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Engine updates are failing with the error: 'The server name or address could not be resolved'

Author: Andrei Bogdan Apostol Updated

Overview

Antivirus, anti-phishing, email exploit engine, trojan scanner, and executable scanner updates are failing and generating the following errors:

You must provide a request body if you set ContentLength>0 or SendChunked==true. Do this by calling [Begin]GetRequestStream before [Begin]GetResponse.
The server name or address could not be resolved.

Solution

Cleanup temporary folders

  • Browse to the %TEMP% location and to C:\Windows\Temp\.
  • Delete all files located in those folders, while ignoring the files that Windows reports that cannot be deleted.

Ensure that updates can go through

The first step is to allow updates through HTTP, as described in the Setting MailEssentials to use HTTP to download updates article. Once completed, make sure that there aren't any firewall rules that prevent access to the update servers:

GFI MailEssentials downloads updates from the following locations over HTTP ports 80 and 443:

meupdate.gfi.com
support.gfi.com
*.mailshell.net
*.rules.mailshell.net
spamrazer.gfi.com
db11.spamcatcher.net
gfi-downloader-137146314.us-east-1.elb.amazonaws.com
cdnupdate.gfi.com
cdnpatches.gfi.com

GFI MailEssentials can also be configured to download updates through a proxy server. Refer to the Configuring Proxy Settings article for more information.

Verify there are no port conflicts

GFI MailEssentials communicates through a variety of ports. Make sure that are no conflicts and that the local firewall solution is not preventing communication through the ports as defined in the GFI MailEssentials Port Description article.

Check the proxy configuration

Make sure that the credentials supplied to the proxy configuration are correct, as described in the GFI MailEssentials updates are failing when using a proxy article.

If definitions are old but updates don't fail, disable caching on the proxy server for the GFI MailEssentials server or exclude the cdnupdate.gfi.com domain.

Check Anti-Virus and Backup Exclusions

Updates may fail if the local antivirus marks the downloaded files as malware. Local backup solutions may access update files or folders and thus corrupt the update process. Please make sure you follow the steps in the Recommended Anti-virus and Backup Exclusions article to minimize the risk of corruption.

Testing

Go to GFI MailEssentials > Dashboard > Updates tab. Verify that the last update attempt was successful for the particular engine by looking at the Last Update date and time as well as the remarks under the Status column which should state No updates currently in progress (last update succeeded).

If the issue still persists, please generate the troubleshooting logs as follows:

  • Make sure that we have tracing enabled.
  • Wait for at least 30 minutes to gather enough information and for the issue to be reproduced.
  • Run the troubleshooter:
    1. Start > Programs > GFI MailEssentials > Troubleshooter
    2. Follow the Log Generation Wizard for collecting the required and pertinent information.
    3. Select New Case when completing the log generation.

 

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