Scheduled scans don't run (still)

If I had a pound for every time a scheduled scan in Bitdefender actually ran, I'd have £3.

What is so difficult about this? Time and time again I'm told to reinstall, uninstall, recreate, delete and then .... nothing. I don't understand why such a critical feature of an AV application keeps being broken.

I think I've been putting up with this shonky app for too long. No wonder it's so cheap on Amazon.

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Gjoksi

Hello.

Open your Bitdefender program, go to Utilities -> Profiles -> Settings and see if any of these options: "Activate profiles automatically", "Work Profile", "Movie Profile", "Game Profile", "Public Wi-Fi Profile" or "Battery Mode Profile" is enabled/activated.

When Work Profile is enabled/activated:

- All Bitdefender alerts and pop-ups are disabled

- Automatic Update is postponed

- Scheduled scans are postponed

- Search Advisor is disabled

- Special offers notifications are disabled

When Movie Profile is enabled/activated:

- Automatic Update is postponed

- Boost performance on video players

- Optimize product settings for Movie profile

- Postpone background programs and maintenance tasks

- Postpone Windows Automatic Updates

- Adjust power plan settings for movies

When Game Profile is enabled/activated:

- All Bitdefender alerts and pop-ups are disabled

- Automatic Update is postponed

- Scheduled scans are postponed

- Search Advisor is disabled

- Special offers notifications are disabled

When Public Wi-Fi Profile is enabled/activated:

- Advanced Threat Defense is turned on

- The Bitdefender Firewall is turned on, and the following settings are applied to your wireless adapter:

- Stealth mode - ON

- Network type - Public

- The following settings from Online Threat Prevention are turned on:

- Encrypted web scan

- Fraud protection

- Phishing protection

When Battery Mode Profile is enabled/activated:

- Bitdefender Automatic Update is postponed

- Scheduled scans are postponed

- Security Widget is turned off

Regards.

Nige

Thanks for your reply.

Automatic profiling is turned on, so probably all the time one of those profiles is active apart from Public wifi and battery mode.

Postponed is one thing, but scheduled scans never ever run. I've had this issue before. Had to completely remove Bitdefender and reinstall. A scan ran once on a schedule and then never again.

So the solution would seem to be to stop using profiles in order to use scheduled scans.

I find Bitdefender pop-up messages overly intrusive even with profiles active, so I'm not sure if I could cope with the full onslaught.

I'll just have to manually initiate scans until I move to a better thought-out solution. Bitdefender is cheap and cheerful but the bugs and idiosyncrasies are getting tiresome and technical support is patchy to say the least.

Hybr1dMoments

Same issue here. No profiles are enabled and "Activate profiles automatically" is turned off.

They ran consistently at the scheduled time before, but stopped working some time ago. This is happening on two home PCs.

Something strange is that if I go into modify the time or turn the automatic scan off, it doesn't update or change the current one I have set to run at 4am. Is this some kind of strange permission issue, or are config files not being updated properly?

Alexandru_BD

Hi @Hybr1dMoments,

If we rule out the Profiles, then there could be an issue here.

However, the engineers will require logs from the machine to further investigate. Unfortunately, this cannot be achieved on the forum. You can create a log file on your Windows device using the Bitdefender Support Tool, by following these steps:

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

Afterwards, get in touch with our engineers by opening a ticket where you can attach the logs. Access the link below and select the e-mail contact channel:

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

Let us know how it goes.

Regards

Nige

I did submit logs, and support mentioned remnants of an old Avira installation which they thought may be conflicting with BF scheduled scans.

Before I did this (no active files, but lots of Avira references in registry) I turned off the 'Postpone maintenance and updates' option under Profiles - Work Profile. This, so far, seems to have solved the issue for me but I shall continue to monitor.

Nige

Strike that.

Bitdefender still fails to run scheduled scans.

Yet another ticket opened, they'll tell me to reinstall again ….

Alexandru_BD

Hello @Nige,

Keep in mind that you can also reply on the previous ticket and this will automatically reopen the case. This will make the troubleshooting history visible, so that you won't have to go through the same steps all over again. The agents will see what has been done up to a certain point and they can advise further based on the available information.

Regards

Nige

Thanks.

The scheduled tasks still fail to run, so I'll do that.

I'm going to test on a brand new clean PC soon, so if the problem still occurs ...

Nige

Nope. Technical support’s first response to my resurrected ticket it to uninstall and reinstall. Again.

Nige

And now Bitdefender Central doesn't install Bitdefender at all.

