BDIS 2018 - Eating up CPU


Yesterday Bitdefender was updated to 2018 version and since then there's been a 100% CPU usage spikes by process "System" every ~5 minutes. Using Process Explorer, it's been narrowed down to some avc3.sys processes which are Bitdefender drivers. I tried to reinstall it several times using Bitdefender Uninstall Tool but the problem continues to exist. Right now i am on Avast Free Antivirus and everything seems to be ok. I've been using Bitdefender for two years already and never expirienced such a problem. So what should i do? I really like Bitdefender and want to continue using it.


My OS is Windows 10 creators update with the latest build from August 9.

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  • Windows 10 Enterprise, fully updated.


    In the last 2 weeks or so, BDIS 2018 has been devouring CPU - specifically Ignis.sys. As high as 30-40% utilization. Appears to happen randomly, solved (temporarily) by a reboot. A complete clean uninstall and reinstall did nothing to help it.


    What's going on?



  • 19 minutes ago, Mgnorae said:



    specifically Ignis.sys



    This is the driver of the firewall was the problem.


  • Same issue on my site


     


    On my system this happend every 5-10 minutes. In games its terrible cause FPS are droping down to 10 :(


  • 2 hours ago, Rampant said:


    This is the driver of the firewall was the problem.


     


    11 minutes ago, fresh229 said:


    On my system this happend every 5-10 minutes. In games its terrible cause FPS are droping down to 10 :(


    Is there any workaround or fix? I've seen this issue reported in BDIS 2017, but I don't see any discussion of it for BDIS 2018. Furthermore, the BDIS 2017 workarounds don't seem to help.

     

    Fresh229 - when did this start happening for you?


  • on my pc after update from 2017 to 2018 every 5-10 min Active Threat Control (atc.sys) is using 100% of cpu.

  • Sorin G.
    Sorin G.
    edited September 2017


    Hello,


     


    Please let me know when exactly are you encountering these spikes.


    Are you running certain applications or doing something specific on the machine ?


    So far I was unable to reproduce the reported issue, be it with ignis or atc


    I would suggest removing all other security solutions and doing a fresh reinstall of the application as it may be a simple conflict.


    Looking forward to your responses.

  • activity
    activity
    edited September 2017


    for me idling at desktop is enough to encounter atc.sys spikes, i dont have any other security programs installed (windows 10 defender is disabled). When i disable Active Threat Control i don't get this spikes anymore but probably disabling this is not best idea.


  • I am having a very similar issue -- it is probably the same issue actually. Just installed BIS 2018 last week and started noticing my system would freeze up for a couple seconds every few minutes. Mouse and keyboard input would either jitter across the screen or just completely freeze up.


    Seems to happen most often when there is some amount of disk I/O occurring. I just copied a 30GB file from one disk to a network share and the system locked up twice during the transfer. I had Task Manager open to the Detail tab and was sorting by CPU utilization. Each time it froze up and then returned to life I would see a spike of 100% CPU utilization but just in a 'System' process name. If I disable Advanced Threat Defense and Bitdefender Shield (real-time scanning) then my system is fine and I do not experience any freezing issues.


    I did the 'contact support' feature this morning describing this and then came to the forums to see if there were any solutions.


    How are you all identifying the exact process name that is exhibiting this behavior? I am looking through Task Manager and Process Explorer but I can't seem to figure out what 'System' process is causing it.

  • hesoyam
    edited September 2017


    Same issue here, 100% cpu spikes by "System" process every few minutes, this makes my computer unusable. For me it also started after update to 2018, reinstall doesn't help.


     



    8 hours ago, Tyrluk said:



    How are you all identifying the exact process name that is exhibiting this behavior? I am looking through Task Manager and Process Explorer but I can't seem to figure out what 'System' process is causing it.



    In Process Explorer select the System process, right-click, select Properties, switch to the Threads tab, sort by CPU


  • Same issue, windows 10 pro fully updated, BDTS 2018.


    Active threat control randomly eats up all CPU (5820k) threads for every 2~3 minutes or so.


    From Process Explorer, System calls multiple atc.sys+0xa4324 TIDs for ~1 seconds resulting in 100% cpu spike.


    Disabling ATC temporally resolves the issue.

