ISSUE - Portmaster seems to be limiting my download speed

[ThijsTheMan]

Checklist:

I'm using the official portmaster release (i.e no custom builds)
I searched for similar/existing issues first.
My issue is not mentioned in the Known Issues section of my OS

What happened:

Today I tried to download a WeTransfer file but the download is going extremely slow. I have Gigabit internet around 900 MB/s (tested with speedtest.net) but it only shows around 2 MBp/s in anything I try downloading even installing or updating games through Steam or Epic Games. I tried following a different GitHub user's issue https://github.com/safing/portmaster/issues/161?new_signup=true but I just couldn't follow it or how they fixed it...

What did you expect to happen?:

Nothing =)

How did you reproduce it?:

Brave Browser + Portmaster + WeTransfer + SSD (with enough space) + Tested good internet connection (+- 1000 MBp/s)

Debug Information:

General Issue Debug Info: https://pastebin.com/pSpj6KRf

[github-actions]

Greetings and welcome to our community! As this is the first issue you opened here, we wanted to share some useful infos with you:

• 🗣️ Our community on Discord is super helpful and active. We also have an AI-enabled support bot that knows Portmaster well and can give you immediate help.
• 📖 The Wiki answers all common questions and has many important details. If you can't find an answer there, let us know, so we can add anything that's missing.

[vlabo]

Thank you for the report and for using portmaster.
We will try to reproduce and inactivate the issue for that we need a bit more info.

Are you using SPN while downloading?
If you shutdown Portmaster compliantly does the download speed go to the expected value?

[ThijsTheMan]

My SPN Module is disabled on this device, When I shutdown Portmaster the issue still persists. The issue started since I had Portmaster. Thanks for responding

[vlabo]

Not sure if Portmaster can be the cause.
If Portmaster is not running it should not have any affect on the system since it is design in a way that does not change any OS configuration and the device will function as if it was not installed.

If the problem persists when portmaster is not running the cause is probably somewhere else.

[Gilles45398]

Hi

I've been lurking on Github for years and decided to create an account just to give my input on this bug. I ran into the same issue as @ThijsTheMan (sadly, I got no solution).

Once I've installed Portmaster (free install, no SPN used), I saw my download speed divided by 25. Disabling Portmaster won't solve the issue, even after a restart (Win 10 22h2), BUT uninstalling it does. It sadden me because I really like the software (I moved from Glasswire). I really hope for a workaround in the future.

PS - Just a thought @ThijsTheMan : may be killing the Portmaster Core can resolve it (not tested, I've already uninstall the software).

[dhaavi]

Hey @Gilles45398, thanks for taking the effort to report this.

If there is a speed reduction with Portmaster (but not without), the only thing that can cause this, is our kernel driver.
@vlabo just rewrote this part in Rust, and we are testing it in the beta release channel, in case you want to check it out.

Here is how to get into beta: https://wiki.safing.io/en/FAQ/SwitchReleaseChannel