BUG - External hard drives won't eject with Bitdefender

The most frustrating and infuriating part of this is the ignorance of their support.  I just checked my email and this was the reply from them on my support ticket I opened over 2 weeks ago with lots of communication back and forth:

Today, 5:55 AM

Thank you for your patience.



We hope this email finds you well. We wanted to let you know that your request is currently being reviewed and you will receive a response as soon as possible.



Have a nice day!



Best Regards,

Bitdefender Customer Care Team

All of the relevant and pertinent information being sent from me to them over the past 2 weeks is now gone and it's being started from the beginning again.  It's not even coming from their support department now.  It's coming from the Customer Care Team.  Things like that anger me.  Now I'm going to have to submit a bunch of useless stuff to them for them to come to the same conclusion I already knew for close to a month but will also get their dumb responses that aren't relevant to the problem again.  TOP NOTCH (sarcastic) support Bitdefender.

I for my part now decided to stop using Bitdefender 2019 as I'm not seeing a positive trend in regards to it's reliability and stability. Indeed it has one of the best detection capabilities while only having a minimal performance impact on the system - actually the perfect sweet spot. But this becomes useless if the tool itself continuously causes major stability and hardware issues.

This very USB eject issue causes my external enclosure to freeze completely and so it interrupted a major 15+ hours backup job. Last hardware problem was "/index.php?/topic/78480-important-windows-10-event-view/" rel="">Important, Windows 10 event view" which caused my SSDs SMART values to heavily degrade. This tool actually seems to damage my hardware which I cannot accept.

I have more than half a year left on my family package subscription but the amount of time = money Bitdefender debugging cost me is much more valuable.

I hope that this specific USB issue will be resolved soon and maybe Bitdefender will one day build a stable and reliable protection tool again - then I'll be back. Meanwhile I'm now using a different protection tool and I'm curious how well it'll compare to Bitdefender.

36 minutes ago, NVMe said:

I for my part now decided to stop using Bitdefender 2019 as I'm not seeing a positive trend in regards to it's reliability and stability. Indeed it has one of the best detection capabilities while only having a minimal performance impact on the system - actually the perfect sweet spot. But this becomes useless if the tool itself continuously causes major stability and hardware issues.

This very USB eject issue causes my external enclosure to freeze completely and so it interrupted a major 15+ hours backup job. Last hardware problem was "/index.php?/topic/78480-important-windows-10-event-view/" rel="">Important, Windows 10 event view" which caused my SSDs SMART values to heavily degrade. This tool actually seems to damage my hardware which I cannot accept.

I have more than half a year left on my family package subscription but the amount of time = money Bitdefender debugging cost me is much more valuable.

I hope that this specific USB issue will be resolved soon and maybe Bitdefender will one day build a stable and reliable protection tool again - then I'll be back. Meanwhile I'm now using a different protection tool and I'm curious how well it'll compare to Bitdefender.

It's clear that all of this continuos disk activity is not healthy for a drive (no matter if its SSD or HDD). Time to uninstall Bitdefender 2019 until they release a patch. I will stay with Windows Defender for some days. Meanwhile they should really have an ETA for the patch....otherwise we'll loose trust.

Same problem here, I'm not sure it's healthy for my SSD and HDD

Don't have a solution for you, but pull up task manager, go to performance tab, and check out "Read Speed" at the bottom for each of your drives. Bitdefender is reading from each drive at a rate of about 25-50kb/s. Other people have the same issue, per the Reddit forums. Since Bitdefender is constantly accessing each drive Windows won't let you eject them. One person contacted support like a month ago about this; they said they're working on a patch but here we are and it's still happening. 25kb/s for 30 days is about a 1GB/mo of useless writing. They'd better fix this soon; even if it's not too much data it's constant access and not giving the drives any rest. My subscription is ending soon so if there's not a fix soon I'm just gonna switch products. Please let me know if you've found a solution, thanks.

Thanks for the response. 

Have logged ticket  2018093021310002

2 hours ago, Spulci said:

Well, my HDD on my one year laptop keep parking heads emitting a metallic sound every few minutes or so....can't understand what happened...I supposed a faulty driver update from HP or a faulty Windows Upgrade......since I removed BIS 2019....and just after that this noisy intermittent "crash" with forced parking disappeared....I'm running without that crash since hours...so I can imagine that BIS 2019 is involved in some sort of deep stress for HDD and SDD drives.

Better uninstall to keep drives and data safe...at least until they will fix this nasty bug. So sorry Bitdefender: you should be informed that this issue can stress hard drives so much

Thanks for posting this! I experienced the same with my various HDDs, each drive cost about 400€. After uninstalling BD 2019 23.0.10.31 they behave and sound normal again. I'm still pretty shocked about this and I have a hard time trusting BD again in the near future. How can they not professionally respond quickly to this very serious problem?