  • TempleKa
    TempleKa
    edited September 2017


    Experiencing same issues as mentioned by the other users with Bitdefender 2018 (this didn't happen on 2017). Disabling Advanced Threat Defense resolves this CPU spike issue. I have already submitted a support ticket with logs about 2 weeks ago. Hope this gets fixed soon.


  • Ridiculous! I have 4 comps with BD. 1 of them has 500mhz cpu which BD says it is okay to run for BD 2018. Well it did NOT. It caused the spikes you are talking about and when you launch video apps (non-vlc types) then videos are unwatchable due to this spike (audio gets scratchy etc.). Talking to BD agents, sending them variety of test files etc. etc. ended them to tell me to remove bd 2018 as the comp has 500mhz which is low for bd 2018 (BUT BD 2018 min req is 500mhz!!!). ANYWAYS... i downgraded DB 2018 to 2017. Everything was working fine! But yesterday all of a sudden BD 2017 was automatically updated to BD 2018!!!


    Bitdefender! you're trying so HARD to hate you. Seriously! Now what am I gonna do?


  •  



    On ‎9‎/‎14‎/‎2017 at 4:46 AM, Sorin G. said:



    Hello,


     


    Please let me know when exactly are you encountering these spikes.


    Are you running certain applications or doing something specific on the machine ?


    So far I was unable to reproduce the reported issue, be it with ignis or atc


    I would suggest removing all other security solutions and doing a fresh reinstall of the application as it may be a simple conflict.


    Looking forward to your responses.



    There's been no singular thing that's caused Ignis.sys to spike for me. It seems to happen more often after streaming for a little while or downloading data, but it is not limited to happening in those situations.


    ATC settings have no effect on Ignis.sys's CPU use.



  • 13 hours ago, JoshyBB said:



    Ridiculous! I have 4 comps with BD. 1 of them has 500mhz cpu which BD says it is okay to run for BD 2018. Well it did NOT. It caused the spikes you are talking about and when you launch video apps (non-vlc types) then videos are unwatchable due to this spike (audio gets scratchy etc.). Talking to BD agents, sending them variety of test files etc. etc. ended them to tell me to remove bd 2018 as the comp has 500mhz which is low for bd 2018 (BUT BD 2018 min req is 500mhz!!!). ANYWAYS... i downgraded DB 2018 to 2017. Everything was working fine! But yesterday all of a sudden BD 2017 was automatically updated to BD 2018!!!


    Bitdefender! you're trying so HARD to hate you. Seriously! Now what am I gonna do?



    I have i7-6700k and still had this spikes no matter what I did. However on another computer (i5-2500k) everything is fine with 2018 version. I completely removed BD from my computer and installed another antivirus as a temporary workaround.


  • Got a response on my support ticket after 7 days. Their suggestion was to uninstall the product, run CCleaner to clean registry, check my disk, and then reinstall the product. Absolutely no real troubleshooting going on here. I've already done this and still have the exact same problem. Did it all again just to humor them and, yeah, still have the same problem. When Advanced Threat Defense is enabled my system performance is horrible -- freezes up with 100% CPU utilization every minute or two.


  • Today I noticed that my computer all of a sudden had the kernel using 25-40% of the CPU continuously, even when all apps are closed on Windows 10 with BD 2018. I had no idea why, was thinking maybe there was a virus or malware. Rebooted several times, but computer was unusable because even the mouse pointer was barely moving. Was going to go through the torture of reinstalling windows when I instead thought to downloaded Process Explorer. I was able to run it, and it told me that the thread that was eating up all the cpu cycles was ignis.sys. I tried to stop it, but could not. Looked it up and it said it was a Bitdefender module. So I was going to uninstall BD, but it offered me the chance to "repair" the product. I figured it could not make anything worse, so opted for that. It uninstalled the old version, and reinstalled BD. Once that was all done, the CPU went back to its normal 1 - 3% idle state. Process Explorer saved me 10-15 hours of time reinstalling windows and all my apps! Worth its weight in gold! So far system is working ok, but if it does happen again, will uninstall BD and find another product that does not exhibit this behavior. Hope this info helps somebody struggling with high CPU loads for apparently no valid reason. 


