Anyone else having issues with bitdefender free?

[AzKat 🐔]

SOLUTION

Reinstall it now, because us, free users, can't "right click and update", so we have to reinstall it.

Simply uninstall bitdefender antivirus free from the control panel, then uninstall bitdefender agent, then restart, then download it from the bitdefender website, then install.















I can't get it to start, it just randomly decide to stop working a few hours ago (saw it's icon being grayed out).


What I've tried:
1)
- restarting, as the program asked
2)
- uninstalling
- reinstalling, since the first try didn't work.
3)
- uninstalling
- cleaning registry via ccleaner portable (no reason to keep it installed)
- restarting
- cleaning registry again (in case some registry entries remained)
- reinstalling bitdefender
4)
- deactivating malwarebytes antimalware
- removing malwarebytes from startup
- uninstalling bitdefender
- cleaning registry
- restarting
- reinstalling bitdefender
5)
- scanning my pc with adwcleaner
- scanning my pc with hitmanpro
- removing threats found (nothing "bad" was detected, just tracking cookies)
- uninstalling bitdefender
- cleaning registry
- restarting
- reinstalling bitdefender


Problem is, none of the "tries" above worked, anyone got some suggestions on what to try next?

edit:
Error I'm getting when trying to start up the bitdefender security service from services.msc:

---------------------------
Services
---------------------------
Windows could not start the Bitdefender Security Service service on Local Computer.



Error 1067: The process terminated unexpectedly.


---------------------------
OK
---------------------------

[AzKat 🐔]

Originally posted by TheDot:

Yes. I think their master server is down.

"Services not responding".

Don't bother restarting, the problem isn't at your end.

Thing is, my cousin which lives ... next door has the paid version and it works on his end :/

If you're sure you're also using bitdefender free, then I think this might be an issue with the "free" version.

Gonna try getting a remote connection to my laptop at my other home to see if it does the same there.

edit:
it seems to be working on my laptop.

edit #2:
after posting this it stopped working on my laptop as well.

[AzKat 🐔]

Originally posted by TheDot:

I am using Bitdefender Free. I have the same problem.

Maybe we should look for another AV?

I've already tried everything on the market a few months ago, bitdefender free is still the best, every single time I looked for a free one.

I used to have kaspersky internet security, but stopped paying for it in 2016 when I found out about bitdefender free, and well, not going to switch to another AV

[AzKat 🐔]

Originally posted by TheDot:

I went with it because it's lightweight. Maybe, at least for not, install Avast free or something similar. Right now you have no AV. The security service is totally down.

I still have malwarebytes, and that blocks a lot more things than what bitdefender blocks.

[Chá]

Just to report. I'm having the same issue and im from Brazil... I dont want to install another AV and i think its the best for free too. I hope they fix it soon.

[AzKat 🐔]

Originally posted by Chá 1.0:

Just to report. I'm having the same issue and im from Brazil... I dont want to install another AV and i think its the best for free too. I hope they fix it soon.

Well, if you want a replacement until they fix it, kaspersky FREE does the job nicely.

However there's a few things that bitdefender free has that kaspersky free doesn't, and that's why I made my choice with bitdefender.

However, as a replacement until they fix this, it's a good idea to install kaspersky free (then REMOVE it when the issue with bitdefender is fixed).


Also subscribe to this topic so you can get notified when it gets fixed.

[Chá]

Originally posted by AzKat:

Originally posted by Chá 1.0:

Just to report. I'm having the same issue and im from Brazil... I dont want to install another AV and i think its the best for free too. I hope they fix it soon.

Well, if you want a replacement until they fix it, kaspersky FREE does the job nicely.

However there's a few things that bitdefender free has that kaspersky free doesn't, and that's why I made my choice with bitdefender.

However, as a replacement until they fix this, it's a good idea to install kaspersky free (then REMOVE it when the issue with bitdefender is fixed).


Also subscribe to this topic so you can get notified when it gets fixed.

