my bdservicehost uses too much of my cpu and memory all the time, how can i fix it?

Currently none scans are running and its still eating up my cpu, and its every time . my specs are i5 -8300h @2.30gh with 8gb ram


Best Answer

  • Flexx
    Flexx DEFENDER OF THE YEAR 2023 / DEFENDER OF THE MONTH ✭✭✭✭✭ mod
    edited December 2023 Answer ✓

    This issue is very common with most of the people who use bitdefender. But, this seems really weird as per the specification of your PC. Bitdefender should have run smoothly in your case.

    System requirements for bitdefender are as below :


    Try the below solutions :

    1) Kindly go forward and uninstall the bitdefender product via bitdefender product removal tool :

    https://www.bitdefender.com/site/view/uninstall_consumer_paid.html (select uninstall tool as per your version)

    2) Kindly remove your windows device from bitdefender central account :

    https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/2795/

    3) Restart your PC

    4) Open run command (windows icon + r) & delete temporary files from below 3 folders one by one :

    • type temp, delete all files in the folder
    • type %temp%, delete all files in folder
    • type prefetch, delete all files in folder

    5) Now, reinstall the bitdefender product again (either from central or directly from their website)

    6) Restart the PC & check if the issue persists.

    If the issue persists, generate bitdefender logs (https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/1922/) & kindly drop an email to bitdefender support at bitsy@bitdefender.com .Briefly explain them your issue and also attach the bitdefender logs in the same mail. Also attach the new screenshot from task manager. Wait for their response.

    Response may be delayed due to less staff and covid19. Rest be assured, they will reply back asap.

    Regards

    Life happens, Coffee helps!

    Show your Attitude, when you reach that Altitude!

    Bitdefender Ultimate Security Plus (user)

«1

Answers

  • Chuck_IV
    Chuck_IV ✭✭
    edited March 2021

    Just posted about this on another thread. BD has been taking 16% of CPU for HOURS now today(been going on for quite a while beyond today) and upping my CPU temps by 15 degrees, while continually thrashing my hard drive. This occurs sporadically but often and for LONG periods. When it's not happening, BD takes less than 1% of my CPU.

    I tried Flexx's suggestion above but nope, as soon as I reinstall it, off we go again. Only way I was able to stop it was to turn OFF the AV Real Time Protection and then REBOOT. After the reboot, things would go back to normal. But of course this defeats the purpose of this software, so I've uninstalled BD for the time being and am test driving something else as I cannot let this go on. This PC is an i9 10900 so anything should NOT be going on for HOURS. This type thing put a hurting on my laptop.

    Based on the longevity of these threads, BD doesn't seem interested in fixing this.

    EDIT

    So I just checked my daughter's PC and laptop and BOTH are slow as molasses because on her PC, BD is taking OVER 50% of her CPU and similar on her laptop with this SAME ISSUE.

    Gonna have to uninstall it there too as she uses her laptop for school.

    It wasn't like this in late JAN/early FEB. One of your recent updates has caused this. PLEASE ROLL IT BACK until you can fix this issue.

  • Chuck_IV
    Chuck_IV ✭✭
    edited March 2021

    Just posted about this on another thread. It has NOT been fixed and is getting worse. On my top of the line PC with an i9 10900, BD Total Security is taking over 16% of the CPU, causing my hard drive to go crazy and raising my CPU temps by over 15 degrees for HOURS ON END. Then it will magically stop for a little while, then start up again. On my daughter's PC AND Laptop, BD is using OVER 50% of her CPU.

    ONLY way to get it to stop is to disable the AV portion of it and reboot. But of course that defeats the purpose of this product. I have tried Flexx's suggestion up top but it doesn't help. As soon as I reinstall it, off we go again with the high usage. The 2020 version never had this issue, only the "new" 2021 version does.

    I have no choice but to uninstall it and move on, until I hear this is fixed, as my daughter uses her machine for school and she can hardly do anything with the CPU usuage that high.

    Really seems they either don;t know how to fix it or aren't concerned about it,.

  • Flexx's suggestion worked for the CPU, memory usage still the same, but I don't think its an issue now.