  • So since I've updated to Bitdefender Total Security 2018 I've been getting these random freezes now and again. Using Taskmanager I managed to figure out that the System process would jump to a high utilization, sometimes even 99.9%. Using Process Explorer I managed to identify the issue: atc.sys 


    It seems that all atc.sys processes just jump to a high cpu usage, locking my system. I managed to take some screenshots after it unlocks again, showing a +/- 2.6% per process, I have however seen this go as high as 3% per process.


    It happens at random moments, as a matter of fact, it happened when I pressed the ''Create a new topic'' button just now. Other moments include during average use and gaming.


    It's really annoying and didn't occur with 2017 edition. I've tried to reinstall, but it has not fixed anything.


    A screenshot after the PC unfroze again (For some reason I was not allowed to upload this directly, even though <4mb and .png format)


    I sincerely hope this can be fixed.


     


    Cheers


  • Hello,


     


    Please let me know if any of you are using Overclocking tools.  (Intel XTU / OCCT / Ryzen Master etc)


    Or if you have manually tweaked your CPU frequency. (turbo doesn't count)



  • 31 minutes ago, Sorin G. said:



    Hello,


     


    Please let me know if any of you are using Overclocking tools.  (Intel XTU / OCCT / Ryzen Master etc)


    Or if you have manually tweaked your CPU frequency. (turbo doesn't count)



    Greetings,


    My apologies for opening an other topic, at first glance I thought it was an different component causing the issue.


    CPU is an R7 1700X, not manually overclocked. Ryzen Master is installed but not active, only overclock comes from automatic overclock xfr, thus running 3.5 Ghz.



  • 1 hour ago, Sorin G. said:



    Hello,


     


    Please let me know if any of you are using Overclocking tools.  (Intel XTU / OCCT / Ryzen Master etc)


    Or if you have manually tweaked your CPU frequency. (turbo doesn't count)



    Hello!


    My CPU is i7-6700k. I'm running everything at stock clocks and I'm not using any of this tools.

  • Mgnorae
    edited September 2017


     


    No overclocking here.


  • I have the exact same problem, startet happening after i upgraded motherbord, ram and cpu, from i7 3820 cpu, 32gb to a 1950x 64gb ram and Aorus 7 x399motherboard.


    I even got a new psu as i tough maby that was the problem after the upgrade. As i started to overclock the moment i got the machine booted up.


    Ryzen Master is installed.


  • On ‎9‎/‎28‎/‎2017 at 10:55 AM, Sorin G. said:


    Hello,

     

    Please let me know if any of you are using Overclocking tools.  (Intel XTU / OCCT / Ryzen Master etc)

    Or if you have manually tweaked your CPU frequency. (turbo doesn't count)


    Sorin, any update on this?

  • Georgia
    Georgia ✭✭✭


    Hello everyone,


     


    We have recently released a new Bitdefender build (22.0.12.161) which has a new Advanced Threat Defense driver. Could you please update your Bitdefender program, then restart the PC and post back your results?


    Should the CPU spikes still occur, make sure this file is updated to version 1.11.125.0:


    C:\Windows\System32\drivers\atc.sys


    If it's still the old version 1.9.84.0, update again your Bitdefender and reboot one more time.


    We're looking forward to your feedback.


  • I don't know about this


  • I ended up requesting a refund on my subscription. Responses on my tech support ticket were coming a bit too long for my comfort. I do hope you end up figuring out and resolving the issue for other customers. If you are still looking for people to troubleshoot then let me know.



  • 17 hours ago, Tyrluk said:



    I ended up requesting a refund on my subscription. Responses on my tech support ticket were coming a bit too long for my comfort. I do hope you end up figuring out and resolving the issue for other customers. If you are still looking for people to troubleshoot then let me know.



    BD has absolutely failed with the 2018 version. They got everything right with the 2017 but this one with its CPU issues, PIA crashes etc. are absolutely not acceptable for a BD-standard.


    The new update does not fix the issue.





  • Unfortunately after yesterday's update nothing has changed, atc.sys spikes still occurs.




  • Yesterday's update has not helped me. However, my CPU is not being used by atc.sys, it's being used up by ignis.sys.


