Memory leak when streaming media DLNA/SMB after update Bitdefender

WV Bouma · July 28

Hello,

Ive been using BD since many more than 10 years. Always reliable. But since the last update (12-7-2024) i have issues.

I use my computer for streaming media through my network (from the computer to my mediaplayer, Oppo UDP 203). Media consist of .MKV / MP4 files on my hard drive, they are shared through both windows media sharing functions and via DLNA server (OShare, VLC, Window Media Player). My PC is therefore the media server for clients in my home network.

This has always worked (many years), but stopped working after the recent update of BD on 12-7-2024.

The symptoms are that files shared through my network play for a few minutes, and than stop playing. At that point all networking on my PC (the server) looses all network functionality; Internet/streaming/whatever no connection.

Ive watched what happens during streaming of a file. When streaming of a file starts, main / PC memory usage increases with an amount proportionally to the amount of bytes streamed (so 1 GB streamed = 1 GB increased memory usage). The memory doesnt get freed up. The freezing of streaming files (as describes) stops after several minutes, simply because the PC runs out of memory. In my case when all the 32GB of main memory is full.

This happens with all protocols i use (SMB, DLNA, windows media sharing). It happens when streaming to my dedicated media device (OPPO UDB 203) both on wired as wireless connection. It also happens when streaming to laptop or phone, with several players (VLC, WMP). The symptoms are always the same, after several minutes memory runs full streaming & networking gets pulled down as described.

I did notice the problems started after the recent update of bitdefender.So for testing purposes i uninstalled bitdefender. And that solved all problems.

Reinstalling bitdefender brings back the problems.

I've used proces explorer to find out what process is hugging memory. But have not found a direct dll/file of process.

Because i do have to use streaming, bitdefender has -for now- been unistalled.

Maybe you can find the problem, so i can reinstall bitdefender as before / always in our case.

thanx for helping i applicable.

Alexandru_BD · July 29

Hello everyone and thanks for joining us here.

Indeed, I confirm this is a known issue and the developers are working on a fix as we speak.

Thank you all for your patience throughout this process.

Regards,

Alex

Alexandru_BD · July 30

Sure thing, I'll post back when I have news.

Thanks

Flexx · July 28

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/100564/memory-leak-when-streaming-media-dlna-smb-after-update-bitdefender

Kindly contact Bitdefender support by visiting https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/help

Select, How to's & Troubleshooting Bitdefender products→Troubleshooting→I don't know→Contact Support→ You will get the option of chat, call or email.

Regards

InTheZone · July 28

I have the exact same problem and came here to post the EXACT issue. I'm using plex. Last week I believe is when I noticed this, but didn't see the memory issue until AFTER I bought a new wifi/bluetooth card as I thought that was going bad. I didn't see what was going on with the memory prior to replacing the card, but I'm certain the memory leak was the culprit from last week to now.

Yesterday I uninstalled bitdefender, issue went away. After reinstalling the windows 10 64 bit total security again the issue returns, memory ends up running out completely. At this point my wifi connections goes wonky and often won't connect until I restart.

I literally thought somehow my old reliable pc was suddenly going bad, but this is a total security issue 100%. Did you already send Bitdefender an email?

WV Bouma · July 28

Thank you both for your answers.

I havent emailed BitDefender about this. Did not know about that option by the way.

Maybe one of you can email, and point them tot this thread? And we keep this thread to assemble / compare info?

At this point i want to report that i examined the issue again.

I stated that in my original report that "main / PC memory usage increases with an amount proportionally to the amount of bytes streamed (so 1 GB streamed = 1 GB increased memory usage). ". That seems not to be true.
It is worse. When I have streamed about 4 GB of data, my PC memory (32GB) is full. So it is more 1GB streamed leads to 8GB increase memory usage.
This increase in memory usage stops when i pause streaming (press pause on the remote, pause in VLC). Memory is not freed when on pause, but stays the same. Memory usage starts increasing again when video runs again.
When streaming is stopped (stop on remote, stop in VLC) memory usage is freed up.
Adding files, folders, extensions etc. to exceptions (so excluding them from scanning by BD) did not stop the problem.
Removing BD does stop the problem + reinstalling brings the problem back. So BD is definitively the culprit (And how I managed to reinspect the problem).
Updating Windows, drivers and motherboard firmware did not help.
Clearing network / Window search cache etc. did not help. Even resetting Window search through Powershell e.d. did not help.