Hi,

I work in video production and due to the fact I work with large files I have them on external usb drives connected to my laptop and work directly

on the files on usb. Lately I was facing problems with all 3 "4Tera" hard disks. They do not eject unless I shutdown the PC to pull them out, but more

serious is that they all are making a kind of load mechanic sound (as if something is broken inside) and sometimes this cause windows explorer to

freeze for few seconds while the drive spins and make the noise. The noise is like if something metallic breaks and hit somewhere! Searching for my

problem got me to this page and I read with disappointment that the problem is coming from my security product! The question that comes to mind is

if Bitdefender has any insurance program that cover eventual hardware damage?

Can someone please tell me how I can totally disable bitdefender, so I can continue using my pc until a fix is found?

2 hours ago, Jay-Z said:

I'm willing to bet most if not all of us are experiencing noises coming from our External drives that weren't there until this junk software caused it.  Bitdefender won't pay for any product damage caused by their junk software.  The signatures and definitions are the best on the market but all of these other screw ups with their pretty looking GUI instead of functional software makes it useless.  There is a method stated on another thread that was suggested to download a tool called process explorer.  You can grab it here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

These are the steps stated by BDAlexS:

External hard drives won't eject with Bitdefender, tested with ESATA and USB.

STEPS TO REPRO:

a) Under Bitdefender 2019 goto Protection -> Antivirus -> Settings -> Drives and devices. Make sure everything is disabled here.

b) Copy some files with your external hard drive. Afterwards close all windows (within windows 10). You should just see the desktop.

c) Try to eject/safely remove hard drive, you will get "This device is currently in use. Close any programs or windows that migth be using the device and try again".

d) Download Process Explorer from sysinternals website, run it as Admin. Click Find on the menu bar of the app, enter here your drive letter for your external drive: e.g. "\" and click search.

e) You will find "VSSERV.EXE" appears (Bitdefender Virus shield), this is what is locking the file. I can prove it as well (please continue reading).

f) Click on the result (e.g. \), in the below pane you  should see "File \" displayed somewhere. Right click this value and close handle.

g) ** Now You can now safely eject the hard drive **.

SIDENOTES:

In Bitdefender 2019 - Turning off everything under "Protection" does not  make any difference.

 

Hope that is helpful to everyone dealing with this B.S. from Bitdfender!!!

 

It may be that the steps mentioned help.

But why should I as a paying BD customer do such experiments - certainly not!

The solution must come in form of an update from BD!

But no matter, for me the topic is done, uninstalled BD and other product purchased.

I'm seriously disappointed with BD, no solution since early September, support unacceptable, an impertinence!

Just received a msg from BD asking to restart my computer in order to implement an important update (Same message by the way in BD primary screen)

=> I restarted the machine (2 times) and ..................... NO CHANGE - My external HDD cannot be ejected and is blinking at 1 blink per 2 secondes

This is really a shame .... they are really not serious. This is starting to be enough

Marc 

Nothing has changed so far. No fixes. Interesting - will there be some big, collective update or are they working so hard on this one particular patch? 

Hi, 

After the update of Bitdefender 2019 I have a constant  read of about 25kb/sec to all my drives. 

I restored a month old backup and the issue was not present. After an immediate install of 2019 the problem appeared again.

Very weird, and difficult to observe. I have an external disk drive and I noticed the the R/W Led was constantly flashing. Usually this disk is not in use and it is in sleep mode.

Has anybody experienced the same problem?

Hello

Bitdefender 2019, I have an external WD 2TB hard drive for backing up. Since installing 2019 version (Not noticed before) the WD hard disk and my PC hard drive seem to be permanently accessing each other. The external HD and The PC disk lights are constantly flashing. I cannot also use the "Remove tthe USB device" even though the settings are set to allow this. I get the "Device currently in use" message. When I run Proces###plorer and find the drive it lists vsserv.exe form Bitdefender. As a test I have uninstalled Bitdefender completely, powered the system up with the drive connected and there is no problem. The disk light is not flashing and I can disconnect the device from the computer no problem. As soon as I re- install Bitdefemnder the problem returns. Can anybody help please.

Geoff

/index.php?/profile/214969-loscoz/&do=hovercard" data-mentionid="214969" href="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/214969-loscoz/" rel="">@loscozI actually chose exactly the alternative you mentioned and I couldn't be happier. Besides solid protection my main needs are as little performance impact as possible and rock solid stability. Since having migrated my machines other (freezing) problems which BD apparently caused as well also went away.

Version 23.0.10.34 doesn't change anything

Edit : after an update, version is .31 : why?

Eh, what happened to the other post

"Bitdefender prevents eject USB..."

/index.php?/topic/79573-bitdefender-prevents-eject-usb-mass-storage-device/&page=3&tab=comments#comment-285830" rel="">https://forum.bitdefender.com/index.php?/topic/79573-bitdefender-prevents-eject-usb-mass-storage-device/

Moderators deleted the whole thread of the above for whatever reasons?

