Two Macs Only Recognized as One on Central

In addition to other machines (including Macs), I have Bitdefender installed on a new MacBook Air and an older MacBook Pro. On the Central management website, it will only show one or the other machine. If I try to get the machine that's not showing (e.g. MacBook Air) to show up by re-logging into my Bitdefender account from the AV settings page, it will show up but the MacBook Pro will disappear and vice-versa. As you can see from the screenshot, the Air and Pro Macs are incorrectly detected as one machine.

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Sergiu C.

Hello /index.php?/profile/78841-markbyrn/&do=hovercard" data-mentionid="78841" href="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/78841-markbyrn/" rel="">@markbyrn ,

This is a known issue that's been reported to our development team already.

For more details and potential workarounds, please see: https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/8155/

Thank you!

markbyrn

Hi Sergiu,

The workarounds will not work because the two Macs in question have Touch ID and Apple has added an en5 iBridge interface with the same exact ether address of ac:de:48:00:11:22 - not just my Macs. This is the case for every Macbook that has a Touch ID sensor and has nothing at all do with VPN, etc as noted in that workaround document. The en5 address cannot be changed by the user or root, and obviously one would not want to disable the interface or otherwise mess it up. This took me a bit of research to discover and I'd recommend you include it in your answer document and state something like, "if you are using a Macbook with Touch ID, there is no workaround." Thanks much!

Roxana G

Hi /index.php?/profile/78841-markbyrn/&do=hovercard" data-mentionid="78841" href="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/78841-markbyrn/" rel="">@markbyrn,

Currently, Bitdefender Central can list OK one MacBook Pro with Touch Bar but if there's another MacBook Pro it replaces the first one in Central. However, rest assured that it's only a Central display limitation. Your Mac systems are protected by Bitdefender.

Central is using the MAC address as a unique identifier, which normally would make sense as this should be unique. However all the new MacBook Pro models use the same MAC address for the iBridge Ethernet used by the Touch Bar. As this MAC address is the same, Central is considering the second device the same as the first one since it can match a MAC address and is replacing the original Mac computer with the last Mac connected to the internet.

Since this is the case for all the MacBook Pro models with Touch Bar you may want to raise this with Apple as well. Currently there isn't a way to change or disable this MAC address.

Our developers were made aware of this adapter and and we've suggested to automatically blacklist the Touch Bar MAC address ac:de:48:00:11:22 in future Bitdefender releases. It does indeed cause unwanted device merging currently, as it's a generic MAC address. We do not have an estimated time for the release yet.

As a workaround, we can split your Bitdefender subscription so you can link one MacBook Pro to a separate Central account. The only inconvenience will be that you have 2 different Central accounts: one to manage 1 device and the existing account to manage the rest of your devices.

markbyrn

Thanks Roxana although in my case, it's a new Macbook Air with just the Touch ID and an older Macbook Pro. So it seems even the new Macbook Air is using the same Touch ID Mac address.

Roxana G

Hi,

This visual glitch does not affect the security of your devices. However, if you want to see all your devices, we can split up your subscription in 2 accounts. If you agree, we recommend you to create another Central account and write us at bitsy@bitdefender.com with your email addresses.

markbyrn

43 minutes ago, Roxana G said:

Hi,

This visual glitch does not affect the security of your devices. However, if you want to see all your devices, we can split up your subscription in 2 accounts. If you agree, we recommend you to create another Central account and write us at bitsy@bitdefender.com with your email addresses.

Thanks, I sent an e-mail to request that.

Roxana G

55 minutes ago, markbyrn said:

Thanks, I sent an e-mail to request that.

Hi,

The changes were made. Our team has replied to your email. Please check your Inbox.

Panagiotis

I have two devices, iMac and mac bookpro and devices are replacing each other in Central.

I have followed the instructions of the following link: https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/8155/

however the problem still occurs to me.

Thanks

MJX

I checked the link you posted. I see where they are going with the NIC. I would recommend completly uninstalling the program from your mac and if you know who, remove all plists from the mac that refrenece bitdefender. You can find them in your /(username)/Library/Preferences folder.

