FIX: Zetafax Connector and GroupShield 4.5 anti-virus software are incompatible

ZTN1105

Thursday, February 27, 2003

ID: ZTN1105

This Zetafax technical note applies to:

Zetafax 7.00.0.26 Exchange connector
Network Associates GroupShield 4.5.

Symptom

When the Zetafax connector is installed on a site using Network Associates GroupShield 4.5 anti-virus software, faxes submitted via Outlook suffer severe latency and are not passed to the Zetafax server in a timely fashion, or not at all. Looking at the IN and OUT queue for the connector (from the connector properties dialog in the Exchange Administrator program) shows the messages as stuck in the connector queue.

If the Network Associates GroupShield Exchange service is stopped, faxes can then be submitted successfully (although any messages already "stuck" remain in the queue). Restarting the Zetafax Connector service causes the "stuck" messages to be submitted to the Zetafax server.

You may also find that certain messages remain in the Zetafax connector's inbound working directory (\exchsrvr\CONNECT\ZETAFAX\IN) after a successful restart. These messages will eventually be moved to the \Archive directory if the Zetafax connector is unable to process these. Users may report this as fax notifications that do not appear in their Outlook Inbox.

This issue does not affect earlier versions of the Zetafax Exchange connector.

Cause

The Zetafax connector uses a private mailbox for communication with the Exchange server. GroupShield 4.5 requires the Exchange server to be upgraded to Service pack 3. This service pack no longer relies on the Anti-virus software to perform 'On-Access' scans of users mailboxes, and so it is not possible to exclude scanning of the Zetafax connector mailbox, thus interfering with the normal behaviour of the connector.

Resolution

These issues are resolved by upgrading the Zetafax connector for Microsoft Exchange with version 7.1 update available for download on the Equisys web site www.equisys.com/updates for Zetafax 7 users.

To upgrade to the latest version uninstall the current connector (Using Add/Remove Programs) and install the downloaded update.

Status

This behaviour was corrected in the above mentioned maintenance release, however 3rd party Exchange connectors will still suffer some latency, for more information on understanding how the anti-virus API scans attachments view article Q263949 on the Microsoft web site, http://www.microsoft.com/.

Last updated 27 February 2003 (GC/DH)