Situation:
You scan your hard disk for viruses using Norton AntiVirus for Macintosh 9.0. When the scan completes, you notice that there is much less available space on your hard disk.

Solution:
There may be a file named "spacesuckingfile.xxxxxx" left on your disk after Norton AntiVirus for Macintosh has completed a virus scan. This file can be very large. It is a temporary file that Norton AntiVirus creates when scanning archives on your computer. Spacesuckingfile.xxxxxx is a temporary file created by Norton AntiVirus to help determine the amount of free space available on the disk before it begins unstuffing and scanning archives. The file contains no actual data and may be deleted. Normally, Norton AntiVirus deletes this file when scanning the archives is complete. Something apparently happened that prevented the deletion. If you have this file on your hard disk, delete it.

Symantec has released the Norton AntiVirus for Macintosh 9.0.1 update to fix this problem. Please run LiveUpdate to update to the latest version of your Symantec Macintosh software. After updating, restart your computer. You may need to run LiveUpdate more than once to obtain all the available updates. For more information on how to update your Symantec software, please see the document How to use LiveUpdate in Symantec Macintosh products. For more information about Norton AntiVirus for Macintosh 9.0.1, read the document What's new in Norton AntiVirus for Macintosh 9.0.x after running LiveUpdate.

To delete spacesuckingfile.xxxxxx

• You must have a root account active for this computer to follow these steps.
• To find out about the root user and how to enable root in Mac OS X, see Apple's KB document 106290, Mac OS X: About the Root User and How to Enable it.

1. Open the disk that Norton AntiVirus for Macintosh 9.0 is installed on.
2. On the File menu, click Find.
   
   
   
3. Search in Local disks.
4. Type the following text into the "file name contains" text box:
   
   spacesuckingfile.xxxxxx
   
5. Set visibility to all.
6. Click Search.
7. In the search results window, click spacesuckingfile.xxxxxx.
8. In the File menu, click Move to Trash.
   
   

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   Note: If you are not logged in at root, you may not be able to throw away the file.

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9. On the Finder menu, click Empty Trash.

Document ID: 2003111914342111
Last Modified: 12/18/2003
Date Created: 11/19/2003
Operating System(s): Mac OS X 10.2.x, Mac OS X 10.1.5
Product(s): Norton AntiVirus 9.0 - Mac