SCANNING OVER 2,000,000 FILES

I left both the MBA and the iMac scanning and finally shut them off when they got to 10 million files scanned - and they were still scanning.  Simple MBA with 256gb, asked for only boot drive to be scanned, nothing attached. I may keep them both off for a day or two.

I wonder if this has something to do with a manual scan.  I have a scheduled scan set for weekly at 3am.  It completed in about 3hours (had a time machine backup disk attached as well). 

You might try a scheduled scan and see if that makes any difference

It has also just started happening to me. Originally it scanned just under 500,000 files, yesterday it went up to 700,000 and today it got to more than 1 million so I stopped the manual scan.

I think this is one of the many bugs that has appeared with 8.8.

For now, might i suggest that you install malwarebytes. The scan takes 3-5 seconds.

How can you see if a scheduled scan is running?  

I am using Norton 360 on a 2017 iMac and an M1 Air.  I have removed  it from both machines, then run the Terminal program to remove all traces and reinstalled more than once.

I scheduled scans and I looked in the Security history but they never show up.  I  configured it to do idle scans and do not see these either in the history.

Do you have to leave Norton open for these tasks to happen?

This program used to work flawlessly for full scans but they it still never stops scanning - 10 million + files and keeps scanning.  What a disappointment. I think I'll switch to Malwaebytes when the Norton subscription ends. 

Thanks.

I chatted with Norton support again today.  They told me that they are aware of the problem and intend to fix it.  They logged in remotely - again - and collected information from my laptop.  Let's see what happens!

Yesterday, my Mac Air got up to 1.4 million files scanned before I cancelled the manual scan.

It happened on the same day that I got the email alert from Norton to immediately update the Mac operating system. I then got the "red X" notice about a fix that Norton was implementing. That fix went on and on. I finally cancelled it. I then updated to macOS Monterey 12.6. Norton went back to "all green", everything "protected". I then ran a manual scan and that went on forever, I shut it down after it got up to 1.4 million files scanned.

Interestingly, I also use Malwarebytes. I noticed yesterday, that it also was running and running. I don't honestly know if it was updating or scanning, but the "stop scan" feature did not work. When it does scan, it is done in a few seconds. After updating macOS, it went back to its normal performance.

Regarding the next scan, I'll see if a scheduled scan performs better.   

Then I ran full scans on the individual options available under Settings.  Everything ran okay except for xART on the M1 Air.  It choked on scanning xART and offered to, then fixed it every time I retried.  I don't know what that means.  I'm only documenting for someone who knows more than me.

That is good news - Had to revert to a different product for a bit as manual scans would not complete and idle scans were very sporadic.

I also have Malwarebytes installed, but I noticed it doesn't do a thorough scan. I did a scan with it and it said there were no problems detected. But, when I used Norton (when it was running properly), it flagged a couple of files, which turned out to be malicious malware. I hope Norton fixes this issue soon. My last scan went over 3 million files before I had to cancel.

I have this same issue, and turning off scanning within compressed files does not circumvent the problem. Full Scan never finishes. I have even tried limiting it to a single drive with no change. I have ensured that Norton 360 and its extensions/tasks have full disk access in my Mac Security and Privacy settings. This problem started occurring about a week or so ago. What happened of significance a week or so ago was I put the latest updates on macOS Monterey, but I also have Norton Live Update run all the time as well. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Norton 360 8.8 with no change in bad behavior. Norton About shows I am at build 122 layout ESD. 

A side performance issue I have unrelated to this is that Norton 360 8.8 running on my newer MacBook Pro (2.9 GHz 6 core i9, 32 GB ram, all SSD) Monterey 12.6 is slower at scanning files than Norton Security 7.10.4 running on my older MacBook Pro (2.7 GHz 4 core i7, 16 GB ram, all SSD) Mavericks 10.9.5. Looking at the Activity Monitor it appears that on the older Mac, Norton Security 7.10.4 will use more of the CPU resources available and has several times more threads than Norton 360 8.8 on my newer Mac. The behavior of Norton 360 8.8 on my newer Mac and Monterey 12.6 is as if it is being throttled back - either by macOS or Norton 360 itself. The MacBook is plugged in using AC Power adapter as power source and the battery is fully charged. This could be a macOS Monterey 12.6 bug - hopefully not working as designed. Attached is Activity Monitor screen shot for the curious. Note how minimal the CPU load is during the Full Scan.