Some antivirus applications may prevent Carbon Copy Cloner from reading certain files, mounting or unmounting disk image files, or, in general, degrade the performance of your backup. In some cases, antivirus applications can even affect the modification date of files that CCC has copied, which will cause CCC to recopy those files every time as if they have substantively changed. In another case, we have seen such software create massive cache files on the startup disk during a backup, so much so that the startup disk became full. We recommend that you temporarily disable security software installed on your Mac (e.g. for the duration of your backup task) if problems such as these arise.
If CCC reports that antivirus software may be interfering with your backup task, here are some troubleshooting steps that you can take to resolve the problem:
- Determine whether the files in question are being quarantined by your antivirus software. Perform a system scan with your antivirus software and address any issues that are reported. Please refer to the Help documentation associated with your antivirus product for more information.
- If the problem persists, try running your backup task with the antivirus software temporarily disabled.
If the antivrus software's behavior cannot be resolved, you may be able to workaround the problem with an advanced setting. Select your task in CCC's main application window, then:
- Click the "Use Advanced Settings" button.
- Open the "Troubleshooting Options" disclosure triangle.
- Check the "Don't update newer files on the destination" box.
- Save your task.
If these steps do not address the issue, or if you do not have antivirus software installed, please open a support request and we'll do our best to help you resolve the problem.
Problem reports related to antivirus software
- Sync problems and ACL issues
- Subsequent backups are slow
- Source Disk becomes full when cloning
- System hangs during scheduled backup task (Sophos)
- Problem with CCC and F-Secure 2011 virus scanner
- McAfee changes modification date of files on the destination
- Backup task is slower than it should be (VirusBarrier)
- Slow performance during backup (F-Secure)
- Symantec Internet Security may cause kernel panics during a backup task
- BitDefender may generate excessive read activity on the destination volume during a backup task, and may cause the destination device to spontaneously eject. Add the destination volume to BitDefender's exclusion list to avoid the problem.
- We have received a report that agreeing to Webroot SecureAnywhere's request to "remove threats" during a backup task can produce a non-bootable backup.
- Little Flocker (now XFENCE) can interfere with some of the subtasks required (e.g. creating a kernel extension cache, blessing the destination) to make a cloned system volume bootable.