Firewall creating rules with invalid program paths

RJC

Following the latest update I have had issues with applications being blocked from accessing the internet even though it appears there is a firewall rule allowing access. When I edit the rule I discover that the program path contains an incorrect drive letter - either a valid drive but not the location of the program file or a drive letter that does not exist on my machine.

I have to keep manually editing the rules to correct the program paths.

In addition, when I run the firewall in alert mode and click on "view application" the application cannot be found and I am presented with Windows explorer showing the "This PC" screen.

Alexandru_BD

Hello,

May I kindly ask you to reach the Support teams so they can gather some logs and find out what's happening there? A fix was recently deployed for a bug where the Firewall became inactive in the UI after a new release and the engineers would require more information from you so they can further troubleshoot the reported behavior.

You can get in touch with the Bitdefender engineers by choosing one of the contact channels available here:

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

Please keep us updated on the progress so we may help other users that might encounter this.

Regards,

Alex

RJC

I have tried using the Support Tool and examined the debug package that was produced. Although I have a very specific problem regarding the operation of the Bitdefender Firewall the support tool seems to create a complete inventory of my whole machine including all hardware, all installed applications, all folder names on the PC. I have debugged 100s of PC applications over my 35 years in IT and I find this level of data collection quite inappropriate.

I am a freelance IT developer working on several contracts which are highly confidential and do not allow me to deliver the information collected by the support tool in the debug package.

For my specific problem all should be required is a debug log from the firewall component as to why it cannot correctly identify which drive the application requesting network access reside on.

I have therefore determined that as Bitdefender continues to malfunction I will be uninstalling it.

Alexandru_BD

Hello @RJC and thank you for following up on the thread.

The Support tool collects details required for debugging technical issues, such as logs and product usage information. Here's a quick overview of the data gathered during the logging process:

Data regarding the Bitdefender application

• The version of the Bitdefender antivirus solution installed on your device;
• Security events that were detected by the application, such as blocked websites or applications;
• Bitdefender configuration, for example Firewall rules, exceptions set in the protection modules or which settings are enabled or disabled.

Data regarding the events that took place on your computer - Microsoft Event Viewer

• Application events - a snapshot of the events related to your installed applications, e.g. an application crash;
• Security events - a snapshot of the security-related events on your computer;
• System event - a snapshot of the events related to your system, such as a black screen or blue screen for example, and what caused the said system error.

Data regarding the installed applications on your computer

This refers to the installed applications on the computer at the moment when the support tool began the logging process and the current version of each of those applications.

Data related to your operating system, such as the version, e.g. Windows 11 and its current build, for example build: 10.0.22621.This technical data is solely used for the purpose of debugging the issue you are currently experiencing. We do not collect any form of personal or sensitive data, nor will ask for this type of information from our customers. Due to a large number of possible system configurations and installed software, determining what might cause an issue with a specific Bitdefender module is not as simple as it sounds and everything must be taken into consideration. For example, traces of an uninstalled antivirus might be causing Bitdefender to not run properly, so we'd need to see if there are left over registry entries or files. In addition, asking our customers to perform specific steps to generate only logs pertaining to a certain module with significantly increase the complexity of the steps they would need to take with the high chance the logs would reveal nothing of significance.

I hope the information is helpful.

Regards,

Alex

Scott

@Alexandru_BD does BD automatically delete the file when they're done, or do we have to request it to be deleted?

Alexandru_BD

Hi @Scott,

The information is automatically deleted after 6 months, but it can also be purged from the records upon request. This means that the users can request its deletion anytime.

Regards