Any advice on how to get Xprotect Updater to work again?

Question

I know that it was faithfully doing it's job -- as long as immediately after I started-up my computer, I got online right away. It has always seemed to be on a timer of some sort and thus, never worked unless I followed that routine (which was fairly easy to figure out -- as Little Snitch clearly revealed).
Even, when (Xprotect Updater) is updated by Apple, I could clearly see the increase in the size of the signature payload.
I assume that it normally overwrites the signature cache or whatever it's supposed to do each and each & every time one first signs on (albeit promptly) because I could see it as it happened using Little Snitch. It ran like a Swiss Watch, did it's signature overwrite, thank you very much; but now I'm lost.
Perhaps Apple is working on it at their end & it's temporarily down? Which has happened in the past and, of course, the signature payload was predictably greater once it started working again.
Thanks in advance,
mm~

Answer 1

All-set; problem solved.
I found a reference to toggling "Automatically install important security updates"... found under System Prefs/Security/General.
I did that which worked great.
Rock On