Bitdefender 2020 NO LONGER WORKS on two Win7 HTPC's with Ceton TV Tuner cards

Thank you addressing my "rank", thus now allowing me to post images.

(1) This is "the symptom". The BD icon begins as red following a reboot, but then goes gray. And when the mouse is hovered over the gray icon the flyout message says "Bitdefender services not responding". This only occurs on my two Win7 HTPC machines (with my other three Win10 laptops continuing to work fine, with red icon).

This only just started a few days ago, as each of the two machines got rebooted. Up to the reboot they both still had a red icon. It was only when each machine was rebooted that the red icon changed to gray (still leaving red icon on the other machine that had not yet been rebooted). And then when the second machine got rebooted it too now showed the red->gray icon symptom.

There was NO CHANGE OF ANY KIND to either machine regarding the Win7 system setup, or to Bitdefender as installed on that machine... or any of the other Win10 laptops on my LAN, for that matter. It was only the reboot in the past few days which triggered the symptom. I am convinced it has to do with something you must have changed in Bitdefender Central regarding licensing, or MAC authorization, or something, and which is now confused by the DUPLICATE MAC values presented from both of these machines because you are looking at the wrong network adapter, i.e. the Ceton TV tuner card rather than the Intel LAN adapter.

(2) As I first reported back in 2019 (and which was acknowledged back then as a problem which was being turned over to development for resolution), both of these problem Win7 HTPC machines have a Ceton TV tuner card in it which communicates using TCPIP. And each card has a duplicate MAC address, not the expected unique MAC address which would be in any real internet-enabled device. The Ceton cards do not communicate over the external internet, but rather only internally over the home LAN.

(3) Bitdefender Central is mistakenly examining the FIRST network adapter (never expecting the Ceton TV card) and expecting it to have a unique MAC address, as ALL internet-enabled devices do. In the case of the Ceton cards, they do not communicate over the internet but only over the LAN (or even more privately and locally on just a machine), so their imbedded MAC address is a CONSTANT (and not unique) 00:22:2C:FF:FF:FF.

(4) As you can see from what I was forced to do to keep this straight, whichever machine is INSTALLED SECOND gets to update Bitdefender Central's one-and-only "device", since it is the MAC address which is used to define a device. It was never expected to be a duplicate, but rather always expected that MAC address would be guaranteed unique.

Still no reply or further contact from Support on my open ticket 1007470964.

I am still without Bitdefender protection on both of these Win7 HTPC machines.

I am willing to provide any additional diagnostic information you ask me to produce or deliver. If you have a special debug-version of the product which will gather lots of internal clues that might help you get to the bottom of why "Bitdefender services are not responding" I would be glad to install it.

But I need some CUSTOMER SUPPORT HERE!! Surely you have engineers who have the skill level to debug problems and resolve them, no??

Well, BAD NEWS I'm afraid.

Early this morning I had a remote session with your engineer Tudor C. He used Team Viewer (which I already had installed on my machine, not needing to install it specially for this session), and just arbitrarily changed my own "personal password" to his own. This allowed him to reconnect after rebooting without needing me to provide the random passcode normally produced each time Team Viewer starts. He never asked me if I saw what he was doing, and did I have a note of my personal password so that I could reinstall it after he left. (thankfully, I do know what my personal password was, although Tudor simply ended his session by erasing his password... never reminding me that I would have to reinstall my own password).

So after looking around at my system, he performed a TOTAL UNINSTALL of my previously installed Bitdefender environment. He didn't bother to ask me if I had notes regarding any customizations I might have applied, like Firewall rules, etc., but just blasted away my previous install totally. (thankfully, I happen to have notes about my customizations, so in theory I could reapply things... if Bitdefender actually was brought back to "red icon" normal operation).

Then he cleaned things up, deleting all Bitdefender-related program and programdata folders, as well as all Bitdefender-related Registry keys. Total cleanse.

Then he performed a normal brand new from-scratch reinstall of Bitdefender. Upon initial installation of the automatically downloaded version, the initial icon was red. So Tudor now believed "he had solved my problem", not caring to really confirm things were going to stay red and not revert to gray.

While he was still connected, before he departed, I showed him my real problem regarding the presence of the Ceton TV tuner cards, which are present on both of my two Win7 HTPC machines and cause Bitdefender Central to registere both of my machines using the same MAC address (artificial 00:2C:22"FF:FF:FF). Tudor had little interest, and said there's nothing he could do. He said he would report this (but it already had been reported to development back in 2019 when I first observed the issue).

