How to stop Bitdefender from blocking BetterBird

seasoned_geek

This is on both Windows 10 and Windows 11. It is beyond annoying. I wish antivirus software would actually TEST with email clients and do that test on a slow network. Like 1 in 20+ times your firewall lets BetterBird through. On Linux machines, sans bitdefender, I have no problems getting email.

This is massively infuriating. On the same computer I can use the Webmail portal via the browser and look at email just fine, but browser interfaces for email ******. Eventually, after about 20 retries, I can eventually get through the firewall.

This is unbelievably frustrating. I spent 40+ years in IT and have an extremely low tolerance for bug riddled software.

How to fix this?

Alexandru_BD

Hello,

That's a tricky one. But I wouldn't really label it as a bug.. Although the symptoms may look like a firewall block, an application blocked by a rule would usually remain blocked consistently. And in this case, since betterbird eventually connects after several retries, the issue could involve something else, such as encrypted traffic scanning, a connection timeout, a VPN if you're using one, or even a conflicting application rule.

To identify the responsible component, you could try the following:

1. Open Bitdefender and go to Protection, then firewall, temporarily turn it off, and then test betterbird several times.
2. If the issue continues with the firewall disabled, turn it back on. Then go to Protection → Online Threat Prevention, click on Settings, temporarily disable EWS (Encrypted web scan), restart betterbird, and test again.
3. If you use Bitdefender VPN, or any VPN app for that matter, disconnect it temporarily and repeat the test.

Use these steps only for troubleshooting and re-enable each feature after testing.

If disabling the firewall resolves the problem, remove any existing betterbird rules, then create a new rule for the current betterbird.exe executable and set its network access to Allow for all networks and protocols.
If none of these tests isolates the issue, Bitdefender Support will likely need diagnostic logs collected while reproducing the failure, since the delay could be occurring in the network filtering layer rather than in a simple firewall rule. Should you require their assistance, head to this link to get in touch and make sure to include the following information in your inquiry:

• Whether the problem affects incoming mail, outgoing mail, or both
• The exact error shown by betterbird
• The mail provider and whether the account uses IMAP or POP
• Which of the tests above changes the behavior
• The installed betterbird and Bitdefender versions

I hope this helps.