Then remove the device from Central. Make sure you have only one device installed and one device in Central (hopefully your mac's have different system names (if not change one)). Now reinstall get the link while you are in Central and choose protect another computer.

Good luck.

Panagiotis

Thanks for the help, but the problem still remains.

Panagiotis

bEeReE

Sams here - for years! Still no fix from BD.

Panagiotis

Thanks for your answer.

Panagiotis

MarkySparky

Has there been a real solution to this issue yet. I have 3 MacBook Pro's and all are recognised as the same machine and overwrite each other in Central when I install Bitdefender. I refuse to have 3 different accounts just to make life easier for Bitdefender. All MAC addresses recognised as AC:DE:48:00:11:22 in Central despite each of the Macs having completely different addresses when I check myself. If I apply parental controls to one Mac, it applies to all 3.

This issue is well over 2 years old now so where is the solution???

Im currently on a 30 day trail, but if the answer to this issue is a lazy "workaround" I won't be signing up.

SimonT

same problem here, reinstalled on 3 new macbooks and an iphone..... with a family license (15 devices) and can only see two of the macbooks .... that said, all the machines appear to function with full protection, but whenever i add a new one it simply replaces the last one and i never get further than one IOS and two macbooks

zugo

ionos

No update after over 2 years? This issue renders Bitdefender Central completely useless for Macs ... and would be so easy to fix.

martianbogon

I've just discovered this issue as well. It's annoying for my home use (I have 4 macs), but I'm also considering purchasing Bitdefender for business use (35 Macs) and this is completely unacceptable in that context. How can we increase the priority of this issue so a real fix is created?

tmm

I"m having this same issue. Just purchased Bitdefender, and I don't expect to renew if this issue still exists in 11 months.

RussC

I have the same issue in my household-- three MacBooks (two Airs, one Pro) all with TouchID, show up as only one in BD Central. The email response to my support request was lame, and much less helpful than this forum. It suggested I check the MAC addresses on the different machines, and of course the MAC address shown in the UI is different for all machines. The person responding in the email never said "this is a known issue and it's related to TouchID". They also never said "we've known about this for almost three years, we haven't fixed it, and we really don't care about you Mac users", which appears to be the true state of affairs. Further evidence of poor Mac support is that BD VPN keeps reinstalling itself after supposedly successful uninstall, as documented elsewhere.) Disappointing service and support.

I also will not renew at full price when my introductory subscription runs out in 11 months unless this is fixed.

Thanks to others on this thread who tracked down and explained what's really going on here.

ionos

It is mind-boggling that BitDefender was not able to solve this trivial issue in almost 3 years. One has to wonder: What does this say about BitDefender? How much does one want to entrust all one's files to a company that (a) is either technically so deficient that it cannot fix this issue, or (b) cares so little about its existing customer base that it keeps de-prioritizing this bug-fix?

TwelveTone

I've just discovered this same issue with my account. I have 3 Windows PCs, one is fine but the other two were overwriting. I uninstalled BD from both of the PCs so I only had one device in BD-Central, then installed just one of them and checked my account. The one I installed took the name and MAC of the one I didn't install. Crazy! I submitted a support ticket, no reply. I called support on the phone, but the guy said he couldn't do anything and a next-level tech would have to email me about it (yep - not call, email). My subscription is up for renewal in less than two months. However after reading this thread and some others, not getting help from support, and not fixing a bug that is clearly annoying people, I doubt I will renew. I've been a programmer for nearly 40 years and I can't believe this issue is that difficult to address.

Mike_BD

@TwelveTone I've informed our support team and they should get back to you in a timely fashion.

cheers,

Mike

talkzop

This issue renders Bitdefender Central completely useless for Macs

CiscoKid

I too have experienced this issue and recently contacted support. Support simply regurgitated the material found in this thread. I am also really disappointed that it's been A) Identified by BitDefender as an issue, B) It's been well over 3 years+ that this has been an open issue, C) No one within BitDefender development team has taken full ownership and responsibility for the issue and finally D) The Admin in this thread PATRONIZES the end users reporting this issue and not treating it with the seriousness it deserves. Yes, this goes to the Mike_BD, your comment "Let me know how that pans out" above was not appreciated by this paying customer. To tell people to use separate logins for Central is not a solution. I would say that perhaps everyone experiencing this issue should begin opening grievances with the Better Business Bureau and/or take to social media to link to this thread because it is clear in my mind that BitDefender does not respect paying customers requests for a fully functioning product.

