PureMessage for Microsoft Exchange: Sophos shield displays white-cross on a red-circle and email scanning stops

Issue

The blue Sophos shield in the system tray displays a white-cross on a red-circle. PureMessage stops scanning e-mails.

When you check the log files (right-click the Sophos shield, select Configure updating|Logging|View log files) you see the error

Error 0x8066020f .Fail to initialise spam rules in the Autoupdate log

Sophos product and version
PureMessage for Microsoft Exchange 2.6.1

Operating system
Windows 2003

What to do

Open Windows Services, and stop the following services
- SMTP
- IISadmin
Go to the folder C:\Program Files\Sophos\Autoupdate\data\warehouse and delete its contents.
Rename the file status.xml to status.old
Go to the folder C:\Program Files\Sophos\Autoupdate\Cache and delete its contents.
Open Windows Services, and restart the following services
- SMTP
- IISadmin
Right click the Sophos shield and select 'Update now'.

If you need more information or guidance, then please contact technical support.