Can Bitdefender interfere with or delay SMB connection setup?

pokeefe0001

Shortly after installing Bitdefender Total Security my backup software (Macrium Reflect) has had random failures during SMB connection setup. This is happening on only 1 of 5 computers. I installed Bitdefender about 2 months ago and the problem started 4 days later. I can sometimes go 3 days without trouble so that 4 days could be insignificant, Or this could all be coincidental.

I've added the Reflect library as an exception in Bitdefender, but I think the SMB setup happens in Windows code so I doubt the exception will do anything.

Flexx

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/92679/can-bitdefender-interfere-with-or-delay-smb-connection-setup

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Generate bitdefender connectivity logs (https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/9689/)

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Regards

pokeefe0001

I'm not ready to open a problem ticket with support yest. I actually doubt this is a Bitdefender problem. I just want to know if this is an avenue worth following. The fact that manually started backups never fail makes me think that Bitdefender is not involved at all.

Flexx

@Alexandru_BD, @Mike_BD - kindly check on this.

Regards

Alexandru_BD

Hello @pokeefe0001,

Generally speaking, it is possible for Bitdefender to interfere with network connections, but this should be something that happens all the time, not just occasionaly.

My opinion is that it is very unlikely that the situation is caused by Bitdefender.

However, to get a confirmation, I would also recommend to contact our engineers, as I could be missing something here and it's difficult to give a verdict without having a look at the machine.

Regards

pokeefe0001

While I agree that this is likely not related to Bitdefender, I was thinking of its maybe slowing down processing enough that there might occasionally be a timeout. Note that my question specifically is directed at SMB processing. Does Bitdefender do any checking in SMB connection setup and, if so, is there any way to disable this?

Alexandru_BD

I would have considered the scenario where this could be Bitdefender related, in the event it occurred on all machines all of the time, but as you have mentioned, this only happens on 1 out of 5 computers and the behavior is inconsistent for me to diagnose and make a connection..

However, at this stage I cannot entirely exclude the possibility that something in Bitdefender may cause an interference on that particular device. But I think this is a situation that must be investigated remotely, to know for sure.

Cheers