@Mike_BD, treat BitDefender customers who have been both loyal and committed to seeing this issue resolved in spite the length of how long this issue has been plaguing paying customers. Give constant updates on where it stands with the development team's priority. You'd be surprised how easy it is to diffuse frustrations by simply keeping customers informed before BitDefender does loose to it's competition.

Mike_BD

Hi everyone,

This is not a new issue - and, in short, is cause by the way Apple handles the MAC adresses of its devices and indeed detters the experience of device management through CENTRAL. Since they're identified in our Central interface by that MAC and are yet to find a more suitable solutions, this is an unfortunate event that still happens. It does not affect, by any means, the functionality of the Bitdefender solution installed on each machine.

A more exhaustive explanation can be found here : https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/8155/

cheers,

Mike

mcjorna

Hi all,

I have the same issue and I don't agree that this does not affect the functionality of bitdefender because it does! In my scenario I have an imac and a macbook air, the macbook air is for my daughter on which I use parental control. The 2 machines are overwriting each other which means that as soon as I install on my daughter's macbook, my imac disappears from central bitdefender. That it itself is annoying and in my opinion completely unacceptable to not being to solve this for years already but what's even worse is that when I install parental control on my daughters macbook, this is also applied on my imac. 😕

This makes bitdefender completely useless for mac users in my opinion.

Another thing that I have raised with bitdefender almost a year ago and is still not resolved is that youtube.com is not blocked, even when I have defined this as a blocked site in central. Other sites are blocked but not youtube. And let youtube now be the number 1 site my daughter is distracted by when supposed to be making her homework.

Still looking for an alternative, all these parental control solutions seem to have their limitations but this one is hard to crasp why bitdefender is not able to solve / prevent this.

Ideas are welcome. 😉

Michael

Alexandru_BD

Hi @mcjorna,

Indeed, this is an already famous issue with the MAC devices.

We've been dealing with this glitch since the release of Bitdefender Central and considerable efforts have been made in order to correct this behavior.

Our engineers came up with a couple of workarounds, as described in the article that circulated on this thread:

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/8155/

Mac OSX is a much more strict environment than Windows, a situation that has two effects: one is that Mac OSX does not require the same amount of extensive anti-malware modules, as access is much more restricted to any 3rd party (not only including possible malicious apps / files, but the same restrictions apply to 3rd party software manufactures such as ourselves. So workarounds have been found using the tools at hand.

That it's only a Central display limitation. Your Mac systems are protected by Bitdefender, so the utility is there.

I agree that this is a major inconvenience especially when Parental Control is involved, as you have described above. I'll get in touch with our engineers to see what solutions can be considered, and will let them know about the link that should stay blocked. Some additional information might be required from you, so stay tuned.

We have seen rare cases where kids have managed to "bypass" the Parental Control settings and i'm thinking that maybe this is the case here with YouTube.

Kids these days are so much smarter than most people think.

kmdesign

I find the response above to be extremely disappointing. If Sophos can handle identifying my Mac's without an issue, why can't Bitdefender? I find the answers and rationale you are giving to be wildly misguided and in most cases, not even relative to the issue. And the tech note is useless and has been proven not to work. Is there any way to escalate this issue beyond the canned responses posted here? I'd like to hear from a high level tech engineer at Bitdefender as to why this issue is unsolvable.

Valentin_BD

Hello @kmdesign ,

The issue has been escalated and discussed with the development team several times already. Currently, the only solution we can offer for this is the workaround from the previously mentioned article. We're sorry we do not have a better solution at this time.

In regards to Sophos, we cannot offer any useful insights, especially since we don't know how their backend works. We need to make sure that we find a solution that works and that doesn't cause any other issues or affect existing functionality.

