A bug in an update of Symantec's anti-virus software caused some Windows PCs to crash late this week, making machines inoperable until they were serviced in an embarrassing episode that angered some customers.
The company disclosed the problem on its website, saying that an update to its widely used Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1 and Norton anti-virus software for businesses caused some PCs running Microsoft Windows XP software to crash repeatedly, showing what is known as the "blue screen of death."
The embarrassment comes at a challenging time for Symantec, whose shares have lost about a quarter of their value since it warned of a pending profit decline three months ago.
"Enterprise security has continued to be an uphill battle for Symantec," said Daniel Ives, an analyst with FBR Capital Markets. "There is increasing competition. The company historically has not been consistent around executing."
The company knows so far of about 300 corporate customers that have been affected, and about 60 consumer customers.
Customers reported it took Symantec hours to identify and fix the bug and that they needed to fix computers broken by the tainted update on their own.
Symantec blamed the glitch on software compatibility issues that arose after an update was released late on Wednesday. PCs could be fixed if customers manually removed the software from each disabled computer, it said in an advisory.
"Phoning Symantec support this morning was the start of the hell we went through," one customer said in a support forum on Symantec's website.
"The support is a joke, the quality control is a joke, and the software is not much better."
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