    Another issue is whenever I am gaming, the bdservicehost disrupts my ping a lot. I can't even turn it off for some time. Please do something else I'm not buying this again.

  • Having same issue. Will have to go with another product if a resolution is not found quickly.

  • Flexx
    Flexx DEFENDER OF THE YEAR 2023 / DEFENDER OF THE MONTH ✭✭✭✭✭ mod

    Generate bitdefender logs (https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/1922/) & kindly drop an email to bitdefender support at bitsy@bitdefender.com .Briefly explain them your issue and also attach the bitdefender logs in the same mail. Also attach the screenshot from task manager. Wait for their response.

    Response may be delayed due to less staff and covid19.

    Regards

    Flex

    (Bitdefender beta tester 2019/ 2020)

    Life happens, Coffee helps!

    Show your Attitude, when you reach that Altitude!

    Bitdefender Ultimate Security Plus (user)

  • Glade
    Glade
    edited May 2021
    I tweaked a few settings in bitdefender a month back and after a couple days maybe I also stated having same issue, I had 8gb ram but overtime it would start eating my ram making my PC sluggish. Now after few tweaks here and there when I disabled "silent update" Under "Settings - Update" Tab and Restart PC, I didn't face the issue again, though after every few hours I get update notification, but its better than having my PC slowed down altogether. Don't if it was just me or not but Hope it helps others...
  • Same deal, everytime I'm doing something that requires fast processing on CPU and disk bdservicehost jumps in with 15+ % CPU and high disk and effectively kills what I'm doing. Jobs taking 10 times longer, 5 hours instead of 30 min. Hopeless, will be looking at other products definitely.

  • This is happening to me at least twice a week now. My PC freezes for at least a day and a half while BD is downloading virus shield and I can’t get any work done. I’m going to uninstall and abandon this product.

  • I'll also be uninstalling BD after 6 years of use. This issue has continued to plague my system. This is very upsetting because I have roughly 677 days remaining for my account... It's just not worth it anymore when I'm on this site every couple of weeks because my system takes an extended nose dive because of updates on BD.

  • I am running it on a new Mac mini M1 with 8GB of RAM. No matter what I try I cannot get this pig to use under 750MB. This is really old.

  • Just got a new laptop 16gb ram, yet bdservicehost is taking up half a gb of my memory every second. Does it really need that much or are they also mine for cryptocurrencies or something?

  • WTF Bitdefender... getting worse than ESET and that's pretty bad.... Can we please get some kind of resolution for this issue or do we all need to uninstall?

    Processor AMD Ryzen 5 3550H with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx, 2100 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)

    Besides Brave on this webpage, nothing else is running. No scans, no updates.... just EAT....


  • Haha your'e cute...

    I think that mine is a record braker:

    Its a lenovo yoga c740 with i7-10510U, 16GB ram...

    I have only recently bought the product (used mcafee until now). One of the reasons I've initially bought it, was the great amount of product reviews stating that bitdefender has little to no overhead on the system - but as I now see, I was fooled by misleading reviews.

    I hope bitdefender fix it soon, before ill found out a product that actually works as it states.

  • Hi, I recently ran into this same problem my cpu was at 56c while idle or lite load

    Asus x570 F-Gaming 3900x 12 core 64gb Ram 5700xt 8gb oc Graphics

    Bitdefender poped up on screen and asked if i would like to change the profile of how the computer runs

    so i went into the profiles and changed it from Auto To Movie editing the movie profile to limit all background operations & limit windows update :)

    Now my computer runs idle or lite load 34-36c :)

  • same issue ... on both memory and CPU temp.

    I tried the switch to game mode thing a while back and it worked for about a month but then the memory issue started creeping up again. I just did a fresh install following all the proper instructions, game mode is on, and the memory usage runs 546.2MB ridiculous. I am tired of wasting time on this.

    I'm not going to post a log for the simple fact that CLEARLY this is an issue experienced by many users and there hasn't been a single comment on it from Bitdefender.

    My license expires in a month and I think I'll let it go.

  • Just finished a LiveChat with a Bitdefender Agent and wanted to share the results:

    I was running at 546.2MB as I noted above.

    To help with diagnostics I was asked to turn off Advanced Defender Threat and Bitdefender Shield (both under the protection tab ... just check the modules in there). I turned off Advanced Defender Threat first and my usage dropped to 193MB. Then I turned off the Shield (under the antivirus) and my usage dropped to 138MB. I re-enabled both modules and my usage is holding steady at 173MB. Not a perfect solution but thought I'd share it.

    I also mentioned to the agent that it would be worthwhile for Bitdefender to let the community know what they are doing about this issue as there is a lot of unhappy chatter about it. The Agent offered that if they had a solution it would be in the top level documentation. Not sure that helps. If the problem comes back quickly, I might still let my license expire.

  • I just restarted my PC because bdservicehost was using 9GB+ of memory. After a couple of hours, it is now at 1.2GB (13% of the memory according to taskmanager).

    I noticed this because now I have programs crashing due to lack of memory and this is a recent issue.

    I'm a paying customer for 5 licenses of Total Security version for so long I don't even remember anymore and all this time any hiccups.

    Is it time to change AV? Plenty of options and way lighter too, because even in normal conditions, bitdefender always used more resources than a lot of other options namely, memory.

  • And almost 12h after the post above is already at 3.78GB and rising.

    What is happening with bitdefender?!

  • Hello @RomKnight,

    Check if this article helps:

    If the situation persists I would recommend contacting the Support engineers for a more detailed investigation.

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

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

    Let us know how it goes.

    Regards

    Premium Security & Bitdefender Endpoint Security Tools user

  • RomKnight
    RomKnight
    edited November 2023

    Thanks. I'll have look. BD support is useless. Its almost 2 months with this issue. I have to reboot every 2 or 3 days because BD is a memory hog.

    They don't even answer anymore. One of the worse supports I've came across. They don't refund the remaining time either and it is still a while. It's a "deal it with it" approach.

    I'm just waiting for a good deal on black friday to change.

    To be fair I don't recall having any issues apart from the memory use (over 400MBs... really?) But I can live with that. I can't live with BD having all the memory to itself. And when finally the support is needed I get the middle finger.

    /edit

    That option would only be useful if it killed virus shield to restart it. Only way to solve the memory leak is to reboot. Like I said, sucks. 5 total security licenses... worth a pile of crap for almost 2 months.

  • Alexandru_BD
    Alexandru_BD admin
    edited November 2023

    Hello @RomKnight,

    I'm sorry to hear this and I'll get someone to reply on your open ticket by tomorrow. Based on my findings, the case has been further escalated to Technical Level 3 and this is usually where it takes longer to receive a response, because such cases are tied to an ongoing investigation led by the development teams and engineers. As soon as a resolution is found, the developers share their findings with the Support teams and that's when you get a reply as well.

    Kindly let us know when you receive a response from them.

    Thank you for your patience 👍️

    Premium Security & Bitdefender Endpoint Security Tools user

  • 4.5GB mem occupied in under 18h

    Need another reboot. The more files I open or work with, the worse it gets. I'm pretty sure that opening and close firefox repeatedly, is enough to get that memory usage go up but I can't precisely replicate it.

    Extracting loads of files from a .zip, same thing. Even if virus shield is disabled. Actually, the problem persists if I shutdown everything from BD's GUI!

    So yeah, I have a problem. At this point I don't care if it is solved now or in a couple of months. One of the worse things in BD was the default 400MB+ mem usage at boot so this is it for me with BD and change to Norton.

    I will be here until this is solved though. I have other PC's that are rebooted everyday and I bet that being the case with most home solutions, people are not noticing this. On a PC that is on (should be on) 24/7 1 crash is enough to understand what went wrong.

    Norton it is.

  • Just updating to say the problem still persists on november 16th 2023

  • How coincidental. I'm here to say this is a huge problem for me and it's Nov 17th 2023.

    Worst of all I do a lot of video editing and I have 32Gb of RAM. Bitdefender is taking 2913Mb of memory and rising as I type this.

  • @alpha2735

    I have to reboot every couple of days for over 2 months... they're looking at it but they must be half-blind.

    I suggested to simply revert to the version that worked and when they sort it out, release the updates. Guess they don't know about best practices and "&%$#" the customer that has been paying for years.