Thank you for your understanding.

kmdesign

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/305404#Comment_305404

Appreciate the quick reply, but I also sincerely hope that you fully understand how incredibly frustrating your response is to the many customers who have voiced their frustration at the lack of a fix. To say that you "don't have a better solution at this time"—after over two years and escalation to the dev team—tells me it's not a priority nor is it something you will stop marketing as a feature on your website. The latter is, simply put, false advertising. How hard is it to be transparent and pro-actively warn Mac users that one or more of their devices will not show up in the management portal? I mean, it's a known bug of fairly significant proportion. And what is the plan to fix this major issue? You cannot deflect and delay your way out of persistent bugs. That's why you have dev teams in place—to fix the programming issues that cause customer usability issues.

I hope that YOU understand the importance of this issue more fully now.

Alexandru_BD

@kmdesign All we can do right now is make sure that your feedback is passed on to the appropriate department and assure you that we do take the issue seriously.

I completely understand how frustrating this can be, but right now we don't have a resolution in sight and all we can do is sit tight and wait.

I can assure you that all the relevant teams involved in this development got the message, as we have pushed this forward several times. There are some limitations that are pretty hard to overcome, but as workarounds have already been proposed, a permanent solution should come our way as well.

Best regards.

Hank_de_Moody

I just signed up and have this issue. Seriously guys? This is a WELL KNOWN MAC address for a SPECIFIC purpose!

What's so hard to just ignore it during installation?

Come on!

Xadd

I agree with Hank. The first message has been edited in January 2018. 4 years should be largely sufficient for resolving a problem that impact all users with several touchBared macBooks !!

It's not only a cosmetic issue but it makes the installation a nightmare when trying to install on 2 macbooks with Touch Bar. Please consider seriously this situation and bug !!

Xadd

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/305439#Comment_305439

Waiting for this permanent solution !...

DeyJKP658

Hello. This is a problem, but recently I have almost identified the cause.

If the terminal you are using has multiple interfaces and an interface other than the one that is actually connected to the Internet is valid, the terminal configuration information may be mistakenly communicated to the central side, resulting in multiple terminals.

Is said to be visible as one unit. Specifically, by temporarily disabling interfaces other than those actually connected, including multiple interfaces (virtual interfaces such as wired LAN, wireless LAN, and external VPN client), Bitdefender Client Agent, Central I think that it will be a situation that can be recognized as a client on the side. Please try it.

On my terminal, a terminal that recognizes the virtual LAN function of Wired LAN, Wireless LAN, FortiClient, especially the MAC address that is possessed by the virtual LAN function of FortiClient and the interface that is actually connected.

In the case where the same phenomenon occurs due to the duplicate processing of MAC addresses, especially in the situation where FortiClient's virtual LAN is valid for multiple terminals, each terminal is recognized as one terminal on the central side.

We are aware of the part of the situation that will end up.

I think that you should disable the interface other than the interface that is actually connected, check the central and synchronization status on multiple terminals, and then enable the other interfaces.

Lisa13

So has this issue been fixed, as it's been 4 years since this was first posted yet I'm still having issues? I have 3 Macbook Pros. Two are only seen as one (2019 and 2021 purchases), while the 3rd one (2022) shows up independently just fine. How do I fix this? Everyone tells me they are both protected just fine, but it causes issues with the wifi at my daughter's college. Her laptop needs anti-virus in order to connect, but the wifi doesn't read her computer as having protection and she thus cannot connect. Major issue!

Andre_C

Maybe it's time to use other software instead of Bitdefender. It's been long enough.

macdutch

Happy New Year. Will issue be fixed in 2023?

Alexandru_BD

Happy New Year! @macdutch,

Unfortunately, there are no updates regarding this. Have you tried the steps provided in this article?

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/8155/

Regards

Shibumi

Your solution is to tell people to either disable a NIC or change the MAC address on a NIC.

The fact you are proposing these as workarounds for "out of the box" laptops is leaving me speechless. I am technically fairly competent, and would (almost) never mess with a MAC address, yet this is a solution you present to the general public on a premium product. There is IMHO no reason why someone would disable a NIC or change a MAC address. None whatsoever; any use cases where that is an option are most likely specialist installations and those users would not be bemoaning that fact over here besides a short grumble about you wasting 5 minutes of their time.