Anyway, Tudor then said "have a nice day" and quickly disconnected from my machine... thinking (wrongly as it turns out) that he had magically solved the problem through the total uninstall/cleanse/reinstall.

Well, it turns out he did NOT FIX ANYTHING!!! Yes, the icon remained red until the subsequent product updates were automatically applied, and Bitdefender VPN installed, and a restart was requested. And sure enough as soon as I rebooted for the first time after these product updates got applied, well once again the red icon changed to gray.

==>> NO FIX BY TUDOR!! A total uninstall/cleanse/reinstall DOES NOT FIX THE PROBLEM.

And I hadn't even yet had a chance to reapply my Firewall rules, so that isn't a suspect as to what might be going on. And I hadn't even had a chance to uninstall Bitdefender VPN (which I always do), so that can't be a suspect either. In fact I've done nothing, except watch Tudor do the uninstall/cleanse/reinstall and then depart... with the icon still red at that time, because "updates" had not yet gotten applied.

I'm afraid this ticket cannot yet be closed. I think a different engineer needs to get involved, one who might think of something else to look at or try, outside of just a product reinstall. It is the UPDATES which triggered the red icon to go gray, so that should be a giant clue.

I have to remark that I don't think you're pursuing the right cause of the problem. I don't think that the issue is that there is more than one network adapter and therefore multiple MAC addresses, which may or may not be "unique" (in the universe) or non-unique (which perhaps confuses Bitdefender Central).

I think the problem is that the particular network adapter you have settled on in order to identify my device in Bitdefender Central (and perhaps also to communicate properly with Bitdefender Services running on my machine), and which thus causes the icon to be red or gray, is that YOU HAVE PICKED THE WRONG (or just unacceptable) network adapter!!!

You probably assumed that ALL (or the first) network adapters "talk to the internet) which perhaps figures into how you authorize licensing with Bitdefender Central or communicate with services on my machine.

Well, I suggest that all you need to do is IGNORE any network adapter whose MAC address is 00:2C:22:FF:FF:FF!!!

Just ignore it! Sure, you may want your developers to really solve the problem, and figure out a true solution. But in the meantime... JUST IGNORE THE CETON CARD, when you see its MAC address!! Just skip it. Make believe it was never there!!!

To prove my point, on the same Z170 machine I dual-boot either to Win7 or Win10. In Win7 the Ceton TV Tuner card is supported by Ceton drivers, allowing its use in Windows Media Center. But in Win10 there are no drivers for the card. So in Win10 the device shows up as "other devices', i.e. an unnamed multimedia device. In contrast in Win7 the device shows up as a "network adapter, in front of the Intel LAN adapter(s) that actually talk to the internet.

So, here is Device Manager for Win7 on my Z170 (which happens to have TWO Intel LAN network adapters, one of which I actually use and have connected, and the other of which I have "disabled"). Note that the Ceton card is first, followed by the two Intel network adapters. But only ONE IS ACTUALLY CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET... which is the [first] network adapter YOU SHOULD LOOK FOR!!! There might be multiple network adapters actually connected to the internet, and ANY OF THEM are "real" and have a "unique MAC address". So this is what your criteria should be for scanning "network adapters" and picking one to use to identify my device. It should NEVER BE THE CETON CARD!!

Now in contrast, here is the same Z170 machine but booted to Win10, and its Device Manager. As I mentioned above, note that the Ceton card is not in "network adapters" because there is no Win10 driver for it. But there still are multiple network adapters (including the same two Intel adapters), but again only one of which is "connected to internet". So again... THIS IS THE ADAPTER YOU SHOULD PICK, i.e. the one which talks to the internet. It MUST have a unique MAC address, since it's a true real internet-enabled piece of hardware.

I note that while Bitdefender DOES NOT WORK ANY LONGER ON MY WIN7 MACHINE (because of some recent "update" as we now know, since it was a red icon until post-install "updates" were applied and the machine rebooted) it DOES WORK IN WIN10!!!

And the only difference really is that the Win7 machine has the Ceton card (with its non-internet phony MAC address) in "network adapters" and you picked it for use, vs. the Win10 machine which does NOT have the Ceton card so that you picked the Intel LAN adapter which is talking to the internet.

