Unable to eject time machine under Tahoe - "one or more programs..." (Bitdefender scanning)

JohnRobertson

As far as I can tell Bitdefender is scanning my USB Time Machine drives on my Macbook Pro running Tahoe 26.4.1.
If I drag the USB drive to the Exceptions what happens is it only blocks that particular day's sub-directory in the Time Machine USB drive, not the whole external drive. Time machine only created daily sub-directories on the USB drives, there is not a master directory and then the dailies as sub-directories of the primary directory. So when I drag it only does the daily directory not the entire drive.

Is there a way to exclude any and all USB drives? Or at least block the USB Time Machine drives entirely?

Thanks!

Alexandru_BD

Hello,

Thanks for the detailed description. Time Machine backup disks can be a bit tricky on macOS because the mounted path may point to a dated backup snapshot/subfolder instead of the backup volume itself. That would explain why dragging the item into Exceptions only appears to exclude that day’s directory rather than the whole Time Machine disk.

A couple of things to try:

1. In Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac, go to Protection → Antivirus → Exceptions, click +, then browse to and select the actual Time Machine backup disk/volume rather than one of the dated backup folders.
2. Also check whether Preferences → Protection → Don’t scan content in backups is enabled. Time Machine backups can safely be excluded from scanning, since any infected file restored from a backup should still be detected when it is accessed again on the Mac.
3. After adding the exception, disconnect and reconnect the Time Machine drive, then try ejecting it again after the backup completes.

I would not recommend excluding “any and all USB drives,” since that would reduce protection for removable media in general. A targeted exception for the trusted Time Machine volume is the safer approach.

If Bitdefender still locks the drive after the backup has finished, this may need to be checked by Support with logs, especially since this is happening under macOS Tahoe 26.4.1. In that case, please contact Bitdefender Support and include:

• macOS version
• Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac version
• whether the Time Machine disk is APFS/HFS+ and encrypted or not
• a screenshot of the exception that was added
• the exact eject error message

This should help determine whether the exclusion is not being applied to the mounted Time Machine volume correctly.

Regards