More fundamentally, this will not work here.

You are pointing to a niche solution to a common problem which will not fix the problem because YOUR developers are not ignoring a MAC address during installation.

Unacceptable.

Shibumi

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/7217/?ref=https://central.bitdefender.com/support&adobe_mc=MCMID%3D81307105732789061491121697424231201867%7CMCORGID%3D0E920C0F53DA9E9B0A490D45%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1675851978

Use that link to ask for a refund. I have just started the process.

Shibumi

The more I look into this the worse it gets. FFS on the manage your device tab it shows Bitdefender total security is not installed on any device whereas when I go to the dashboard it shows that I have EVERYTHING enabled and it is running fine. The VPN is running on the phone and the Mac, yet states it is only on the phone. The two MACs are showing as only one MAC. The 2nd iPhone and the iPAD has just dropped off the manage devices dashboard. They are counted in the total devices installed but not showing as running anything on the manage devices dashboard (these two devices are currently 16000km away from me at an 11 hour time zone difference so I cannot verify their status). Most importantly, I repeat, Bitdefender Total Security is showing as NOT. INSTALLED. ANYWHERE! How do I install/activate this: exactly which steps are required to get that counter to 5/5?

I have no idea what is really running where and now I am just relying on the Apple ecosystem to protect me + my backups. I am now treating ALL my systems as not having the AV + other products active.

This is a Mickey Mouse clown cowboy outfit. You CANNOT manage what you cannot monitor. As simple as that.

(tech support: please reach out if you have any suggestions)

Alexandru_BD

Hello @Shibumi,

Thank you for joining the conversation here.

As the article above explains, this is only a glitch in the way Bitdefender Central displays them, with no impact on the security of the devices. If a viable solution hasn't been found since 2017, then most probably there isn't one. As such, a workaround has been created to tackle this. The support article provides detailed steps to take and the recommendations are given by our product developers.

Of course, in the event you are not satisfied with this solution, then you can request a full refund of your Bitdefender subscription within 30 days from the date of purchase.

I am not sure what is the reason behind the discrepancy of the security status in Central versus Bitdefender, thus I would recommend contacting the engineers to sort this out. The first thing to check would be if Bitdefender is linked to the same Central account on all devices. But their state can also be incorrectly displayed, if they are replacing each other in Bitdefender Central.

To get some assistance on this matter, kindly reach out to our Support Teams using one of the contact channels available at the link below:

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

Let us know how it goes.

DCaf

Wow, I'm really sad to see that this issue has been going on for 4 years.

I don't tend to use Central that much, so didn't realize the problem, until a more recent problem I've had led me to see this thread.

So while I also have three macs showing up as one in central issue in this thread, it's an issue that led me here....

I'm now also having a problem where it seems only one of the three MacBookPro's can have their AV Agent logged in and active at one time (which does present an AV risk). I documented this in a thread here: https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/95079/anyone-else-keep-having-macos-client-log-out/p1?new=1

I don't know if they are linked, as this login issue started only in the last few months.

But now I'm concerned (and annoyed). I used to recommend BitDefender all the time, but I'm putting that on hold until I see this resolved.

(By the way, I work in the computer security field, so double my disappointment here.)

DCaf

So after posting on this forum, and submitting a ticket, my issues have not occured again for almost a week. I wasn't even able to collect the details asked for from the support team as the issue hasn't re-occurred.

I've also noticed that all three of my Macs are now showing up in BitDefender Central, where they wouldn't before (one would clear out the other, now all three have remained for nearly a week).

Something seems to have changed, fingers crossed it's actually fixed.

macdutch

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/321652#Comment_321652

Thanks @DCaf - Has this remained for you? An official statement or release notes from @Alexandru_BD or another admin would be nice.

Alexandru_BD

Hello @macdutch,

As far as I know, there are no updates here and this is the only workaround we have.

Regards

Flexx

This post has been closed to further comments due to multiple users commenting on a resolved issue.

(new comments removed)

Regards