Bitdefender Total Security-Turn off "Device Scan"

Foxfan100

I have several flash drives, SSD and HDD external drives attached to my system. These are "permanent" drives i.e. the ports are not used for plugging in unknown or other drives of any sort.

Since the most recent update, BD has taken to scanning all these devices as being "New" at startup. I have been to Antivirus>Settings> and disabled "Scan Flash Drives". However, it seems that this setting isn't kept, and reverts to "Autoscan".

This places a burden on the system, and I would like the Disabled setting to stay, rather than reverting on its own.

Advice, please.

editorsean

I have same problem since the recent update to build 27.0.30.136, even with the Bitdefender free version.

I set "Scan Flash Drives" to disabled multiple times since this update and it keeps reverting to AutoScan at Windows starts up.

This is a right pain as I have about 600GB on pCloud which Bitdefender treats as a flash drive. The AutoScan causes massive data usage on my 4G connection if I happen to be away from my PC when it starts its AutoScan.

Bitdefender also ignores the exceptions, i.e. I've P:\ in the exceptions for On-access scan, On-demand and Embedded scripts and the very first thing the Autoscan does is scan the P:\ drive. 😕

[Deleted User]

This bug is under investigation. Please see this topic.

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/335114#Comment_335114

Have a great day.

Regards,

Phil

Foxfan100

Any news on when this is going to be fixed?

At the moment, to avoid this, I have to offline all my flash drives (which I do anyway after shutdown). At startup I have SyncBackPro also run and this starts up my days periodic backups of data to external HDD and SSD and flash drives. To get over this really irritating problem in BD, I have to increase the wait time for SyncBack after startup, rush off to BD, bring up the AV> Settings screen and turn Autoscan to Disabled.

I can then turn on my flash and other drives. This is not what I want to have to remember to do every morning.

Nunzio77

This should be fixed and will be available with the next update.

However, I will leave the word for any details to @camarie

HarryK

I have this problem in January 2025. Any fixes issued yet?

i12Know

I would like to designate specific devices to exclude, also.

OlderGoat

I have this problem also on 2025.02.12.

Caleb_Cle

I also have this problem as of 02-17-2025. Every time I connect my external 1TB SSD, Bitdefender does a full drive scan which takes about 10 minutes. This heats up the SSD and consequently shortens its life unnecessarily. I have not found anything in Settings to disable the automated scan. Even worse, I have not found anything in the UI that allows me to stop the scan once it starts. Very frustrating.

OlderGoat

This problem was resolved during a chat with the Bitdefender Helper AI. First, recognize that it is an AI. The AI made several menu suggestions that were not correct. I responded politely explaining what was wrong. The AI adjusted. Within 15 minutes the problem was resolved. Given there are many versions of Bitdefender that was a short call. This is a summary of the AI chat. Since your situation may be different I recommend that you open your own help session. Contrary to most tech help lines, I found this to be very productive. I did solve the problem.

To stop Bitdefender from rescanning your external drive, follow these steps:

1. Click Protection in the Bitdefender interface.
2. Under Antivirus, select Manage Exceptions.
3. Add your external drive to the exceptions list by selecting its drive letter.
4. Confirm the changes.

Also, ensure the 'Scan Flash Drives' option is disabled if it is scanning your external drive unnecessarily. Let me know if you need further assistance!
The scan drive option has Options to automatic, disable or ask every time. I selected ask every time
The next step is to ensure that the external drive is added to the 'Manage Exceptions' list. This should prevent Bitdefender from treating it as a new device.
Yes the drives are listed
Ensure that the 'Early Boot Scan' feature is disabled, as it might still be scanning the drive during startup. To check this:

1. Open Bitdefender.
2. Go to Protection > Antivirus.
3. Click on the Advanced tab.
4. Look for the 'Early Boot Scan' option and disable it if it's enabled.

And it was

Scott

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/350214#Comment_350214

Nicely written and informative post, OlderGoat, hopefully it will help others as well :)

Cheers :)

Alexandru_BD

Yes, good one indeed @OlderGoat, many thanks for sharing here. 👍️

And to give you some context regarding the support chatbot, this will not replace human intervention, which will be provided, whenever necessary.

Bitdefender is constantly looking for ways to improve customer support through fast solutions when in need of an answer from their behalf. This is the main reason why they are currently testing a chatbot to provide this service.
Like I mentioned earlier, the chatbot is not here to replace human support but to complement it, ensuring you get the help you need faster. Whether it's answering questions or resolving issues, the bot is trained by Bitdefender's top technical writing specialists, to provide accurate and helpful responses.
For more complex cases that require human intervention, the chatbot will seamlessly transfer you to a live representative.
AI will help us offer immediate assistance and also break down language barriers by communicating in your native language, regardless if someone from Bitdefender speaks it or not. This will allow Bitdefender existing and future customers to have faster access to help with questions or issues, and swifter resolution time in their native tongue.

And of course, we have this wonderful community where we can also help each other out. 😉🤝

Cheers!

Flexx

Informative post. Thanks for sharing, @OlderGoat!

Regards

brownek12

Thank you OlderGoat for the information, this helped resolved that issue. cheers!