Frequent ping-restart disconnects

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mattakacas

Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Oct 15, 2022 5:30 am

Post by mattakacas » Sat Oct 15, 2022 6:14 am
Thanks in advance who anyone that takes the time to read all this. I have been pulling my hair out getting to the bottom of this issue.

I have been using Viscosity OpenVPN for years (literally) and this issue seemingly cropped up out of nowhere a few days ago. I'm running Viscosity 1.10.13 on Windows 10 21H2. I had been using viscosity to only send traffic to certain IP's over the VPN using the approach described here: https://www.sparklabs.com/support/kb/ar ... lications/ . I had been using this literally for years and it was pretty rock solid. Ever since a few days ago Viscosity will not stay connected for longer than a couple minutes without disconnecting and reconnecting. According to the viscosity logs its doing this due to an Inactivity timeout (--ping-restart). The VPN service I had been using the last few years with no issue until recently was ExpressVPN. I initially reached out to their customer support folks thinking they had changed something on their end but despite providing them logs and screenshots of my viscosity settings I didnt get anywhere with them, but they seemed to acknowledge that other users were also experiencing this issue and their engineers were looking into it - but they closed my ticket and I haven't heard anything in several days from them.

However, i'm now convinced this is not a ExpressVPN-specific issue because I also attempted my setup with two other VPN services (Privado and Nord) and am seeing the exact same behavior on those services as well, with the only difference being the amount of time that passes between disconnects (which I suspect is simply tied to the ping/ping-restart settings they PUSH to my viscosity open VPN client as I connect).

Interestingly, one thing that I found that helped prolong my connections (e.g. from a few minutes to a few hours) is if I constantly 'pinged' an IP that was being routed through the VPN. I settled on actually using PingPlotter to issue a TCP DNS request to 208.67.222.222 (OpenDNS) every 10 seconds. I'd still get disconnected though every few hours instead of every 2-3 minutes when I employed this workaround. You'll see the OpenDNS IP appear in my routes list in one of the attached screenshots (e.g. 208.67.222.222)

Some of the things I tried already:
  • adjusting the 'ping' and 'ping-restart' settings in the 'options' tab in the 'edit connection' window. These settings seem to get PUSHED from the server anyhow and I think they are being overridden
  • In Viscosity's general settings, trying every permutation of 'adapter type' and 'OpenVPN' version. None of them resolved this issue for me. What I had been using for years prior to encountering this issue was the 'OpenVPN TAP Adapter (Legacy)' for adapter type and 'Automatic' for the OpenVPN type for whatever that is worth - but that obviously isnt working for me anymore.
The full contents of the 'extra openvpn configuration commands' (which is cut off in on of the attached screenshots) is as follows:
cipher AES-256-CBC
fast-io
verb 3
verify-x509-name CN=us9015.nordvpn.com
comp-lzo no
reneg-sec 0
ping-timer-rem
mssfix 1450
tun-mtu-extra 32
remote-random
resolv-retry infinite
pull-filter ignore redirect-gateway
block-outside-dns
auth SHA512
dev-node {268083E1-CBD1-4D4C-8218-22AD307EEA6B}

Thank you for reading this, I hope someone can give me a push in the right direction to get past this.
Attachments
NORD- buffalo 9015 - us9015.nordvpn.com.udp1194 Log.txt
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viscosity-screenshots_compressed.jpg
viscosity-screenshots_compressed.jpg (158.87 KiB) Viewed 10776 times

James

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Joined: Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:27 pm

Post by James » Sat Oct 15, 2022 8:57 am
Hi mattakacas,

Based on it occurring with multiple VPN Service Providers, I'd say there is a good chance the problem is with your router/modem. NAT issues with routers isn't uncommon, and can result in them dropping the internal NAT rule for your VPN connection too quickly. Try the standard troubleshooting steps with it (power-cycle it, try factory resetting it, check firewall and NAT rules, etc.). Also try with a different router/modem if you can (tethering your computer to your phone is another good option).

If that doesn't make a difference, try using a TCP based connection instead of UDP and see whether the same issue occurs. Your VPN Service Provider should have a TCP configuration for the server/location you are connecting to you can import into Viscosity.

If TCP works, but UDP still isn't, see if your VPN Service Provider offers a UDP configuration on a different port number (instead of the default 1194). It's possible for ISP may be attempting to block or interfere with VPN connections (this is uncommon for residential ISPs, but sometimes we see more often for public Wi-Fi hotspots, hotel networks, etc.).

Finally, we have a number of additional suggestions at:
https://www.sparklabs.com/support/kb/ar ... g-restart/

Cheers,
James
Web: https://www.sparklabs.com
Support: https://www.sparklabs.com/support
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sparklabs

mattakacas

Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Oct 15, 2022 5:30 am

Post by mattakacas » Sat Oct 15, 2022 11:46 am
James - thank you. The first thing I tried is swapping the protocol over to TCP. I understand the performance is a little worse than UDP but im not terrible concerned with the speed of my connection but more the reliability.

ExpressVPN didnt have an TCP OVPN files available that I could fine (they are all UDP) - i emailed their support to hopefully get me some. Waiting to hear back.

But -in the meantime - Nord did offer TCP counterparts for each of their UDP OVPNs. So I fired up viscosity using a NORD TCP OVPN as my starting point, made the tweaks I discussed in my original post to only send traffic to a specific set of IPs through the VPN, and walla!

Its been 15 minutes so far and no disconnect, without me doing anything special like the constant pinging like I described in my original post. I'll write back if I continue to have trouble - but I think you got me squared away.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
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