Firewall Permission Dialog Box Is Poorly Coded. Any Explanation?

When you set your firewall so it asks your permission when an app tries to acces network, things may go crazy.

If you immediately select "Allow" or "Block", you are fine. But if you don't, new(same) notifications keep stacking back to back, as long as you wait. 1 box per 1 seconds I guess.

So if you try to decide "should" I allow this app or now for few minutes. You'll have to keep fast-clicking allow button maybe hundreds of times so that notification disappears.

It would be cool if it doesn't stack up and if it still gona do that, it would be great if all other (same) notifications disappear after you Allowed or Blocked once.

Sample video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9rs-mMth04

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Accepted answers

Hello,

I remember seeing this in the past and if I'm not mistaken, when the user restarted the computer, the problem disappeared. However, this is not the expected behaviour for the pop-up. We will have to reproduce this internally and I would kindly ask you to get in touch our engineers using one of the contact channels available at the link below and provide me with your ticket number, so I can push this forward:

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

Going forward, the engineers will require logs from the machine and provide further assistance on the open case.

Let us know how it goes and I'm looking forward to the ticket number.

And thank you for the insightful video.

Regards

Hi,

@camarie & @dvsls can you help here?

Thanks

All comments

Hello,

I remember seeing this in the past and if I'm not mistaken, when the user restarted the computer, the problem disappeared. However, this is not the expected behaviour for the pop-up. We will have to reproduce this internally and I would kindly ask you to get in touch our engineers using one of the contact channels available at the link below and provide me with your ticket number, so I can push this forward:

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

Going forward, the engineers will require logs from the machine and provide further assistance on the open case.

Let us know how it goes and I'm looking forward to the ticket number.

And thank you for the insightful video.

Regards

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/322066#Comment_322066

It gets stuck at this step, regardless of the browser or connection

Ok do this: open the ticket without attaching the logs. But attach the screenshot instead and mention you could not upload them and they will offer an alternative.

Once the ticket is created, please provide me with the case number.

Thanks

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/322095#Comment_322095

I've uploaded log to Google Drive and provided a link in ticket. No: 1008203612

Thank you @Rasit,

Thank you for following up, our engineers are taking over.

Regards

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/322114#Comment_322114

They responded but didn't help.

They said that I can disable Alert Mode so no alert gonna appear... As if that's what I'm complaining about...

I don't think they really read what I wrote thoroughly

"Hello Arslan,

Thank you for the information provided.

I have also checked the logs.

The reason for the alert is due to the "Alert Mode" feature being turned on.

Please head to your firewall settings tab and turn "Alert Mode" off, this will not affect your security.

Have a good day ahead.

Stay safe.

Best regards,"

@Alexandru_BD They don't even try to understand. What am I supposed to do now?

I replied "I don't complain about Alert Mode. I want that on but I want that to act correctly. Please read my first mail again."

They said:

"Hello,

Thank you for contacting Bitdefender.

Alerts are shown each time an app tries to connect to the internet, this is what the alert feature will do.

If you have other questions, do not hesitate to reach us.

Have a good day ahead.

Stay safe.

Best regards,

Andrei R."

I'm sorry to hear this. One of our technical leads will get back to you asap and we'll fix this.

Thanky you for your patience and cooperation throughout this process.

Regards

Today I've got an automated e-mail:

"Dear Raşit ***,

Our records indicate that you currently have an open Customer Care request with us, ticket no: 1008203612

As we have not heard from you in 3 days, we are in the process of closing the incident.

- If the situation has been corrected, please ignore this email and the ticket will automatically close with no further action from your side.

- If you still need additional information or the ticket implies you sending us back particular logs/files/documents, simply reply to this message with the requested information and your case will remain open.

Thankyou,

Bitdefender Customer Care Team"

Just FYI

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/322277#Comment_322277

This is indeed an automated message and can be ignored in this case, the engineers will get back to you asap.

Thank you for your patience and for following up on the matter.

Regards

After 2 whole months, bug is still here and makes me wanna punch my laptop time to time.

The engineers will get back to you on the open case shortly. Please stand by for updates and thank you for your patience.

Regards

3,5 months and counting...

This is not fun

youtube.com/watch?v=O_URECNwIc8

OMG I THINK IT'S FINALLY FIXED! They didn't tell me about it but I dont experience the same problem anymore

Edit: False alarm. I just restarted my computer to test again and I still experience the same problem. Idk what happened back there. I didn't get buggy dialog boxes for a few times, for some reason but not I have them again. I guess the bug got bugged huh...

A fix for this Bitdefender behavior is still undergoing development. We do not have an estimated time for the release of the fix yet, but the Support engineers will contact you as soon as it's implemented by an automatic update of Bitdefender. Please keep in mind that all reported bugs require investigation time. Since product updates are usually released once a month it may take at least 1 month until a fix is implemented in the product - this does not include the debugging period.