InTheZone · July 28

I emailed them, but could not provide a log using the built in bd support log in the installation folder. It hangs at 0% gathering info after you're trying to submit. If I stream a 4k mkv file using plex I can go from 8-10GB memory available (16GB total) it will use all available memory within 10 seconds.

Maybe you can try the support tool, be sure to click duplicate the issue and start the log prior to playing the media that causes the issue with BDTS. I've tried several times with no luck at getting beyond 0% after generating a log.

WV Bouma · July 30

Good to know BD is on the case.

Because streaming is important to me, i will not reinstall BD untill the fix is out. So i wont notice an auto-update.

Therefore I would like to ask if you keep us updated, or post here when the fix is out. So i can reinstall BD.

Styx13 · August 10

Same issue here, memory usage going through the roof for certain network transfers.

I am using a backup tool that backs up over the network to a server, within 3 minutes of having booted my computer, I run out of memory (I have 64GB of memory).

I first disabled the backup tool and thought it came from it. But digging a bit more, I found out that if I disable BitDefender features, I can take the backup without the memory increasing.

Glad to hear that BitDefender is aware and already working on it, just wondering if there is an ETA as this is really a painful issue

Thank you

WV Bouma · August 10

I was also wondering if there is an ETA for this fix.

The time to renew a my subscription of Bitdefender is coming up.

But at the moment BD doesnt allow me to do what i do most on my systems. BD it isnt even installed on the PC anymore.

RB26 · August 14

I too have this problem, and had to remove Bitdefender to solve it.
What a pain. Took me DAYS to figure out what was happening.

Thanks to WV Bouma for posting this, as I may not have found out without this post.

Can we please get an update on this?

WV Bouma · August 16

I find it increasingly disappointing that we dont hear any more about this major bug. BitDefender is virually useless for many people atm.

I am considering switching to another brand of protection atm. Just for the sake of being taken seriously.

Styx13 · August 16

I completely agree with WV Bouma, why isn't bitdefender giving any updates on such a critical issue? The product is unusable in it's current state. Don't you think it it would be good to increase the severity of the issue to come up faster with a solution and also increase the communication about when to expect a fix?

Not only I will consider another product when my current license expire, but I will stop recommending BitDefender to my friends and family.

Alexandru_BD · August 20

Hi,

A product update that fixes the issue will be released as soon as possible. A new driver integration is being tested prior to its release, so it may take a while before the update can be pushed to the entire userbase.

RB26 · August 20

Could we at least be provided with an older version that does not
have the memory leak?

I can make sure (Via Pi-Hole) it won't be updated until it is VERIFIED fixed.
Right now I have no protection other than MS defender.

I understand things like this happen, but it should be #1 priority
when the software is unusable. This has been going on for weeks now.
Not to mention the wasted hours I and other have had tracing the problem down.

Thanks in advance.

Alexandru_BD · August 21

Hi,

The devs are looking for a potential workaround at this stage. From what I understand, a rollback cannot be achieved right now.

Alexandru_BD · August 23

Update: to speed up the resolution process, I kindly ask everyone encountering this issue to reach out to the Support teams, so the engineers can gather all the necessary logs that would help them better understand the circumstances surrounding this behavior and investigate further, on a case-by-case basis. You can use the link that has been featured before on this thread - https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/help/ and below you will also find the steps to generate a Bitdefender Support Tool log for the engineers to analyze:

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/1733/

Thank you!

champo · August 31

Like others I'm suffering from this critical flaw. It makes both my network streams and computer useless when anything is being streamed. I've spent countless hours trying to find the source of this problem. And yet this is still unresolved over a month after it was first raised in this thread.

In the meantime, I've also had to uninstall a product that I have paid for.

WV Bouma · September 1

As i've stated; I've uninstalled BD because i cannot use my system as i want/have to. So it is not possible to produce a log file for the developers.

Maybe we can halp out another way, by posting our system details. Maybe there is a commonality between us.