  • This happens to me too. I have a i7-6700 and atc.sys maxes it out periodically. It only lasts a couple of seconds. I am on the latest update.

    Capture.PNG


  • I have this problem as well. atc.sys uses 100% of my cpu and makes the computer unresponsive. I'm running Windows 10, up to date, on a Ryzen 1700. I have the CPU overclocked to run at 3.5Ghz on all cores. Ransomware protection was one of the main reasons I went with Bitdefender, so turning off Advanced Threat Detection is a pretty bad solution.


     



  • On 10/4/2017 at 6:52 PM, JoshyBB said:



    BD has absolutely failed with the 2018 version. They got everything right with the 2017 but this one with its CPU issues, PIA crashes etc. are absolutely not acceptable for a BD-standard.


    The new update does not fix the issue.



    Totally agree here. Worst part is they forced the update on us from 2017 that was working without issues. Think I remember another company doing something similar and they got alot of bad press after it ... hint ... Microsoft / Windows 10.


    Regarding the issue it's still present even after .161 update so I guess Advanced Thread Defense will stay disabled for a while.


  • Is anyone other than me not having this issue with ATC.sys, but instead with Ignis.sys?



  • On 10/9/2017 at 4:36 PM, Mgnorae said:



    Is anyone other than me not having this issue with ATC.sys, but instead with Ignis.sys?



    Yes, that ignis.sys was the sole module eating up all my available CPU cycles according to Process Explorer. I reinstalled Bitdefender, and at least for the time being that seems to have resolved it, but for how long? So far so good. Interestingly, I was streaming video when it seemed to begin, which I read was the experience of others as well. I'm not confident that I have fixed the problem, but at least mitigated it for the time being until it pops its ugly head up again and kills my CPU again. 



  • On ‎10‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 7:17 PM, infohighwy said:



    Yes, that ignis.sys was the sole module eating up all my available CPU cycles according to Process Explorer. I reinstalled Bitdefender, and at least for the time being that seems to have resolved it, but for how long? So far so good. Interestingly, I was streaming video when it seemed to begin, which I read was the experience of others as well. I'm not confident that I have fixed the problem, but at least mitigated it for the time being until it pops its ugly head up again and kills my CPU again. 



    Reinstalling hasn't helped me, unfortunately, but it's interesting that you mention streaming. This isn't true of every time Ignis.sys kills my system, but it seems to often happen when listening to streaming audio (podcasts, specifically), or downloading from an FTP server.


  • Bump. BD.


  • Update. I uninstalled and reinstalled BDIS 2018. Ignis.sys doesn't seem to be spiking every hour or so and forcing me to reboot several times before regaining functionality.


    Instead, vsserv.exe is eating up 50-75% of my CPU ALL THE TIME (not just after every hour or so) rendering my computer basically unusable. It took me fifteen minutes to submit this post, and I've lost a day of work trying to fix this - which still isn't fixed.


    Thanks, Bitdefender!



  • On 10/18/2017 at 11:56 PM, Mgnorae said:



    Update. I uninstalled and reinstalled BDIS 2018. Ignis.sys doesn't seem to be spiking every hour or so and forcing me to reboot several times before regaining functionality.


    Instead, vsserv.exe is eating up 50-75% of my CPU ALL THE TIME (not just after every hour or so) rendering my computer basically unusable. It took me fifteen minutes to submit this post, and I've lost a day of work trying to fix this - which still isn't fixed.


    Thanks, Bitdefender!



    For now, the only solution is to restart the computer. But then after a while it will start eating the CPU and making your world again. I don't understand why they did this change as we didn't have it with BD 2017

  • hesoyam
    edited October 2017


    Somebody checked if the problem still exists after release of the Fall Creators Update?


  • It's been one-and-a half months that BDIS 2018 has been consistently rendering my computer after every few hours, every day. Please address this:


     

    Ignis.jpg


  • Any update on this crap?



  • On ‎11‎/‎7‎/‎2017 at 5:05 PM, apoifyuopisdf said:



    Any update on this crap?



    Nope. Lovely, right?


  • I too am having an issue with atc.sys spiking the cpu usage randomly. Most noticeable in games which causes them to freeze completely for a moment.




    I believe I only started having this issue when Windows 10 updated to CU or FCU, but those updates were completed very close together so I cannot be sure.