Stuck on Pending for 10 minutes, then reverts to "This device is at risk".

Great stuff!

Nige

Downloading free trial to see if that works.

Bitdefender is the only AV that I've used over 25 years that needs to be reinstalled multiple times a year.

Nige

Re-installed Bitdefender (again).

Turned off Profiles (which reduces BF usefulness for me imho)

Create scheduled scan to run at system startup.

Restart system

Scheduled scan fails to run.

I've just created a scheduled scan to run in 20 minutes time. I won't be holding my breath.

And I have been here so many times before.

Nige

New PC. Windows 11.

Scheduled scans still don't run.

Right click context menu and run Bitdefender on a file does nothing either.

Still the app will not turn off notifications. I have lost count of the times I've been asked if my connection is an Office or Home connection. The app still pointlessly tells me that it's protecting me in work mode.

Support just repeats the same old rinse and repeat.

There's no point having a guard dog if it won't do as it's told and keeps barking at the cat next door.

Scott

Hi @Nige

Could you post a screenshot of the contextual scan? Do you not have that option displayed when you right-click a folder?

Those scans do go pretty fast, so depending on the folder/file size, it may seem like it's not doing anything.

Scott

Alexandru_BD

Hello @Nige,

Regarding "the app will not turn off notifications. I have lost count of the times I've been asked if my connection is an Office or Home connection. The app still pointlessly tells me that it's protecting me in work mode", have you tried to disable the Wi-Fi Security Advisor? This should supress such notifications.

To turn on or off the Wi-Fi Security Advisor notifications:

1. Click Protection on the navigation menu on the Bitdefender interface.

2. In the Vulnerability pane, click Open.

3. Go to the Settings window and turn on or off the Wi-Fi Security Advisor switch.

Regards

TomBaker

I am having this same problem stated above in a freshly installed BitDefender Antivirus Plus environment on 2 Windows 11 PC's.It is now 2025, have there been no solutions since October 2022? I checked all the suggested settings above and no joy.

TomBaker

Both Windows 11 PCs are brand new Dell All-In-One's.

Nige

@TomBaker

Do you mean scheduled scans?
For me they were fixed, but it took ages. Last time I checked they were working, sporadically. Now you’ve flagged this up I must check again!

TomBaker

Yes scheduled scans. I do a Quick Scan every morning and a System Scan every Sunday evening. The workaround that is working for me is to leave the Bitdefender app up in a minimized window and let the display timeout. I choose to not turn on Run minimized and Post scan action set to Show Summary window The app sits there waiting for the scheduled scan to start up.

By contrast my EaseUS Todo weekly system backups have a selection box that I check to Wake the computer to run this backup. Maybe Bitdefender could incorporate this feature in their software. If it is already there I would be happy to use it.

Nige

Aha. I checked earlier and scheduled scans are working for me.

I have a Quick Scan on start up and a weekly full scan.

Both run minimised and silent. I think they only fail nowadays if Bitdefender does an update when the scan is meant to run.

Win 11 Pro.

Scott

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/348998#Comment_348998

Hello,

As far as Bitdefender, a member inquired about allowing it to come out of sleep mode to run a (custom) scan, but was mentioned by support that it isn't possible.

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/95190/is-there-any-way-to-wake-up-the-computer-to-run-scans-at-3am-when-the-computer-is-asleep

Kind regards.

Nige

Thanks for the input Scott.

To clarify my set up - The quick scan starts on startup, silently and minimised. The weekly system scan is scheduled to run every Friday at 1pm, which is when I’m very likely to have the PC switched on. I never use sleep mode. I shutdown the PC completely when I’m not using it.

Each to their own of course, but personally I don’t see the logic in waking a PC to perform an AV scan. It’s like waking my wife in the middle of the night to ask if she’s ok. What threats are people anticipating being introduced when a PC is not running and since its last regular scan? Same with backups - I run an incremental at start up. If the PC is not on, then no changes will be made to any files, so no need for a backup.

In any case, my post from 2022 above was about scheduled scans not running when the PC is running. That issue, for me at least, is fixed.

duhmel

I had a similar problem where scheduled quick scans would run but schedule system scans would not. I finally had a 'light bulb' idea and looked at the parameters for both scheduled scans. Huzzah, the quick scan had 'run minimized' switched on and the system scan had it turned off. I moved it to on and the scheduled system scans now works. In addition the system scan now takes 10 mintues instead of over an hour. I don't know why this happens but I'm not going to expend the energy to find out.