Thanks for the advice! I will try Kapersky if they dont fix it in a few hours (i'm now just playing some games, i'm not in risk, i think XD)

It's a real problem for an AV to get down... I'm subscribing for the news, thx again

[qoil]

following them on twitter for updates, and https://forum.bitdefender.com/index.php?/topic/78342-services-not-responding/ too. meanwhile gonna install an alternative

[AzKat 🐔]

I've received a reply from their support team (within minutes lol):

Hello,

Thank you for contacting us in regards to this matter.

Earlier today a number of Bitdefender customers running consumer and GravityZone business products on Windows were presented with an error report regarding the unexpected stop of vsserv.exe.

An engines update scheduled earlier today was not completely delivered to some customers, which caused the engines to report the error. Our automated quality control mechanisms retired the update immediately and rolled back the engines to the previous good configuration.

The update was online for 15 minutes and was received by a limited number of users.

During this window, no files were lost or removed from the devices. The rollback reverts the effects of the update and is delivered automatically. In order to expedite the rollback, you can manually force an update by right clicking the Bitdefender icon in your system tray and click the "Update" option. Wait for 5 minutes and afterwards please perform a reboot of the system.

After the reboot please open up the Bitdefender program and please verify the green Your device is protected message.

Should you still encounter issues please follow these steps:
1. Open up the Start Menu
2. Type CMD
3. Right click on the CMD entry and select run as administrator
4. In the new window please type "sc start vsserv" without the quotes and hit Enter
5. Wait a couple of seconds and retry opening Bitdefender

Please let me know if you still encounter issues afterwards.

Have a nice day!

Best regards,
Marius <dude's family name>

Technical Support Engineer

So apparently we MIGHT have to reinstall the av (I sent them an email back telling them that I use the FREE version), reinstall it now, after the issue has been fixed.

Or simply restart our pc I'll try to restart, then reinstall, then let you know what to do.

edit: restarting didn't work, so we have to reinstall, again.

[CaptainLuminous]

Having the same issue as all you guys on free edition too, wont update, greys out UK.... Hopefully just temporary?

[AzKat 🐔]

Originally posted by TheDot:

There is no "update" option from the taskbar. There is only 'show'.

A more user friendly way to try and start the service is from services. Type 'services' into run and click enter. Scroll down and and look for Bitdefender Security Service.

It won't work, I tried, you have to reinstall it because free users don't have the "update" button.

Originally posted by CaptainLuminous:

Having the same issue as all you guys on free edition too, wont update, greys out UK.... Hopefully just temporary?

You have to reinstall it now.

Reinstalled, logged in, waited, it works now

it didn't work the first few times when I tried reinstalling because the "broken update" was still in effect.

https://imgur.com/a/IsA7D <<-- update finished = it works

[ᓚᘏᗢ]

So guys, what did you do to make it work again? I've tried reinstalling, also the reinst+regclean yesterday and it's still not working.

[wubbelflup]

for casual use i recommend avira combined with that small program that blocks the pop ups.

but if you do strange/interesting things on the internet (you know what i mean) you should maybe use something else.

[ᓚᘏᗢ]

You could be more specific on your "something else". BitDefender did great (some false detections aside), thus I wasn't to uninstall it; although I am open to new software if you have a decent candidate.

[AzKat 🐔]

Originally posted by ᠌ ᠌᠌Vomindok Kaal:

You could be more specific on your "something else". BitDefender did great (some false detections aside), thus I wasn't to uninstall it; although I am open to new software if you have a decent candidate.

Well here's the exact steps I did:
1. I downloaded CCleaner portable
2. I opened CCleaner
3. Went to the "uninstall" tab
4. Uninstalled bitdefender free, waited, then uninstalled bitdefender AGENT
5. Went to the registry clean section and cleaned my registry
6. Cleaned my registry
7. Restarted my pc
8. Cleaned my registry (again)
9. Downloaded the installer from https://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/free.html
10. Installed
11. No problems afterwards

[ᓚᘏᗢ]

Doing the install now; I believe I forgot to uninstall the Agent before. Probably that is why I still had the issue.
Also, this is exactly what I did a ~day ago.