As you can imagine, not all users are encountering this issue and in such cases, the reports must be analyzed punctually by the enginners as the root cause may be different from one case to another.

As suggested previously, the Alert Mode should be disabled in this scenario to avoid the overlapping notifications until this is sorted. Please note that, disabling this feature will not affect the firewall protection.

Thank you for your patience.

Regards,

Alex

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/325939#Comment_325939

Hi @Alexandru_BD ,

"Disabling Alert Mode because it wont affect firewall protection" is not a good solution because I want to specifically watch and control each program that tries to access internet in "real-time". That feature is why I've chosen your product over others.

I also considered your product in my current company, specifically for this feature because this is a nice feature in our current use case but this bug pulls me back. I know there are other software to do this but why would we use both your product and those at the same time, right?

I hope you understand,

Cheers

Hello @Rasit,

It is not recommended to install other security solutions alongside Bitdefender, if this is what you are referring to. Having two or more security solutions installed at the same time can have a negative impact on your computer. The symptoms may include but are not limited to degraded performance, system crashes, and software errors. Detection can also be impacted, as both antiviruses will compete for the same resources.

Alert Mode does offer more control and it's nice to have indeed. But temporarily disabling it will not weaken protection, because the solution includes several layers (prevention, protection, remediation - to name a few).

The firewall is your gate keeper and will ensure your devices are safe. The security modules are designed in a specific way, so that IF a defense fails, another one takes its place.

For example, the firewall prevents the infection from entering the PC from the network, if the firewall fails, Advanced Threat Defense takes over and blocks dubious processes. If this module misses something, then the Antivirus will find any modification of files during scanning.

I understand these notifications pose an inconvenience to you, but in my opinion the only way to supress them is to temporarily disable the Alert Mode altogether, until this is sorted.

Regards,

Alex

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/325939#Comment_325939

Thanks but I know that disabling those alerts wont affect my security in a bad way. That's not my concern.

I want to be able to watch and control every new internet access request in "real-time". That's why I don't disable the feature even tho this bug pose inconveniences.

Regards

7 months

Btw it sometimes doesnt provide the application's name. When you click "View application", it opens "This Pc/My Computer" window.

When I check notifications history, I see this:

9 months and counting

I'm very sorry to hear this has happened to you. I got in touch with the Technical Team Leads and they will follow up asap.

Once again, thank you very much for your patience.

It's been 11 months. Recently got an UI update but no bugfix...

Now it's been over a YEAR but no fix yet… Is it really that hard?

Also, recent updates has a side effect that turns off firewall "Alert mode". I realized that when new apps I launched didn't need a permission from me to connect to internet…
So I said "well that sucks" and enabled it again. But guess what? A few days later, I noticed same pattern and of course it was disabled again… Why??

That feature alone was the exact feature that made me buy and suggest Bitdefender to my friends and family instead of competitors. So please, lets just be a little more careful when coding and testing new updates. I love you guys but you are bringing me down.

Waiting for a year for a fix but instead getting more bugs is not a fun user experience:(

:D :D

@Alexandru_BD I guess you don't care about this post anymore but lemme still say it:

"Alert mode" option keeps getting disabled time to time

It's weird how no other setting gets reversed but only this one does,
which BD Team didn't fix for more than a year and may thought
"disabling that feature would make users not realize that we still
didn't fix the bug".

This bug was fixed in the newest update, which is rolling out to all customers on a staggered basis. This was a priority for the developers, but identifying the bug and fixing it also requires a prolonged period of debugging to ascertain that the "fix" does not break something else.

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/337872#Comment_337872

Please check your version using a right-click on the Bitdefender icon in the system tray at the bottom right of your screen.

I hope this helps. Have a great day.

Regards.

Phil

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/337901#Comment_337901

garioch7 Hello and thank you very much for replying.

My version is 27.0.30.140 and I guess that's why Alert mode is disabling itself.

What about the Alert mode notification bug tho? Is it fixed with new update too?

Of course I still follow this thread. But I didn't have news until now. I have also replied on a few other similar discussions opened across the forum on the Alert Mode topic. As you've noticed, the community has been a hotbed of debate around this issue, and as @garioch7 pointed out earlier, the Alert Mode bug has been fixed in the latest product update that's being rolled out gradually. The fix should also address the notifications issue. Here's the main changelog for the Bitdefender version 27.0.35.146 that's on its way to you:

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/337871#Comment_337871

Thank you for your patience.

Regards,

Alex

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/337945#Comment_337945

@Alexandru_BD "…The fix should also address the notifications issue…" nope. Updated to 27.0.35.147 but notification issue remains.

Ok then it's back to the drawing board. May I kindly ask you to send a message to the Support engineers on the open ticket and inform them your Bitdefender is up to date, however, the initial issue you have reported persists?