My system:

Computer: GIGABYTE B550 GAMING X V2
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600X (Matisse, MTS-B0)
3800 MHz (38.00x100.0) @ 3768 MHz (37.75x99.8)
Motherboard: GIGABYTE B550 GAMING X V2
BIOS: F19b, 07/11/2024
Chipset: AMD B550 (Promontory PROM19 C)
Memory: 32768 MBytes @ 1330 MHz, 20-19-19-43
- 16384 MB PC21300 DDR4 SDRAM - Crucial Technology BL16G36C16U4R.M16FE1
- 16384 MB PC21300 DDR4 SDRAM - Crucial Technology BL16G36C16U4R.M16FE1
Graphics: MSI R7850 (MS-V273)
AMD Radeon R7 265/HD 7850, 2048 MB GDDR5 SDRAM
Drive: TOSHIBA MG04ACA400N, 3907.0 GB, Serial ATA 6Gb/s @ 6Gb/s
Drive: TOSHIBA MG04ACA400N, 3907.0 GB, Serial ATA 6Gb/s @ 6Gb/s
Drive: WDS250G2X0C-00L350, 244.2 GB, NVMe
Drive: ASUS DRW-24D5MT, DVD+R DL
Sound: ATI/AMD Verde/Heathrow/Chelsea - High Definition Audio Controller
Sound: AMD Family 17h/19h - HD Audio Controller
Network: RealTek Semiconductor RTL8168/8111 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC
OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Professional (x64) Build 19045.4780

Flexx · September 1

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/342953#Comment_342953

You also have the option to generate logs even when Bitdefender is not installed on your PC, as mentioned by @Alexandru_BD. Below is the image for reference.

Regards

champo · September 7

@Alexandru_BD any updates? Another 2 weeks of radio silence…

WV Bouma · September 8

Yes. And im getting the feeling it will take some time yet. For now i've cancelled my subscribtion to BD. Its valid until 4th jan 2025. If the issue isnt fixed before than, i'll switch to another package.

As for the question about logs. I hope someone else will do that. I've lost a lot of time troubleshooting myself already. It was already a know issue at the moment i posted the first post. And at this point i'm not willing to take more time for this.

Alexandru_BD · September 9

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/343246#Comment_343246

Well, the silence is due to the fact that the developers are still working on this and we have no news.

I understand your frustration and regret the inconvenience, but bear with us for just a little bit longer, because this task is nearing completion.

Thank you!

RB26 · September 14

Well, I hope this is fixed soon.

If not, In the next week or so, I will have to purchase another solution for my Windows NAS
computer. Unfortunately, I cannot wait forever.

Like WV Bouma, I cannot re-install to supply logs.
I simply don't have the time to assist with troubleshooting, and remotely connecting
to my system will not be possible.

Since I recently purchased a 2 year, 5 user license, I'm going to stick with bitdefender
as it still works fine for my other PC's on the network. But once I install another
solution for my NAS, I won't be back.

WV Bouma · October 4

Ok.

Its been a long time since i've seen any update about this issue. Atm i've given up.

I've decided that I'll switch to another product. Just checked administration: I've found billing of bitdefender dating back at least till 2006. And i've been a customer longer than that. I'll regret leaving after 20 years.

But there remains no other option. Streaming media is the core task of my system. And that is borked with BD installed.

Too bad actually.

Alexandru_BD · October 4

Hello,

We should expect an improvement with the upcoming update next week. But this will not be a complete fix, a follow up release will be necessary after things become stable. For what it's worth, the fix has been ready for a while and it's currently being tested in various scenarios.

Thanks

InTheZone · October 11

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/344631#Comment_344631

Thanks for the update. Can confirm on my windows 10 64 bit home edition the latest patch did nothing as far as memory climbing while streaming plex. Will be waiting for the final follow up, hopefully sooner than later. I let the memory usage climb to 15.9GB before stopping the stream, had it hit the max 16GB I'd have to restart the pc to restore normal operations. Will uninstall Total Security again until the fix rolls out.

Alexandru_BD · October 14

Hello,

The complete fix will take more time to be implemented, and I don't know how quickly the problem can be fully resolved. There was a recent improvement that allocates less memory, but this doesn't mean that it fixes the problem entirely..

Thank you for your patience.

Memory leak when streaming media DLNA/SMB after update Bitdefender

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