==> IN THE SHORT TERM, just put a patch it that ignores the Ceton card with its non-internet MAC address of 00:2C:22:FF:FF:FF and grab the NEXT adapter (which is actually connected to the internet). I would like to see Bitdefender working again on my two Win7 machines.

In the meantime I have temporarily installed Malwarebytes Premium in order to have at least some protection on these two machines.

NOTE: these two machines have been successfully protected by Bitdefender for the past 3 years... until last week, which obviously some update that you pushed out has now destroyed the product on these machines. They both have had their Ceton cards in them for these past 3 years, and it was no problem for Bitdefender... until last week. So something new that you pushed out in "updates" (and which requires me to reboot) is what is totally responsible for this new "gray icon" symptom.

Surely your engineers are smart enough to figure out what they changed just in the past week which is causing this, and BACK IT OUT if only temporarily until you can really fix everything you wanted to fix without breaking Bitdefender on my Win7 HTPC machines with the Ceton cards. Or, just IGNORE 00:2C:22:FF:FF:FF if you see it as a MAC address, and go on to the next adapter. Or, simply look for the [first[ adapter which is connected to the internet.

Just to reiterate one more time some "giant clues" here.

(1) These two machines (both of which are Win7 HTPC machines with Ceton TV tuner cards inside) have had no hardware or software change for the past 3 years. They have both been running Bitdefender normally (i.e. with the red icon) for these past 3 years... until last week. In other words for the past 3 years the Bitdefender has been red, and only in the past week has something changed so that the red icon (right after reboot) changes to gray within 30-45 seconds.

(2) I am 100% certain that the problem relates to having the Ceton tuner card appear first in Device Manager as a network adapter, and in the Win7 world (where Ceton drivers exist) Bitdefender is picking up this first network adapter in order to identify my machine for "device details" given to Bitdefender Central. So it is the Ceton MAC address (i.e. 00:2C:22:FF:FF:FF) which is shown in "device details", and this is clearly not a good thing. This network adapter IS NOT CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET. But there is another network adapter (i.e. Intel, with a true real and unique MAC address) WHICH IS CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET. It is this Intel network adapter which is connected to the internet that should be picked up to identify my machine, not just the "first network adapter".

In contrast, when I boot the Z170 machine to Win10 (this particular machine is dual-boot, both Win7 and Win10) where there is no Win10 version of the Ceton driver, the Ceton tuner card DOES NOT APPEAR as a network adapter. In this case the first network adapter (which is a genuine internet-capable and internet-connected Intel network adapter) gets picked up by Bitdefender. Everything is now normal, and the icon is red and remains red.

(3) Attempting a complete uninstall/cleanse/reinstall of Bitdefender, using the very latest download installer file (bitdefender_windows_43de093f-7a12-4313-a097-938d15ada3bf.exe) initially produces a red icon which remains red, leading one to believe everything is normal now. But in fact, things are only "normal" using whatever code is in this particular installer.

However once the product is installed, an automatic first-update takes place. I would assume there are anti-virus updates that get applied during this first-update, along with "engine updates", and also Bitdefender VPN. I would think the latest installer file would have everything already pre-packaged into it, but apparently not. And apparently Bitdefender VPN doesn't get installed with the installer package, but only after that first-update. So there is always this first-update that gets run after a brand new install.

And then following that first-update a reboot is required. And once the machine is rebooted, with all of whatever updates just got installed, well now the red icon appears for about 30-45 seconds after reboot but then changes to gray. Again, I point out that this NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE THIS PAST WEEK!!! The exact same scenario was performed on both of these machines 3 years ago when I first adopted Bitdefender as my anti-virus product. On occasion I have had to uninstall/reinstall, but again never saw this red->gray icon problem until this past week!!!

This convinces me that there is something really "brand new", just pushed out in those first-updates now applied for an install done in this past week, which is responsible for the red-> gray icon problem. I don't think it is Bitdefender VPN (which gets installed with this first-update), although it might be. But I normally uninstall Bitdefender VPN anyway, so it's not ever truly present (and never has been for the past 3 years). And yet even with Bitdefender VPN getting uninstalled after having just getting installed, I still now see the red->gray icon problem.

(4) With no hardware changes to either machine, there must be a Bitdefender change that occurred in just this past week which is totally responsible for the brand new red->gray icon problem. It was never present in the past 3 years, until this past week

And obviously it is directly connected to the Ceton TV Tuner card and its fictitious MAC address, and the fact that this "network adapter" (in Win7 only, not in Win10) isn't actually connected to the internet.

How much more precise does the description of symptom and likely cause need to be, for your developers to zero in on exactly what change they made in just the past week which is now being impacted negatively by the presence of the Ceton phony-MAC network adapter when it never was a problem in the past??

(5) Again, the problem NEVER EXISTED BEFORE THIS PAST WEEK!!!

And it doesn't exist with the freshly installed product. It only starts when the first-update gets applied (and the last week's engine changes get installed) and then the machine is rebooted. The icon remains red directly after the actual running of the EXE installer. But once the reboot after first-update is done, the new engine changes (from this past week) now triggers the red->gray icon symptom.

I am awaiting contact from you STAR DEVELOPER ENGINEER 3rd-tier support. Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this so that I can return to using Bitdefender (instead of Malwarebytes Premium) on these two Win7 machines with the Ceton TV tuner card in both of them.

I've been using Bitdefender on these two machines for 3 years. It's only in the past week that this problem has appeared. How hard could it be to look at what engine changes got pushed out in the past week that are obviously causing this new symptom???

Still waiting for next step in this problem resolution to occur.

I am available for remote connection at any time. Also, as I offered, I can "let you have my PC" for 24/7 remote connection if your developers want to use it as a lab machine in order to perfect any code changes relevant to a machine that contains the problematic Ceton TV tuner card in it.

Any ETA on when I might be contacted by 3rd-level support?

Well, this is now completely unacceptable.

I just received ANOTHER ROBOT-GENERATED BOILERPLATE EMAIL on my current still-open ticket 1007470964. This email insults my intelligence by including the following text:

"Thank you for your patience please accept my apologies for the frustration that we might have caused.

I have looked into the case and it seems that the situation is caused by an issue that has already been acknowledged by our development team. We are currently working on a fix that will be done by means of an automatic update and won't require any additional action on your end.

I will get back to you with an update regarding the fix as soon as we have one.

Thank you once again and have a nice day ahead!

Kind Regards, Andrei M. Senior Customer Support Engineer"

The insult to me here is that this is an EXACT DUPLICATE of the reply I received more than 3 years ago back on March 25, 2019, to my original ticket (Integrated Support 2019032221420003) submitted on this identical topic and when I was at the time using Bitdefender 2019 (rather than Bitdefender 2020/2021 which is what I'm using now).

Here is the exact text I received on March 25, 2019 (note the "familiarity"):

"Hello Darryl,

Thank you for your patience throughout this entire process and please accept my apologies for the frustration that we might have caused.

I have looked into the case and it seems that the situation is caused by an issue which has already been acknowledged by our development team. We are currently working on a fix which will be done by means of automatic update and won't require any additional action on your end.

We will get back to you with an update regarding the fix as soon as we have one.

Thank you once again and have a nice day ahead!

Best regards, Stefan Ionascu Technical Support Engineer"

So, it has now been almost 3 1/2 years since I first reported the problem, and that you acknowledged it WAS a problem, and that your engineers WERE WORKING ON A FIX, and that the fix WOULD BE PUSHED OUT WHEN COMPLETED AS A NORMAL PRODUCT UPDATE.

Well, here it is June 23 2022, almost 3 1/2 years after this started, and apparently your engineers are incapable of fixing it at all!!! Or, you are lying to me for the past 3 1/2 years and NOTHING IS ACTUALLY BEING DONE!

Up until 3 weeks ago this problem was non-critical and non-fatal. Just an annoyance. But because of something very recently pushed out as a separate product update 3 weeks ago, something new is now going on on these HTPC machines with the Ceton cards in them that has TOTALLY BROKEN BITDEFENDER so that it no longer works at all!!!

Are you seriously capable of debugging your own code, and fixing a bug, or not??

Well, very strange.

Did you change something? Push out a new product/engine update this morning?

I happened to have needed to reboot one of my two Win7 HTPC machines (both with Ceton card inside) today (DFW). Astonishingly, after the reboot the Bitdefender icon remained red!!! It did not go gray!

I figured maybe you actually did push through some emergency change of some type to at least temporarily get me back in business. So just to be sure it wasn't an anomaly I rebooted again. And sure enough, the icon remained red. I rebooted numerous times, and the icon remained red.

Now believing you must have done something I then rebooted my second Win7 HTPC machine (Z170), fully expecting the Bitdefender icon on that machine to also remain red. But NO... it changed to gray!!! Huh??