Thank you.

Done. Thank you for replying.

@Alexandru_BD Btw if you could add a notification sound, like a beep or something, that would also help so much because sometimes I left my pc open to download something or wait for anything, next to it, hanging out on my phone etc, a notification pops up because some random app updated itself and now it asks for permission again, but since I don't look at my screen, hundreds of notifications keeps piling up and when I check out my pc again, I just had to close hundreds of notifications ONE BY ONE. Sometimes I give up and just restart my pc because of this… Happens too often.

Orrr you can just make it so when you allow or block an app's internet access, duplicate notifications all terminate itself.

Ooorr you could make it so, for example, when an app updates itself and it has a signature from Microsoft or Google etc and new(updated) exe doesn't ask for permission again as long as signatures match.

There are tons of potential solutions and I know you have smart engineers. Please do something. This is REALLY FRUSTRATING

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/338461#Comment_338461

@Alexandru_BD is on leave for a day or two. Also, he is the administrator of the forum but not a developer of the Bitdefender product. There is a dedicated forum link https://community.bitdefender.com/en/categories/product-features-and-ideation where you can post your feedback related to Bitdefender products, and it will be shared automatically with the Bitdefender developers. It will then be up to them whether to introduce the feature or not. Since there are many feedbacks, each feedback is taken into consideration. They are listed according to their importance and whether it is viable to introduce them or not.

Regards

If you are still working for a solution to this problem, I'd like to report 2 more problems:

1:

A couple of times per month, this dialog box appears. App name field is blank and when you click "view application", it opens default Explorer window.

2- If a firewall dialog box appears while I'm typing something, sometimes I allow unintentionally because apparently, pressing Space key in keyboard also presses that "Allow" button. This is dangereous. I see that dialog box for just a split second because I type fast.

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/339325#Comment_339325

RarSFX is a technology that lets you put an installer inside a compressed RAR file, making it self-extracting. This means when you run it, it can automatically start the installation process. The file being in the Temp folder suggests it's a temporary file used just for installation. Once the installation is done, the file gets deleted because it's no longer needed.

Perform the steps provided below:

1) Open the Run command and execute the following commands one by one:

temp – delete all the files in the folder.

%temp% – delete all the files in the folder.

prefetch – delete all the files in the folder.

2) Run Disk Cleanup using this guide: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/disk-cleanup-in-windows-8a96ff42-5751-39ad-23d6-434b4d5b9a68

That's it. Everything is sorted afterwards.

Regards

I always block that app because it doesnt give me any hint about what app triggered that process.

Btw the second problem I mentioned is not about that exe. It' a completely seperate issue.

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/339332#Comment_339332

@Alexandru_BD will get back to you tommorrow.

Regards

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/339325#Comment_339325

I've shared this with our QA and engineering teams.

Thank you!

It's officially been 1,5 years and you didn't do anything, congratz! 🎉

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/339359#Comment_339359

For the past 19 months, 1 and a half years I've been doing this because Bitdefenders Engineers didn't fix the bug:

https://youtu.be/dsh9Jcsb7D4

@Alexandru_BD please send this to engineers with my note so they don't forget

Hi,

@camarie & @dvsls can you help here?

Thanks

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/344626#Comment_344626

I have accidently choosen this reply as answer but I mean to give it a like. Idk how to revert that.

It's OK 🙂

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/344626#Comment_344626

Any news from @camarie or @dvsls ?

I'm on it, we should be able to resolve this soon.

Please stand by.

Thanks!

@Rasit the engineers confirmed that they have a fix in development, and they managed to reproduce this behavior with difficulty, because the root cause was not that obvious and the issue was not widespread, it was very isolated and manifested itself only under specific circumstances.
The fix will be included in the next release (after the one scheduled for next week).

That's all the news for now.

Now, I take this opportunity to express my appreciation for your patience. Despite this inconvenience, you didn't give up on Bitdefender. And we will not give up on you.
Thank you once again for pursuing this, for your patience and understanding throughout this lengthy and cumbersome troubleshooting process.

Regards,

Alex

"…

they managed to reproduce this behavior with difficulty, because the root cause was not that obvious and the issue was not widespread, it was very isolated and manifested itself only under specific circumstances.
"

Wow… I did not expect that. I would happily share more log with devs if they just asked. Thanks for all the bug hunt!

I'm also a programmer and a nerd, so I would be really happy if you'd share me under which specific circumstances it gets bugged. Learning about weird, edge-case bugs always excites me:) No worries if it's confidential tho.

Cheers,

From what I understand, it had to do with the fact that in your case, it notified you for each packet subsequently, instead of an 'one-time allow' per app. So, the notification basically got stuck and could not be dismissed in the traditional way. It was rather unusual.

Are you sure? Because if I allow an app for once, it doesnt notify me again unless the app gets updated.

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