Event ID 68 Unable To Initialize Scan Engine. The Virus Definitions May Be Missing Or Corrupt

Our Helpdesk reported that there are users complaining that they were unable to send out or receive emails. The system administrator performed a check on the Exchange Servers and found the following Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange events entries in the Windows Application Event log:

Event ID 110 - The process SAVFMSESp.exe failed to start (0xC009008A).

Event ID 168 - The process SAVFMSESp.exe was restarted.

Event ID 68 - Unable to initialize scan engine. The virus definitions may be missing or corrupt. Perform a LiveUpdate to retrieve the latest virus definitions.

Event ID 167 - The process SAVFMSESp.exe terminated unexpectedly.

The following steps were carried out to resolve the problem:

1. Stop the Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange service.

2. Open usage.dat file from the directory C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\VirusDefs\ and confirm that it's missing SAVFMSE_SP_x=1 entries, where x is a number from 1 to 9.

Example of how an invalid usage.dat file looks:
[20121024.017]
SMSMSE=1
[20121025.021]
DEFWATCH_10=1
NAVCORP_70=1
NAVCORP_70_2=1

Example of how a valid usage.dat file looks:
[20120424.005]
DEFWATCH_10=1
NAVCORP_70=1
SSS_MICROSOFT_EXCHANGE_30=1
SAVFMSE_SP_3=1
SAVFMSE_SP_1=1
SAVFMSE_SP_2=1

3. Remove VirusDefs0000000x folders from the directory C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\definitions\Antivirus (where 'x' is a number).

4. Remove files from the directory C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\definitions\Antivirus\incoming.

5. Copy all files from the latest definition folder from the directory C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\VirusDefs\ to the directory C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\definitions\Antivirus\incoming.

6. Restart the SMSMSE service.

7. When the service starts up, SMSMSE will read new definition files from incoming folder and create new virus definition folder (i.e. VirusDefs0000000x)under definitions folder.