Stuck on Connecting / have tried everything on Forum

[AirFubar]

Today I suddenly cannot connect to my FAH Client through either web interface or FAHControl can connect to my FAH Client v. 7.6.21. The Client seems to be running (GPU %), but other than to start or stop it, I can't monitor, control, or configure it at all--not the Slots, passkey, nothing. FAHControl had been running for almost a year without a problem (640,000,000 points).

Windows 10 Pro, no recent updates. Local access only, no secure-access password, standard port left in place.

I have tried *everything* I can find in the Forums, including uninstalling and reinstalling twice (removing Data too), rebooting Windows, etc etc. Disabling firewall, antivirus, antimalware etc etc has no effect.

If I can't regain control over this client, I will have to reluctantly end my participation.

Thank you for any new guidance.

[Neil-B]

Welcome to the forums ... What av are you running?

[AirFubar]

I'm running Bitdefender, but disabling both that AV and Microsoft's Defender has no effect.

I can also report now that uninstalling FAH + its Data, then installing FAH v. 7.6.13 has no effect.

[Neil-B]

Bitdefender has occasionally been known to really bugger up fah .. rather than just disabling it is it possible to shut it down fully for a test .. something is interfering with comms between the controls and the client and tbh av is nearly always the culprit and iirc bitdefender doesn't always disable as much as it should ... there may be other suspects but you may need to wait for the gurus stateside to come online as I am not aware of any . . Av products also patch more often than os and something in the fingerprint/heuristics might be causing the issue .. if it is bitdefender we may see a rash of other reports soon

[AirFubar]

I'm running again after trying the same remedies in a different order.

I (1) killed all of FAH processes in Task Manager, (2) disabled as much of BItdefender as I could, (3) turned off Microsoft Defender Firewall (private network), (4) restarted FAH, (5) re-enabled Microsoft Defender Firewall, (6) re-enabled all of Bitdefender (which probably over-rides Microsoft Defender), finally (7) connected FAHControl successfully. Doing these steps in a different order pretty much failed every time. This took hours to solve.

So now I suspect very strongly that either Microsoft Defender Firewall or (more likely) Bitdefender's Advanced Threat Defense looks at what's already running when it decides what programs to allow port communications on. Whether or not this is new behavior I can't know--my Win 10 Pro box runs for weeks between reboots.

And yes, I now suspect that we will see other users with the same problem, probably Bitdefender but could be MS.

In any case, thanks for your help and my fingers are crossed that the solution holds.

[Neil-B]

Awesome news ... sorry it took so much effort ...but grats on getting it running again

[bruce]

And thanks, AirFubar, for your willingness to dig into it and report your results.