GFI Services are crashing and stopping mail flow after latest patch fails to install

Overview

GFI services keep crashing and causing mail flow to stop.

Product Updates page shows patches 1 through 6 are installed but patch 7 is stuck Installing.

Solution

Follow the steps below to solve the issue:

1. Please follow the steps described in the Why are patches failing to install? article in order to roll back and reinstall the troublesome patch.
2. Perform the MailEssentials housekeeping steps described in the Virus and Spam Emails not Getting Detected by MailEssentials article, to ensure it's working optimally.
3. Make sure you have enough resources on the server in order for MailEssentials to run.

   Component	Minimum	Recommended
   Processor	2Ghz	2GHz with multiple cores
   Available Memory (RAM)	1.2Gb	2Gb
   Free Disk space	6Gb	10Gb

   Hardware requirements depend on a range of factors including email volume, the number of Anti Virus engines enabled in GFI MailEssentials as well as a variety of environmental factors. The requirements specified above are required for GFI MailEssentials only.
4. If you have Anti-virus and Backup software on the MailEssentials server, remember to configure the Recommended Antivirus and Backup Exclusions to rule out any unintended interference. Windows Defender, in particular, is known to cause the MailEssentials Decompression Engine to quarantine legitimate emails.
5. Reboot the server to ensure that services are working correctly.

Testing

After completing the steps above and rebooting the server, mail flow resumes.

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

• Make sure that you 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 to attach the logs to a new case that will be automatically created, or open a support ticket manually and attach the logs to that ticket, so that the Support team can investigate the problem.