Sophos Small Business Suite: 'Could not complete the last task' (hr 80004005)

Issue
When you try to open the Sophos Control Center, or when your Sophos software fails to update, you get the following error:

'Could not complete the last task' 'The component that downloads the latest updates from Sophos encountered a problem'

When you click the 'Advanced' button, the following information is displayed:

The error detected was: GetDownloadProgressInfo() failed The hr was: 80004005

Sophos Product and Version
Sophos Control Center

What to do

Use Windows services to stop the 'Sophos Enterprise Manager scheduler' service (if started). Leave this window open.
Open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\Program Files\Sophos\SCC\
Delete the file ssdata.idx.
Go back to the Windows services window and restart the 'Sophos Enterprise Manager scheduler'.

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