  • bdservicehost was using up 16GB, GB not MB! It also kept detecting something and gave me an annoying popup every 3 minutes.

    What worked was downloading Malwarebytes and running a scan. It found 17 viruses and now everything is back to normal. Pretty sure I won't be paying for another subscription of Bitdefender. Too many complaints and no solutions from customer service or software updates.

  • Liobet
    Liobet ✭✭✭

    Hi lazd,

    Welcome on the forum!

    bdservicehost is supposed to use around 500 MB, not 16 GB.

    I suggest you talk to the support too and make a check-up of your system:

    If you do not feel keep Bitdefender, do not forget to cancel the auto-renewal.


    Cheers,

    L.

    AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 8-Core Processor3.40 GHz 32,0 Go [ Bitdefender Internet Security + VPN]

  • @Liobet

    this is a problem that started months ago. Support can't help and only answer is "we're working on it nad let you know when solved". I have 200+ days left and I'm pretty sure it'll be solved by then.

    Meanwhile I still have to reboot every couple of days.


    PS: 500MB under normal circumstances is normal for BitDefender only. Not all AV's take that much memory to run.

  • Arrived home and applications were crashing. I'll leave this here for documentation purposes

    Normal usage for this last months.

  • garioch7
    garioch7 Defender of the month ✭✭✭✭✭

    I have been using Bitdefender Total Security for years. My Task Manager shows this with only one Google Chrome tab open, and the computer has been on for 5 hours.

    Note that the one tab open in Chrome is consuming more memory than the five instances of bdservicehost.

    I would note this is not a widespread issue, or the Forum here would be inundated with complaints. As is often the case, it is likely that what you are experiencing is related to your particular computer configuration. If I am correct in my assumption, then it will take some time to figure out just what is specific to your computer that causes the abnormal memory usage by the bdservicehost process.

    @Alexandru_BD advised you that your issue has been escalated for investigation. The team may require logs from you.

    This topic was initially opened in May 2020, three and a half years ago. While there are a number of posts in this topic thread, I would expect many, many more posts if this issue was plaguing more than a few users over that length of time.

    I would counsel patience, but it is your computer, so you decide.

    Have a great day.

    Regards,

    Phil

    Former Bleeping Computer Malware Response Instructor

  • I'd say I had enough patience.

    I obviously sent logs when they asked me to.

    it's not 1 it's 5 computers. Obviously this one is on 24/7 for years... until this started after an update.

    In 8h I had 3GB+ usage. Hell, even with the virus shield DISABLED (service under bdservicehost) it keeps increasing.

    I appreciate your comment, but I still have a problem that Bitdefender only has to fix.

    Obviously you didn't read posts above as I'm not the only one.

  • Hello,

    To add here, during an on-demand or background scan performed by Bitdefender it is normal for CPU, RAM, and disk usage to increase. Scanning involves intensive processes that require significant resources to analyze files, folders, and system areas for threats. The temporary increase in resource usage that occurs during the Bitdefender system scan and quick scan is normal. It does not significantly slow down Windows and should not be interpreted as an issue.

    Although bdservicehost is designed to operate efficiently, some users have indeed encountered higher than expected CPU and memory usage and we have seen several threads on this topic in the community as well. But we must always take into consideration the user context. At first, it may seem that there's a problem and rightfully so, if the usage goes through the roof and performance is affected, chances are something is not right or there is an incompatibility between the system and the antivirus. But before making any assumptions, there is always a checklist to follow.

    Sometimes, even adjusting the scanning options can make a huge difference. For example, you could schedule scans during periods of low computer usage or decrease the scanning frequency. Otherwise, if the antivirus is scanning the whole device whenever you have 20 tabs open and you are also streaming, writing emails and working in photoshop, surely you will notice a decrease in performance. Setting exclusions can also help, if the problem appears only when using a certain program or when compiling software into a particular directory, etc. add those specific apps and the folders they are accessing to the exceptions list in Bitdefender. Disabling the security modules one by one could also reveal more information, depending on how the resource usage fluctuates afterwards.

