VPN Emptied Hosts File
On 2 March, Bitdefender VPN removed about 30-40 lines of entries in my Windows 11 Hosts file. I've run VPN for six months and not previously seen this issue. I use Hosts for my development, monitoring, and related tasks to avoid split DNS inside my network. Prior yesterday, VPN added its entries at the bottom of Hosts. Yesterday, it wiped everything above those entries.
Unfortunately, I have no artifacts or logs, as I did not recognize initially that the Hosts file was the problem, and I uninstalled the VPN during troubleshooting. I removed it completely (with Revo Uninstaller) because I also have a subscription to NETGEAR Armor, and there is some overlap in products, and I wasn't sure what app was causing the issue.
Fortunately, I have a relatively recent copy to restore, but you might want to look at the code that manipulates the Hosts file and ensure it never removes any entries.
Comments
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This occurred again this morning. It may be related to the system going to sleep, as it required a cold reboot today to start the computer from sleep. Upon starting, the Hosts file in \Windows\System32\Drivers\etc is empty, except for the two entries:
54.185.190.47 geoip.pango-paas.co
3.171.38.118 1uzxr3b3jraw5nlmnvbsikiioud2vilw5.web-networking.comUnfortunately, this is problematic and will require removal of the VPN product to prevent this routine occurrence. You might want to look at recent changes to version 27.2.2.2(a) that are causing this.
Frank
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Hello.
I believe that your best option is to contact Bitdefender Consumer Support by chat, telephone or e-mail:
Chat is the fastest way to get in touch with Bitdefender Consumer Support.
NOTE: Bitdefender telephone support is not toll-free!
Regards.
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