Cisco AMP & Time machine to Synology NAS

[JurijOsterman45326]

Hi,

I had a Catalina installation on macbook pro. The installation was protected bu Cisco AMP. I had the latest en greatest version, which is also compatible with BigSur (https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/security/amp-endpoints/216089-advisory-for-amp-for-endpoints-mac-conne.html). Time machine was working fine to synology NAS. I upgraded my Catalina to BigSur and after the installation TM stopped working. From testing and opening tickets with Synology and Apple, I have found out that Cisco AMP was guilty for TM not to work any more. I have uninstalled Cisco AMP and now TM is working again. 

Do you have any information what could be wrong with Cisco amp installation and Big sur and making TM to Synology? 

Aleksander

[Joshua33489]

Hi Alex-

The AMP Endpoints Connector for Mac 1.4 has unresolved compatibility issues. Several people here have confirmed this. We had a thread going which identified other Mac software apps that have issues but, for some reason, the mod's here disabled the thread and it is no longer accessible. See attached screenshot. (Maybe they didn't like all the attention it was getting? I don't know.) Myself and one other user here have opened cases with Cisco and are waiting for resolution on this. 

Some of the incompatibilities were resolved when we upgraded to BigSur, some remained. If you still need to run Catalina, best to downgrade until they fix the issues.

Josh

[JurijOsterman45326]

Josh,

Thank you for information. To my fortune I upgraded just one mac, which is for testing purpose all the others are on Catalina. II hope Cisco will do something in this direction.

Alex

[DaphneG]

@JurijOsterman45326, our development team is aware and they're working on this issue. 

[Joshua33489]

+1

Cisco product support confirmed they found the root cause via a support case I have open. AMP Connector for Mac version 1.14.1 will be out in mid-December. Many of these incompatibilities are being caused by a bug in the Content Filter System Extension on Catalina, which they hope to have resolved. In the meantime, we found a work-around for some of our apps that might work for others as well. 

1. Disable networking.
2. Launch the app that fails under AMP 1.14.0.
3. Re-enable networking.

At least for us, that was enough to keep some of the apps from crashing.

[ckuwajima]

It is very, very bad to loose TM backups. I reported similar issue in a blocked thread a couple of weeks ago.

The TM repeatedly reports a corrupt backup and asks for the creation of a new backup. The new backup ends gracefully, only to be flagged to be inconsistent again, a few incremental backups later.

I rolled back to 1.12, as we are not ready for Big Sur.

[ckuwajima · Accepted solution]

I am testing the new AMP for Endpoints Mac connector 1.14.1.807 on a machine running MacOS 10.15.7.

The release notes states "Fixed an issue that could cause Time Machine to backup to a remote drive or Time Capsule to fail".

A bit of warning: it seems that upgrading the connector from 1.14.0.794 to 1.14.1.807 through policy does not remove the 1.14.0.794 AMP Network Extension.

Just removing the AMP Network Extension by hand (Apple->System Preferences->Network) solved another issue I had (VPN), but for sake of sanity, I decided to completely uninstall the connector and fresh install the new version.

Will post status of Time Machine backups as soon I finish the test.

---- Edit --------------- more than 12 hours on, no issues with Time Machine backups on Time Capsule through network connection.

[JurijOsterman45326]

I did a fresh install of latest AMP connector to Big Sur and I need to confirm, that TM backups are working now. For now I haven't noticed any other issues.