    Whenever we notice high CPU or RAM usage in conjuction with the antivirus, I think we must take into account what else is happening on the device(s) that may result in this high consumption and look for specific patterns. Obviously, the developers wouldn't create a software that is hogging resources and any vendor would get tens of thousands of complaints if that was to happen, but there is a general consensus that after installing a security software, the computer will slightly slow down, which to a certain degree is normal. It is whenever this usage exceeds certain limits that we must ask ourselves what is causing the high resource consumption and there can be numerous reasons, as the support article on this topic explains.

    @RomKnight since your ticket has been further escalated to Tier 3 technical, delays are expected because this is where more time is required to find solutions and it has been noticed that whenever this isolated behavior occurs, the causes are not always the same, so I don't know if there's a general fix for this, because as Garioch mentioned above, it is likely that what you are experiencing is related to your particular computer(s) configuration and yes, a conflict could appear later on following an update, even if you haven't experienced it before. Logs and remote sessions usually reveal the root cause and in most cases, the resolution is custom, like I said, there is no 'one-size-fits-all' fix, but there are a couple of standard recommendations to follow and refined troubleshooting is done according to the characteristics of the devices where this behavior is experienced.

    Regards

    Premium Security & Bitdefender Endpoint Security Tools user

  • RomKnight
    RomKnight
    edited November 2023

    I have my client sending reports. Nothing more I can do if NO ONE from tech staff asks (since 1st time where they acknowledge the issue and I followed their instructions. Actually, yesterday I removed the client and installed again from bitdefender central, again, just in case.

    I never asked for full scan (it just takes *too long*) and like I've reported, even with EVERYTHING disabled in the GUI (and tested again just in case) the bdservicehost that is parent for virus shield just keeps increasing mem usage. So, if I disable everything, what is bitdefender doing?

    Also, I uninstalled VPN service as I don't use it and still have 16 BD processes running. Is just insane.

    Since still have a long time left, I'm here. My reports are just to let know I AM looking at this and want this solved. Though, even IF it gets solved, I will leave BD.

    BTW, I've used AVs since BBS days when you had to run the AV on the same file the same number of times the file was infected (which you'd only knew after it stopped reporting the infection... multiply that by the number of infected files...). But thanks for the lesson, just in case someone younger pop's along.


    And of course, any AV will increase resources usage when used... but it should free it afterwards. DB just keeps mem usage until windows crashes. And to make it clear I have no issues on the CPU side.

  • garioch7
    garioch7 Defender of the month ✭✭✭✭✭

    @RomKnight

    [quote] Since still have a long time left, I'm here. My reports are just to let know I AM looking at this and want this solved. Though, even IF it gets solved, I will leave BD.[/quote]

    As a longtime BD user, I am not sure what more you are expecting from BD Support. Your complaint has been escalated to Tier 3 Support. No one is disputing that your client's computers have an issue. That is why your complaint was escalated. If you want to discontinue BD when the subscription expires, that is your right. In the meantime, may I respectfully counsel patience . . . again. BD Support is doing what it can.

    I started with computers in 1988, the days of BBSs. I am not sure that is relevant, though, to the issue you have raised.

    I hope that BD Support can identify the issue with your client's computers. Have a great day.

    Regards,

    Phil

    Former Bleeping Computer Malware Response Instructor

  • I'm not sure if it matters or help, but I used sysinternals ramMap downloaded from MS learn microsoft website (can't post links) and by using "empty prioriy 0 standby list" option it bdservicehost went down to 33MB ram usage. Obviously quickly started to come up again and seems to be stable at ~300MB for about 10m but it lost the "efficiency status" you can see in the picture I'm attaching.

    Not sure how long it'll be this way and also weird it didn't went immediately to the usual ~500MB it uses at boot. In any case, it does seem it will continue to use more ram. As I write it is already at 318MB.

    I hope this helps though I don't exactly know what that option in rammap does that "cleans" BD service host.


  • Yet another month. No feedback from BD but the problem remains.

  • And for some reason every new answer is always condescending and only thing people read are the repeated answers from others with "solutions" that do not apply.

    I opened a case because nothing worked, except the workaround with the rammap tool but it just delays the problem and seems to affect some other stuff as I can't run it on dbservicehost alone. So, I'm still limited to reboots to clear the RAM on my pc.

    I wish people read MY posts too. It would avoid the loops. This looks like MS forums and all their.. "experts" that can c&p very well too.

