This has been happening for the past week or so. I'm using BitDefender Total Security 2008, with Windows XP SP2. I'm using a router, with an 8MB ADSL line (well, 4MB in reality).

Occasionally, my internet connection freezes; the icon in the system tray remains dormant, and disabling/re-enabling the connection doesn't work - it says "Connection failed!" and a reboot is necessary to get back online. When I check BitDefender's Firewall settings, and click the "Activity" tab, I see the following message:

Firewall is disabled. Enable Firewall to see active connections and open ports.

The Firewall is indeed enabled, because the main program window shows no "issues" that need to be fixed, and the "Firewall is enabled" box in the advanced settings is ticked - it just seems to affect the "Activity" tab.

When I check my Firewall's log for the last activity before the connection dies I see mention of the following error several times:

[BDFDRVI] - Error getting PSI buffer: 111
[BDFTDIF][DEVIO] Application error. User buffer too small.

I'm not sure if it's relevant, but it's the last thing logged prior to/during the connectivity issue.

I've tried restarting the BitDefender services when this happens, to no avail.

I'm not sure if BitDefender is causing this, or if it's just reacting to some kind of system fault. Hopefully one of your good selves can enlighten me, because it's really getting irritating!

Cheers dudes.

Dear Paddy,

Till now I never saw that error message. It is possible that this could be your problem. Did you already tried this go to start,my network locations,click at the right side on show/display network connections now right click on your network card and press on repair. See if that helps.
The second error message is normal. That happens when you have the activity screen open. In fact that isn't infact a real error.
The best thing is contacting livechat tommorow because I don't think they are online today. You can contact them here.Perform also what is written here. You have to do that when the problem occurs or a few moments later.

Best regards
Niels

Thanks for the reply

Repairing the internet connection seems to work (i.e. it completes all of the repair tasks) but the connection is still dead afterwards.

I recently reinstalled Windows, and the problem existed before and after the installation. I'm not sure if this info helps at all.

Thanks.

Dear Paddy,

To see if there isn't a problem with the driver of your network card please try this : press the windows button together with r now type devmgmt.msc press enter expand now the section network adapters you may not find an exclamation mark or a question mark. If that is the case the problem lays with the driver or with your network card. Try this right click on your network card once you are in device manager choose disable reboot your pc. Now go back network adaptors and right click once agian on network card and choose enable.Try also this go to start,make connection,show/display all connections now right click on on your network card choose properties now uncheck BitDefender NDSIS Filter Driver press on apply and ok see if you still have the problem. You have to do this for each network card you have in your computer.It could be a BitDefender issue.

Best regards
Niels

The Device Manager shows no problems.

With regards to the "BitDefender NDSIS Filter Driver", if I uncheck it in the connection properties will that disable my firewall? I'd rather not be unprotected if I can help it. However, I remember trying this after my connection froze, but when I click "OK" after unchecking the BitDefender NDSIS Filter Driver, the properties window freezes and I have to reboot anyway haha.

Thanks mate

Dear Paddy,

It's better that you contact support.

Best regards
Niels

A little update on my problem:

I thought the issue had been resolved, because I hadn't had any connection freezes for a while, but I discovered that when I use BitTorrent clients such as uTorrent or Azureus the problem occurs after a few minutes of downloading/uploading. I don't think the problem occurs under any other circumstances, so what is it about P2P applications that my connection/BitDefender doesn't like? haha

Cheers.

It's probably due to the massive amount of connections that all bittorent clients use, that are unnatural for even games. I would recommend decreasing the amount of allowed connections for your bittorent client along with limiting upload/download speed if possible. If you start up your bittorrent client and it does not happen immediately then it could be someone or something to DOSing your machine for kicks and giggles.

To test this out, I recommend downloading Technet Process Explorer and TCPView, keep both of them open and navigate to bitdefender's firewall page with the bandwidth monitor.

Take a look at TCPView and close all other applications that connect to the internet then open up your bittorent client. Then start the downloading process, in TCP view the only things connecting to the internet should be the bittorent client and system processes. Now compare the amount of connections listed your bitdefender client with the amount of connections listed in TCPView. Sit there and watch it for awhile, if the amount of connections suddenly increase in TCPView and you also see the bandwidth spike but the speed of the actual download of the torrent has not increased you are being DOS'd and your internet connection will fail shortly

If your torrent software is functioning correctly the only internet problems you should have is probably slow browsing, if you see an ip address sending you a large amount of data from the Bitdefender firewall but the amount of data is not equal to the amount in your bitdefender client I would recommend banning the ip in the bitdefender firewall and your bittorent client.

If none of the ips appear suspicious then it could be your router or ISP doing some traffic shaping on P2P and Torrent Traffic. As I use the Bitdefender firewall and it does not cause these problems for me and I have used it on Windows Vista and XP

Links

TCPView
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinte...s/bb897437.aspx

Process Explorer
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinte...s/bb896653.aspx

Last week BitDefender completely cocked up; nothing would work, and it crippled my system/connection. I tried a repair install, and it didn't help. Then I tried a complete uninstall, then I used the BitDefender Uninstaller utility to remove all traces of it, then reinstalled, and I haven't had any problems since, even when using P2P apps. So, if anyone else is having trouble of a similar nature, try using the BitDefender Uninstaller utility (here is the knowledge base entry for uninstalling the software).

This is one seriously unstable application! it seems that something goes wrong at least once a day. If it's not the anti-virus/firewall turning itself off after an update, or the program not starting/responding after clicking the tray icon, it's something else.

I'll continue using it though

EDIT: I'm guessing that this issue was caused by a botched update, because I noticed a flurry of similar posts on this issue around about the same time. Not sure if that's helpful to anyone, though.