Bsod With Nortel Contivity Vpn

NickAv

For the past few weeks I've been getting blue screen crashes, and my Windows minidump wasn't much use -- info was always incomplete. After some experimenting, I realized it only happened when my VPN connection was active -- I use Nortel Networks Contivity VPN. I found that I could disable Active Virus Control in BitDefender, keep my VPN connection active, and not crash at all. But once I reactivated BitDefender, I'd BSoD within a few minutes.

Apart from completely disabling BitDefender whenever I establish a VPN connection, is there any way I can fix this problem?

NickAv

Oh, I also tried setting the VPN app as an exception in BitDefender, but that did nothing. Considering issues people have using Cisco VPN & the latest version of BitDefender, I wonder if the latest updates have been tested with VPN connections at all!

BTW, my BSoDs began when I recently "upgraded" to BD Internet Security 2010. I'd been using BD IS 2009 and Nortel Contivity VPN for the past year without a problem. But I couldn't say whether this issue began due to BD 2010 or due to a recent update of same. Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated. As it stands now, I'm starting to regard BD as insufficient for professional use.

NickAv

I just did a complete restore of my system, spending many hours backing up files and settings and reinstalling drivers and software (much still to do). But despite the clean install of Windows XP Pro running only essential programs, BD 2010 still blue screen crashes when I open a VPN connection.

Blame falls squarely on BD 2010. My VPN client has worked for years without a problem, and even worked fine with BD 2009.

To make matters more unforgivable, I contacted BD "customer service" days ago and still have yet to receive a reply.

I'll be looking for a refund and switching back to a more established anti-virus company. Much like the customer support, this software is obviously not professional grade.

Aurelian Neagu

Dear NickAv,

First of all, please be informed that we did not find any ticket with your e-mail address in our data base.

Regarding your issues, please follow the steps below:

A. First of all, please follow the steps below in order to disable BitDefender Antivirus Virus Control module:

1. Open BitDefender Security Center.

2. Click on 'Settings' and switch to 'Expert Mode'

3. Go to 'Antivirus' tab.

4. Click on 'Advanced Settings' and DISABLE the 'Antivirus Virus Control' feature.

5. Test to see if the issue still replicates.

B. In case the issue persists, please follow the steps below:

Open BitDefender - > from the top right corner go to Settings and choose Expert Mode - > go to the Firewall module.

From that location go to the Settings tab - > Advanced Settings - > Check 'Enable Internet Connection Sharing' and uncheck 'Block Port Scans'.

Then go on the Network tab - > at Trust Level choose 'Trusted Local' and at Stealth choose 'Off'.

Close BitDefender and check if the issue is solved.

Thank you.

NickAv

Thanks for the response, Aurelian. I sent an email through the website, but didn't see any way of specifically submitting a trouble ticket.

I'll try turning off Active Virus Control (that's the one you meant, right?) and see what happens, then follow up with the firewall settings.

More info: I had Real Time Protection turned off yesterday, and my VPN connection was up for at least an hour, then I got blue-screened. So it seems that while turning off Real Time Protection forestalls the crashes, there's still something that isn't playing nice.

NickAv

Aurelian: I tried your suggestions (A & B above). Still got crashes after 5-10 minutes of VPN connection.

In addition, I've tried disabling the Firewall completely, and disabled Real-Time Protection completely (which leaves very little point in having BitDefender at all, but what the heck). And I still get blue-screen crashes after 5-10 minutes on a VPN connection. At least we seem to have narrowed it down:

from PM with Ghe:

Minidumps that you have sent indicates that crash was caught in ipsecw2k.sys, that is Nortel VPN driver. There are mainly two possibly situations:

1. BitDefender firewall driver (

bdfndisf.sys

) send packets that Nortel driver (

ipsecw2k.sys

) does not "understand" and then it crashes. It may be a kind of incompatibility between BitDefender firewall driver and Nortel VPN driver.

2. There is a bug in Nortel driver that does not handle correctly all situations, in example, when some firewall driver is present

I hope that at some point this problem can be solved. But in the meantime, I have to be able to use my VPN connection for more than 5 minutes at a go, so I'm uninstalling BD2010.

martin_e_rogers

I have a similar issue, although instead of a BSOD (I am using Windows 7) I am simply unable to establish an SSH connection unless I completely disable BD Firewall.

Have BD customer support made any progress?

Regarding support tickets - is this something it is even possible to create, or do BD support do this based on emails (I have sent one).

Unknown

Hello all,

NickAv:

If you are still dealing with this issue please try to make an update for the Nortel VPN driver - ipsecw2k.sys.

Martin Rogers:

In order to solve the situation you have encountered please be so kind as to follow the procedure detailed below:

1. Open the BitDefender in Expert mode.

2. Select the Firewall module and go to the Network tab.

Here you should be able to see at least one network in the Adapter list. Please select the network and change the following settings:

Trust Level to Trusted Local

Stealth to Remote

Generic to Yes

Now please test in order to see if you can connect to your VPN.

Also, if you are seeing a special adaptor created for your VPN network please set the following:

Trust Level to Full Trust

Stealth mode to Off

Generic to Yes

3. If it can not connect, please go the Firewall and go to Rules tab. In the Rules tab, click on the Advanced button. Please search for the process belonging to the application that has the connectivity issue and double left click on the rule. In the new window that will appear, please check to see if the application has the Action Deny. If this is the case please

change the action to Allow and then click on Ok. Then please select the rule again and click on the Move to top arrow from the top right corner. Now please test in order to see if the application can connect.

4. If it can not connect, you have to add a zone on each computer with the IP of the other computer. In order to do so, please open your Internet browser on both computers and go to this address: www.showip.net. There you

will get the IP for each computer.

Having this IP, open BitDefender, go to the Firewall module and go to Network tab. There, select the used network

under Zones (either Local Area Connection or Wireless Connection). Click on the icon with a + from the Zones part and enter the IP of the remote computer. Select Allow from the Action menu and then click on OK. Now please test in order to see if you can connect.

We have also sent you an email with all these steps. Please post here or reply to our email and let us know if you can connect to your VPN after following the steps above.

Thank you.