Issue with connecting Spotify to external device since Bitdefender is installed

BertXL

Hi,

Sorry that I put this under general topics but I don't seem to be able to select "Firewall" in the category dropdown (not in Edge, not in Chrome).

I've installed Bitdefender Total Security 2 weeks ago and I can play Spotify music on my laptop, but I'm not able to connect Spotify to an external device on my network to play music (e.g. internet radio, Google Cast). I have created a firewall rule which allows everything for Spotify.exe but that doesn't solve it. A similar rule exists for Edge, and I can connect with Edge to the webpage of the internet radio.

Also, an explicit rule that allows all applications to connect to the internet radio (which I had to do for my network printer) does not solve the issue (as mentioned in this article https://community.bitdefender.com/en/post/question/windows).

Any suggestions?

To summarize

• I am able to play spotify music on my laptop
• I am able to connect to the internet radio via Edge
• I cannot connect to the internet radio from Spotify
• I am able to print from my laptop on my HP network printer

Scott

Hi @BertXL

Try this, go into the Firewall settings/Settings and enable Alert mode. Restart your Laptop and start going through your steps of trying to connect to the internet radio etc. and see if you get a firewall pop-up to allow that connection.

Kind regards,

Scott

BertXL

Hi @Scott,

Alert mode is already active on my laptop and it only showed a popup when I started Spotify the first time. It did not show a message when I asked to connect to the external device.

But I will remove all the firewall rules and retry, to make sure I didn't mis anything

Regards.

BertXL

Hi @Scott,

I retried everything this weekend after removing everything and a reboot but this did not solve the issue. The behaviour of Spotify stays the same. I also checked the event viewer but I don't see any info related to Spotify or connection problems to the devices.

• I get a popup that Spotify requests access, which I allow
• I new rule is created which allows everything
• Spotify is able to play music on my laptop
• If I want to connect to another device to play the music, no popup is shown in BD
• The connection times out in Spotify (after +/- 10') and the device disappears from the devices list (after reboot it shows up again)

I also don't find any information about Spotify or BD problems in the Event Viewer and I'm still trying to find out how Spotify logs this kind of info. I've also posted it at Spotify community, there are quite some posts related to BitDefender btw

Thanks in advance for your help

Edit:

Perhaps some small indication in the Event Viewer which I missed: At the time of the time-out there is an event related to Hyper-V virtual environments. Is there an incompatibility between BitDefender and Hyper-V?

"The time provider 'VMICTimeProvider' has indicated that the current hardware and operating environment is not supported and has stopped. This behavior is expected for VMICTimeProvider on non-HyperV-guest environments. This may be the expected behavior for the current provider in the current operating environment as well."

BertXL

Hi,

I did found something ... When I plug in an UTP cable it does work! I get an extra popup from bitdefender, it creates the same firewall rule a second time for spotify.exe and I am able to play on the remote devices.

Both firewall rules are identical and allow everything. The difference between both is that the WIFI adaptor is set to "Dynamic" while the Ethernet adaptor is set to "Home/office". When I switch the WIFI to "Home/office" it also works with the ethernet adaptor disabled.

Conclusion is that the Dynamic switching does not seem to work correctly for the external devices in Spotify. But at least I have a solution. I hope making the WIFI a home/office solution does have side effects...

Scott

Nice investigative work on your end, and thank you for posting your solution @BertXL. Since I'm not connected to a network (with this Notebook) I was a bit of a loss as to where to go from here. But you found the solution for all of us to benefit from. Well done :)

BertXL

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/316361#Comment_316361

Thanks!

For me this is not really a solution. More an indication that BitDefender "Dynamic" mode is not able to handle the fact that Spotify connects to the Internet AND to the Home network at the same time via the same Network Adaptor. It works nicely if the network traffic is split over both adaptors using the firewall options, but not with Dynamic.

Scott

Good point about Dynamic mode's limited ability in this situation. @Alexandru_BD do you have any thoughts on this?

Alexandru_BD

Hello,

The correct solution is to set the adapter on Home/Office. In 99% of cases, you want the adapter on Home/Office. It's a top solution for firewall-related issues.

Regards