As of Septemember, 2026, Bitdefender has compatibility issues with Spectaculator. Symptoms include:

• Runs fine immediately after installation
• Crashes after the splash screen with ‘Searching for plugins…’

Until Bitdefender fix the issue, users can workaround it by adding an exclusion:

• Bitdefender → Advanced Threat Defense → Exceptions
• Add C:\Program Files (x86)\Spectaculator\Spectaculator.exe

After doing this, Spectaculator should start normally and has continue to work correctly.