  • Scott
    Scott Defender of the month mod
    edited December 2023

    Apologies that you haven't received the help you were looking for, and for our condescending replies. A solution that did work for me when on my Windows 11 PC BD hit the 750MB of RAM mark, was to uninstall it and use a different AV, in which this laptop is now as happy as a clam. I know that may not be an answer for you, but just a thought, a solution, of what worked for me.

    Scott

    All Bitdefender Home Product User Guides:https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/user-guides/

  • Something good for a change.

    They finally asked for something more. I had to install some software for debugging but sending the logs... failed . I hope only one of the files failed but I requested a new upload link which I'm still waiting for).

    I was asked to inform them as soon as the upload was done so I was hoping someone would be looking at the email. Still no answer. I get it, now it is that season of the year... I wonder how will BD put the time lost back if the account expires in the mean time? Hypothetically speaking of course as I still have over 200 days left.

    Maybe in one of the updates that BD does constantly this gets magically solved even without them "doing nothing" (happens a lot while troubleshooting stuff meaning, it's the customer's fault :D )

  • Gjoksi
    Gjoksi DEFENDER OF THE YEAR 2022 / DEFENDER OF THE MONTH ✭✭✭✭✭

    @RomKnight

    Hello.

    If the log file is larger than 25MB, you can upload the log file here:

    After the upload is done, you will get a notification with the file's URL and then you can share the file's URL with the Bitdefender Consumer Support.

    Regards.

  • Thanks @Gjoski

    The problem is that I don't exactly know what was(n't) uploaded. The dumps from bdservicehost alone are in GB's.

    Still, I gave a shot but unfortunately, it fails. It doesn't even go halfway through the smallest of the dumps at 1.28GB in size. Then I tried the biggest one just in case it was that particular file but also failed. I guess I have to wait for their answer.

  • Gjoksi
    Gjoksi DEFENDER OF THE YEAR 2022 / DEFENDER OF THE MONTH ✭✭✭✭✭

    @RomKnight

    Hello again.

    I just uploaded there a log file in size of 1.54 GB without any problems.

    And i really don't know why you can't upload file(s).

    Just wait wait for their response.

    @Alexandru_BD

    Buddy, i believe that @RomKnight is losing his/her patience with the issue not being solved, so it's time to ask the engineers to prioritize his/her ticket. Thanks from me and @RomKnight.

  • A picture is worth a thousand words so I'll give you 2:


    100MBit upload fiber doing nothing when trying to upload.

  • Flexx
    Flexx DEFENDER OF THE YEAR 2023 / DEFENDER OF THE MONTH ✭✭✭✭✭ mod

    I know that sometimes https://upload.bitdefender.net/ does not work, and the same happens to me too.

    Alternatively, you can upload your files to https://gofile.io/welcome, which has no upload limit, and share it with Bitdefender support.

    Regards

    Life happens, Coffee helps!

    Show your Attitude, when you reach that Altitude!

    Bitdefender Ultimate Security Plus (user)

  • Thanks but that site doesn't feel safe and actually shows in google transparency report website.

    I use Firefox but now I tried Edge and still got the same error. Apparently for Edge I can install an app but even that way I got "An error occurred" whilst uploading, very vague. I'll have to wait for the answer.

  • Flexx
    Flexx DEFENDER OF THE YEAR 2023 / DEFENDER OF THE MONTH ✭✭✭✭✭ mod

    I regularly use the website https://gofile.io/welcome to share large files. The VirusTotal scan results for the link below clearly indicate that no antimalware vendor detects it as malicious. Therefore, you can disregard the Google warning and proceed.

    VirusTotal Scan: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/17d6909cac8d29552e180d1d222f9e68063c52150f5e7792da613659da0801b3?nocache=1

    If you still prefer not to use this service, you can alternatively upload the file to your Google Drive, set the sharing permissions to 'Anyone with the link,' and then copy and send the share link to Bitdefender support. Kindly note that without sharing permission, no one, including Bitdefender support, will be able to access the file except you.

    Regards

    Life happens, Coffee helps!

    Show your Attitude, when you reach that Altitude!

    Bitdefender Ultimate Security Plus (user)