Bitdefender blocks DishAnywhere remote TV access

I use Bitdefender Total Security 2019 on Windows 10 (x64 Pro latest updates)and Windows 7 (x64 Pro latest updates) platforms. I subscribe to Dish Network for TV programming, and have use their Slingplayer-based DishAnywhere for watching TV on my PCs. This has worked flawlessly for several years, but just in the past week, I have gotten error messages that DishAnywherePlayer.exe was unable to connect to my Dish Hopper, its central internet-connected, wi-fi enabled receiver box. As with Slingplayer, this is an over-the-internet connection allowing access to TV from anywhere.

I have determined that the connection is being blocked by Bitdefender as follows:

1. Both Windows 10 and separate Windows 7 platforms, both running BD, fail to connect, running either Firefox or Chrome, both of which are supported. At the same time, my Mac computers, iPhone and iPad on the same home network connect properly, so there is not a configuration problem with the Dish Hopper or my router.

2. When I uninstalled BD completely, using BD Uninstall Tool, the player connects on both Windows platforms, on both browsers.

While running Bitdefender, I noted that Bitdefender Firewall had a rule allowing all access for DishAnywherePlayer.exe. In addition, I added DishAnywherePlayer.exe as an exception for all of the Protection modules, but was still unable to connect. On one occasion, I got a BD message that DishAnywherePlayer had exhibited Ransomware-like behavior, but adding it as an exception to Ransomware Remediation, or turning of Ransomware Remediation altogether, still did not allow connection.

 DishAnywherePlayer DevTools gave the following error message:  "XMLHttpRequest cannot load http://esra.slingbox.com/asyncevent/rest/v1/receiverid/dish1903348343/timestamp/0?_=1540867535698. No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource. Origin 'http://www.dishanywhere.com' is therefore not allowed access. The response had HTTP status code 405."

On advice of one website addressing slingplayer issues, I ran the command " netstat -ano | findstr "[.*].*[.*].*50001" " in Windows Powershell to identify the resource occupying port 50001 used by DishAnywherePlayer - the process ID identified the source as "ProductServiceAgent.exe", a component of BD.

When rebooting after uninstalling Bitdefender, I got a message from Windows Firewall noting that "some features of DishAnywherePlayer.exe had been blocked", and I clicked to allow access. The player then connected properly.

I have been working with Dish support, so they will be aware of the compatibility issue. Bitdefender appears to be blocking a component of DishAnywherePlayer.exe or an associated process without providing any display of a way to turn blocking off.



Anyone else have this issue, and/or found a solution?



Thanks, JW