Evolution Client update failures after Evo upgrade: it's McAfee
After the some releases of Evolution (typically but not universally on the Stowe release), a number of customers have experienced client update failures after logging in, where it reports that the update has failed, and it typically leaves the desktop client in an unusable state such that it can't even be uninstalled.
The cause in every case I've researched has been McAfee Antivirus, which is apparently trying to protect you but unhelpfully doesn't log this anywhere, leaving it a mystery. Ugh.
The fix:
- Reboot the computer; this is necessary to get McAfee to let go of Evolution.exe. Without this step, the file cannot be deleted even as admin, and there's just no getting anywhere until the reboot.
- Temporarily disable McAfee protection on the desktop
- Run Evolution again to try to update it; if the software appears to be unavailable, rerun the installer (but while McAfee is still temporarily disabled)
- Once Evolution is updated, re-enabled McAfee.
We don't know why it doesn't like Evolution or how to disable this behavior: all we have is the workaround.
This is not really related to the Stowe, so it's worth trying with any Evo update failure if McAfee is involved.