Can't download email attachments after new VPN installed.

Hi… My Bitdefender VPN updated to version 23.0.3.35 recently. I continue to use the same VPN location but for some reason I can no longer download email attachments from Hotmail (outlook.com). When I turn off the VPN, I have no issues saving the email attachment. This only started with the latest update to Bitdefender so I'm puzzled as to what the cause could be?

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Alexandru_BD

Hello @Rammble and thanks for joining us here.

If Outlook starts working normally after you turn off Bitdefender VPN, follow the troubleshooting steps below:

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/30765/

Let us know what worked for you.

Regards,

Alex

Rammble

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/339963#Comment_339963

Thanks for the reply and sorry for the long response. I have used split tunneling on a few websites that gave me problems but it does not work for Hotmail/Outlook. I've added "outlook.com" and "live.com" (since the domain is outlook.live.com") to the split tunneling websites but I still cannot download email attachments without completely shutting down the Bitdefender VPN.

Any other suggestions? Thank you.

Alexandru_BD

Hello @Rammble and thanks for getting back to us.

I think there could indeed be a few reasons VPN may Interfere with downloading email attachments, but it will require a more in-depth investigation to find out exactly what is causing this.
For starters, some email servers may block or throttle certain VPN IP addresses to prevent spam or abuse. This could affect the download of attachments.

Then, if the VPN server is located in a different country or region, the email provider might flag the activity as suspicious and block certain actions, like downloading attachments. Also, the VPN might slow down your connection, especially if the server is far from your location, which can result in timeouts when trying to download large attachments. Furthermore, email providers may have security features that detect unusual login patterns (such as those caused by VPN use) and block certain functions, including downloading attachments. Finally, the VPN encrypts your traffic, which can add extra processing time to file transfers and sometimes cause issues with file downloads.

Of course, these are just some assumptions, because we cannot identify the actual cause only from the information provided, it's hard to tell without diving deeper into the specifics.

Now, since you've mentioned that split-tunneling doesn't seem to fix this, and maybe it shouldn't actually be necessary for you to exclude those domains for them to work, I think it would be best to reach out to Bitdefender Support and have them take a closer look. Should you find the culprit, please do follow up here, if possible, and let us know what solution fixed this behavior. Here's the link to contact the Support teams:

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/help/

State your contact reason / choose request category, then choose from the available contact channels, chat, phone and email/ticket. Chat would be the fastest way to reach them.

Regards,

Alex