How Can I Make My Symantec Antivirus Live Update Work Again?

Sometimes Symantec's live update fails to recognise that you have a product for it to update. This can sometimes occur after a virus attack, particularly if the bug has managed to get in and disable the active protection.

Removing Norton and re-installing seems to have no effect whatsoever. You can also go to the Symantec site and download an uninstaller which is supposed to do a better job, and then reinstall Norton. Whichever way you approach it the Live update fails to see you legitimate version of Symantec Antivirus. I have spent hours on this. I have searched the net and downloaded, removed, installed and rebooted so many times I was about to give up.

Then a solution occurred almost by accident. I downloaded the virus definitions from the Symantec site manually and installed them. They seemed to override  whatever was blocking the live update feature and after a couple of reboots it began to function again. Whatever came with the definitions package seemed to re-establish normality and it behaved once more. If you have found yourself in this position – try it.