One of the features of Symantec Antivirus is the ability to scan email that is sent or received on your computer for virus threats. If, however, you are using SSL or TLS to encrypt the connection to the mail server, this scanning will often cause serious problems: you may be unable to send or receive mail. This conflict can be resolved either by disabling the "email auto-protect" feature or by turning off the encrypted connection. The ECEn SysOps recommend that you disable the "email auto-protect" feature and use an encrypted connection(SSL or TLS) for both sending and receiving mail.

Please note that doing this will not leave your computer without protection from email viruses. The "email auto-protect" feature only scans email messages in transit to and from your computer. Even with this feature disabled, any mail or attachments you download to your computer will be scanned as soon as they are downloaded, and Symantec Antivirus will still report any threats it finds.

To disable the email auto-protect feature in Symantec Antivirus, do the following: