ProtonVPN causes Windows BSOD crashes due to antivirus conflicts

ProtonVPN is working on fixing a bug causing Windows blue screen crashes affecting customers using the latest versions of the company's Windows client software.

The BSOD crashes don't affect all users and are caused due to conflicts with unnamed antivirus software solutions.

"We have received reports that in particular circumstances the latest versions of ProtonVPN Windows clients (the stable version 1.18.2, and the early access version 1.18.3) might lead to Blue Screen crashes in Windows, due to a conflict with certain antiviruses," ProtonVPN said.

"We are actively working on a fix that will be made available as soon as possible," the company added in the status incident ticket opened over the weekend.

Impacted customers are advised to disable their antivirus to prevent system crashes or to downgrade their ProtonVPN client.

"If you are affected by this situation we advise to either temporary disable the antivirus that might enter into conflict while using ProtonVPN, or to downgrade to the previous stable version," the company said.

Blue screens triggered immediately after launch

Although ProtonVPN didn't reveal more details about what causes the stop errors, more details were provided in user reports of Windows blue screens caused by the latest version of ProtonVPN that surfaced about two weeks ago.

As one of the affected users shared, the blue screens are triggered immediately after launching the VPN's Windows client.

This is not the first time users have reported experiencing blue screen crashes on their Windows computers while using ProtonVPN.

At the time, customers in comments [1, 2] added to a ProtonVPN support article on Windows connectivity issues that their systems would crash after authentication or after establishing the VPN tunnel.

Just as in the case of the current bug affecting stable and early access ProtonVPN Windows clients, reinstalling the client and the drivers would not help.

Update February 01, 08:34 EST: ProtonVPN has released a beta version to address the BSOD crash issue. 

A new version is now available for beta testing through our early access channel, that should have solved these issue leading to these crash reports.

Update February 05, 08:26 EST: The ProtonVPN 1.18.5 stable version has been released earlier today with a fix for the reported Windows blue screen crashes.

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