     


    Before then Bitdefender was perfect, but I've had to uninstall it for the time being as It's a major problem for me.


     


    I've used the uninstall tool since the FCU update and re-installed, and still have the issue.


  • Well in the real case, if you have wooden PC or having lack of maintenance of your PC this could be the cause. Your OS may be corrupted so try to download now again the latest version freshly of your BD Product or for even better result do it in a new OS.



  • 8 hours ago, Kamrul Hassan said:



    Well in the real case, if you have wooden PC or having lack of maintenance of your PC this could be the cause. Your OS may be corrupted so try to download now again the latest version freshly of your BD Product or for even better result do it in a new OS.



    A wooden PC? What? There is nothing wrong with my PC, and I maintain it regularly. It's definitely not corrupted and I'm not doing a a fresh install as it doesn't need one.



  • 1 hour ago, SubSonix said:



    A wooden PC? What? There is nothing wrong with my PC, and I maintain it regularly. It's definitely not corrupted and I'm not doing a a fresh install as it doesn't need one.



    The above post didn't meant for you it was meant for the topic's creator who mainly had the problem.



  • 17 minutes ago, Kamrul Hassan said:



    The above post didn't meant for you it was meant for the topic's creator who mainly had the problem.



    Ah, might want to make that clear next time.



  • 13 hours ago, SubSonix said:



    Ah, might want to make that clear next time.



    You have to have the capable of understanding well enough to research that what someone means... Looks like you facing the same problem as the creator. One clear speech, "BD needs a powerful PC not my specification by maintenance to run it".



  • On 11/11/2017 at 12:24 PM, Kamrul Hassan said:



    Well in the real case, if you have wooden PC or having lack of maintenance of your PC this could be the cause. Your OS may be corrupted so try to download now again the latest version freshly of your BD Product or for even better result do it in a new OS.



    Please stop posting in this topic if you have nothing useful to contribute. This is very obviously a bug in Bitdefender (possibly even 2 separate bugs merged into one topic by forum admins), nothing to do with our PC. Even if we had the the best PC on the planet it's still not normal for an antivirus running in the background to be using all processor cores for a number of seconds quite often causing the rest of the system to freeze while it does it. The issue would still persist on the fastest PC on the planet, and sure it might be less noticeable but no doubt it would still be noticeable and still be annoying. If you don't have the issue then you understand nothing about what we are facing. Telling people the issue is simply because they have a wooden PC and need to reinstall their OS is ridiculous and bad advice.


    Also, your sentences barely make sense to people who speak English so telling them they 



    Quote



    have to have the capable of understanding well enough to research that what someone means



    is kind of silly as well.


    I think that you attacking us for having an issue with this product is ridiculous and you should probably just stop posting in here because all you're going to find here is a bunch of unhappy people who are annoyed and angry with this issue and will likely not hesitate to lash out at you posting a bunch of absurd things that make no sense.



  • 15 hours ago, apoifyuopisdf said:



    Please stop posting in this topic if you have nothing useful to contribute. This is very obviously a bug in Bitdefender (possibly even 2 separate bugs merged into one topic by forum admins), nothing to do with our PC. Even if we had the the best PC on the planet it's still not normal for an antivirus running in the background to be using all processor cores for a number of seconds quite often causing the rest of the system to freeze while it does it. The issue would still persist on the fastest PC on the planet, and sure it might be less noticeable but no doubt it would still be noticeable and still be annoying. If you don't have the issue then you understand nothing about what we are facing. Telling people the issue is simply because they have a wooden PC and need to reinstall their OS is ridiculous and bad advice.


    Also, your sentences barely make sense to people who speak English so telling them they 


    is kind of silly as well.


    I think that you attacking us for having an issue with this product is ridiculous and you should probably just stop posting in here because all you're going to find here is a bunch of unhappy people who are annoyed and angry with this issue and will likely not hesitate to lash out at you posting a bunch of absurd things that make no sense.



    Even if bugs existed with the new build of BD its fixed and I can guarantee you that, because BD Engineers are working for that always. And the final conclusion is that BD effects different on all different systems, and the main thing is that the ability of "You" to make a thing work/and its maintenance.