I am also experiencing the problem but my case is mainly of the constant access problem of USBs.

Worried of Bitdefender indeed is killing all connected devices.



I am patiently waiting for a fix.

58 minutes ago, Danny_4 said:

I also noticed they deleted the other thread. I had it bookmarked in order to follow up on any possible solutions.

Tool doesn't get fixed so you opt for censoring your angry users?!

You've just convinced another one of your customers to uninstall.

Way to go, forum moderators!!

 

 Thread merged with this one.............

16 hours ago, Spulci said:

 Thread merged with this one.............

Yes, the threads were merged for being on the same issue, I apologize to anyone that was inconvenienced by this. 

I did delete the several other posts discussing whether the thread was deleted or merged, as they were off-topic to the issue reported in this thread.

This issue is considered a critical one and we're actively working on finding a fix. I will let you all know as soon as it is live. 

Thank you!

4 hours ago, Sergiu C. said:

This issue is considered a critical one and we're actively working on finding a fix. I will let you all know as soon as it is live. 

My trust in this company (antivirus software) is gone, now there is still no solution after 1 month... 

Will there be a refund for the time that this software does not work properly ?? 

42 minutes ago, EJS said:

My trust in this company (antivirus software) is gone, now there is still no solution after 1 month... 

Will there be a refund for the time that this software does not work properly ?? 

Hi, 

For commercial requests (such as refund requests), please reach us at bitsy@bitdefender.com . The forum is only used to discuss technical issues. Thank you. 

14 hours ago, Sergiu C. said:

Hi, 

For commercial requests (such as refund requests), please reach us at bitsy@bitdefender.com . The forum is only used to discuss technical issues. Thank you. 

I still hope that Bitdefender comes with a compensation for all his customers, and not will deal with everyone individually. 

Because with the rapidity of this company that can take a very long time 

It's not just a problem for External Drives, internal drives are also being read unnecessarily in my case - My PC has 2 SSD and 2 HDD and all of them are being accessed constantly at 28-49 KB/s even on idle after stopping "Windows Management Instrumentation" the problem resolves but it can't be disabled because it's messing with Intel rapid storage which is important for RAID and SSD caching, Same thing happening on laptops of my family members due to which I uninstalled Bitdefender 2019. It's not a simple bug which can be ignored it's a critical bug which needs immediate fixing.

What about the people who are unaware of the bug or not have much technical expertise they are trusting their antivirus but don't know that it the one due to which they are not able to safely remove External drives which can lead to data corruption and there is unnecessary wear and tear for internal drive.

I've been using Bitdefender for years and swear by it's protection but now i absolutely hate it, 2019 Version already given me tones of problem by quarantining many good files , false positives and constant notification about same thing which was not in the case of 2018 it worked great and i can't go back to it so freaking annoying.

It's already been a month still no fix which should be the number one priority, Bitdefender has completely lost my trust and I'm never gonna use it on any of my devices or on my family devices and that's how you loose a loyal customer.

21 hours ago, rolandje said:

I am in the similar situation of Smith (Intel Rapid Storage, SSD caching) + locking external USB-drives.

I was a client for Bitdefender from 2011 and I was "covered" with Bitdefender unto 26 April 2019. Am I a loyal client?

But I consider BitDefender 2019 as malware.  I uninstalled completely Bitdefender 2019. Finished! I am an ex-client.

7 days left for my main machine. Definitely won't be renewing. I have to keep at least one of my machines on Bitdefender for the timebeing though, since I have clients 17 clients who are still running this garbage, and I need to provide them all with feedback regarding this issue. In all likelihood, I will have to gradually migrate each of them to a less broken product.

This is an issue that affects EVERYONE running the 2019 version of this software, whether or not they're aware of it.

In some instances, it's still possible to eject, but the real problem here is the constand disk activity which never stops.

Same here over a month of obfuscation. Sad that I didn't discover this thread sooner. I don't think the issue was there in July when I installed BD but it certainly was at the beginning of September. My backup drive was constantly being read by BD. If I uninstalled BD it went away. What with the other issues experienced prior to this (Windows update errors, et al) then I don't have faith in their ability to provide the nub service which is to alert you to malware etc.

Whilst the licence period is being extended by 3 months (cost benefit to BD) lets hope it gets fixed before the extension expires!

Not impressed - Kaspersky may have been slower but it worked!

My workaround is that my external backup disk is not connected the majority of the time. I've set up a reminder (Thanks for Android Google!) to reconnect it just before my nightly backup, then disconnect after the machine is off. Shouldn't need to do this.

I always thought BD sailed close to the wire on their products but methinks this will be bye bye time.

I have been waiting patiently for a resolution to this issue since the beginning of September and need to know WHEN or IF Bitdefender is going to repair this mess.

I have 1273 days left on my license and need to consider what kind of actions I should take to remedy my PC's.

I have never seen anything like this...I understand Bitdefender is most likely working on a solution but the lack of information provided to us customers is mind boggling.