Just to be sure I rebooted again, and several more times as well. And sure enough the icon exhibited the behavior it has over the past 3 weeks, namely starting off as red at reboot and about 45 seconds later going to gray (indicating a problem preventing communicating with Services).

So now I'm in a very strange new situation. I am assuming the '"change" from how things have been for the past 3 weeks (with BOTH machines showing gray icon) must almost certainly be something you changed just this morning and which got reflected on my DFW machine upon reboot. So what is it that now makes my two machines behave differently? Why is DFW now showing red and yet Z170 still shows gray???

I have no real idea, but my guess is that it may have to do with the fact that according to Bitdefender Central I only have ONE DEVICE "protected", which is Z170 (with the still-gray icon). And the MAC address for device details is the Ceton MAC address. But my second machine (DFW) which also has Bitdefender installed but which since 9AM this morning has remained red, is not shown uniquely on Bitdefender Central as a second separate protected device. Even though Bitdefender is installed on BOTH machines, because of the issue involving the apparent common non-unique MAC address (for the Ceton card in both machines) there is only ONE "device" on my license, and that is the MOST RECENTLY INSTALLED system... which was Z170. This has been the story for 3 1/2 years, but since 9AM this morning it now is behaving differently than it has for the past 3 weeks.

There must be a reason.

So, to summarize:

(a) Bitdefender Central still shows only ONE device, as it always has for the past 3 1/2 years, namely my most recently installed of the two Win7 HTPC machines, which is Z170. But I have Bitdefender installed on both machines.

(b) Until 3 weeks ago, this non-unique situation was not a problem. Bitdefender was "red" and operating normally on both machines, even though there was only the one Z170 device (with the common Ceton MAC address) showing on my account.

(c) Then 3 weeks ago something changed, and both machines went gray. And they've both been gray until 9AM this morning.

(d) Since the reboot at 9AM this morning my DFW machine (which IS NOT the one shown on Bitdefender Central) has now gone back to "red"! No longer gray as it was for the past 3 weeks. This machine has a Ceton card in it with the non-unique common MAC address, just as it has for the past 3 1/2 years.

(e) Despite multiple reboots since 9AM this morning my other Z170 machine (which IS the one shown on Bitdefender Central) remains gray! Again, this machine has a Ceton card in it with the non-unique common MAC address, as it too has had for the past 3 1/2 years.

(f) Something changed this morning in Bitdefender somewhere, either locally in the installed software on my two machines, or up in your cloud Bitdefender Central. Whatever was changed, now one of my machines is red and the other machine is gray. The one which is red (DFW) is NOT the device named on Bitdefender Central (Z170) which remains gray, although the MAC address of the Ceton card in both machines is identical and almost certainly still at the heart of the entire problem story.

What did you do this morning, that changed things in some way?? Any attempt at pushing out a solution?

Whatever you did, it "fixed" one of the machines (DFW) so that the icon is red again, which is NOT the machine named on Bitdefender Central. The other machine (Z170), which IS the machine named on Bitdefender Central, that is the machine which remains gray and where Bitdefender is still not working (as it has not for the past 3 weeks).

Indeed. After the uninstall/reinstall (from scratch, deleting everything during uninstall) on Z170 the newly installed Bitdefender show 26.0.18.75 dated 6/22. Apparently this earlier date was when it first became available. It must have been applied separately to DFW on 6/24 in the normal course of rollout.

In any case, as predicted, the icon has also returned to red on Z170, indicating that whatever was very recently changed has in fact solved this particular problem of a problem connecting to services. Things do now appear to be back to normal (and "red") on both DFW as well as Z170.

Now looking again at Bitdefender Central, the just reinstalled Z170 device is there, and the Ceton card's 00:22:2C:FF:FF:FF non-unique MAC address is still there. Nothing has been changed regarding ignoring this network adapter and picking up the "real" Intel network adapter instead... which would have been a unique MAC address.

So there's no reason for me to uninstall/reinstall Bitdefender on DFW, as it would only just result in DFW being the one device up there, replacing Z170. I'd still have only one device in My Devices even though I have the product on two machines, so I'm not going to waste time doing that.

Bottom line: both machines have returned to "red". Malwarebytes Premium has been uninstalled from both machines. Bitdefender is once again working properly on both of these machines. The non-unique MAC address of the Ceton card shown in My Devices is still NOT addressed.

Thank you.