem lies in the way that Norton Antivirus performs its email scanning. Previous versions of Norton Antivirus (2000 and 2001) would change your incoming mail server from mail.helpinghost.com to something else, like 127.0.0.1 or pop3.nortonantivirus, both of which redirect your mail request from going to our server to looking at the Norton software. The Norton Antivirus program would then try to connect to our server and retrieve your mail, scan it, and deliver any uninfected messages to your Inbox.

Obviously--with this procedure--if Norton Antivirus starts to malfunction, you may be unable to send and receive mail, as your mail client relies on Norton functioning properly to be able to do so (since the software is sitting between your mail program and our servers). Troubleshooting this matter was simple for us in the 2000 and 2001 versions, as the error message in your mail program would specifically say that it couldn't connect to the server pop3.nortonantivirus or 127.0.0.1). To resolve the issue, we would have customers simply change their incoming mail server back to our server (and change their username settings as well; these versions of Norton also modified those) and they'd be able to bypass Norton Antivirus entirely and be able to receive mail. Customers who wanted to still use the auto-protection feature were directed to Symantec Product Support.

Things aren't quite as easy now with Norton Antivirus 2002 and 2003. Rather than change your mail settings, Norton Antivirus takes a more hands-off approach--that means it doesn't modify your account settings, but rather sits and waits for your email program to make a POP3 (checking mail) or SMTP (sending mail) connection. When this happens, Norton Antivirus stops your computer from making the connection, checks to see what you're connecting to, and it makes the connection instead. This scans both incoming and outgoing traffic.
Again, since all your mail goes through Norton Antivirus before it either gets to or is sent from your mail program, if there is a problem in Norton Antivirus then your mail program will have a problem as well. Unfortunately since it doesn't change your settings, it's harder to determine this is the problem (this is why the support team relies on customer response to our inquiries, such as Are you running any antivirus software?). Instead of saying you can't connect to pop3.nortonantivirus, you get an error saying you can't connect to mail.yourdomain.com, possibly indicating a problem on our end or with your connection.

**NOTE ** Be aware that--even though the automatic scanning is disabled--your computer is still protected from viruses. The steps below disable the email scanning feature. As long as you leave the System Auto-Protect features enabled, then if you do receive a virus-infected attachment and open it, Norton will jump in and block it as soon as it sees it's a virus. The email scanning was implemented so you would not even see the message in your Inbox, preventing users from disabling their antivirus software before opening an attachment due to the instructions found in some virus variants.

In order to disable Norton Antivirus 2002 and 2003 to see if this is your problem, take the following steps. Please note that the screenshots below are taken from Norton Antivirus 2002, and 2003 may look a little different, but the general location of items is the same:

1. Locate the Norton Antivirus icon in your system tray (next to your computer's clock).

2. Right-click on this icon and select Configure Norton Antivirus (NOTE: If you can't find the Antivirus icon, you can get to where you need to go by locating the Norton Antivirus group in your Programs folder, and opening Norton Antivirus, then clicking on the Options button at the top of the program window)

3. You will be taken to the Norton Antivirus Options. Under the Internet heading on the left side, click on Email.

4. Uncheck the Scan incoming Email (recommended) and Scan outgoing Email (recommended) boxes. When finished, your screen should look like this:

5. Click OK.

6. You may be prompted to confirm and save your settings to the options/config file. If you are, click Yes.

7. You're all set. If you are prompted to restart your computer, do so. If you still cannot get your email, restart the computer anyway. If after restarting your computer you are still unable to receive email, contact Helping Host technical support. There is a possibility that NAV is still interrupting your mail traffic, and you may need to contact Symantec Product Support. Please note that Helping Host is not responsible for the functionality or availability of features in any 3rd party software application. This responsibility lies solely with the software vendor.