VPN not working
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blackbird71 last edited byWhen using a VPN, your browser connects to the VPN's server via the VPN's IP address. Your access to websites thus is through the VPN server. If the Internet connection to the VPN server is being blocked by an ISP, national censor, or along the Internet backbone, Internet access through the VPN won't happen. Likewise, if the VPN server is overloaded, misconfigured, or "down", Internet access through the VPN also won't happen. It can be difficult for a user to discern just where the blockage is occurring. If a lot of users are complaining at one time, the odds are that it might be a VPN server issue; if users in only a particular region are complaining, it might be a censorship/local-blockage issue. If only a few users are complaining from different regions, it may be an Opera mis-configuration or individual ISP/DNS issue. Hence, in reporting VPN issues, it's ultimately important to note the geographic region/nation where the user is located (though admittedly, it's not always wise to do so from a 'closed' locale).
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A Former User last edited by
@jfish It seems to be a router thing because it is not working for me as well but when i connect through a mobile hotspot it works fine
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A Former User last edited by
Same For me in the past few days i have been trying to use my VPN but it just keeps "Connecting..." in orange and nothing happens. I tried many thing to try and solve this problem but nothing worked.
In the UAE.
I have a MacOS Mojave Ver 10.14.2 and Opera Ver 57.0.3098.116.
It works when connected to a mobile hotspot or portable wifi router.
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blackbird71 last edited by
@ancientfire1211 If there's intentional blocking of the IPs accessing Opera's VPN servers occurring, there's nothing 'weird' happening, it's simply censor-based prohibition of the VPN connection. This is often done as a means of preventing browser users from circumventing national censoring of Internet viewing of certain sites via a VPN. In such cases, the censors develop lists of IPs used by VPNs or proxy servers and block them at the national Internet level. If the VPN uses local DNS lookup of website IPs, blocking the local DNS server for certain URLs will effectively block them from being accessed over that kind of VPN as well. Censorship blocking can be dynamic, varying with the day's local political environment or even Internet traffic levels (sometimes heavy traffic triggers more or less extensive blocking, depending on the censorship algoriths being used). Blocking can also be performed by making local ISPs force-download block-lists into users' routers software/firmware.
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A Former User last edited by
So i am wondering dose that mean the vpn will never work again in uae or it will?
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blackbird71 last edited by blackbird71
@mahmoudamir611 If Opera's VPN or related DNS lookup is being blocked regionally, it may be intentional or in error. If done in error, its future depends on whether the error gets recognized and corrected. If it's intentional, then blocking will probably remain until the circumstances driving the block decision eventually change. If the problem is blocking of DNS lookups, one could try an alternative DNS scheme (OpenDNS, etc) to see if that resolves things... but it's always possible that alternate DNS schemes could be blocked as well.
If it's safe to contact your ISP or national Internet authorities about the problem, then that should probably be tried - but only you can assess the personal risks in doing so. Another thing to try, of course, might be to employ other VPN services if they can be accessed there, in hopes that one of them isn't also blocked.
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A Former User last edited by
@meidive Not just UAE; but here in the states as well. I know how my network and browser are configured, and they are done so correctly so @blackbird71's suggestion of it being a user blockage isn't correct, at least not for my configuration.
The VPN while a nice idea, has never really worked at all for me, downloads are always interrupted and regardless of the file type or server that I am downloading too/from these files are never found to be interruptible (meaning if the file I am uploading is 2GB in size and I have already uploaded 1.96GB when the file gets interrupted, I have to start all over and re-upload the entire thing all over again)...I am only ever successful when I fully shut the VPN off.
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craigsn last edited by
I live in Brasil, running the latest Opera developer build. VPN hasn't worked for 4 months (or so), so it might be my ISP. Is there a test to see if they are blocking it?
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blackbird71 last edited by
@craigsn In accordance with @leocg's suggestion, if you have Opera
installed on a portable computer that has WiFi capability, try accessing an ordinary, mainstream website using its VPN at a public WiFi hotspot in an area that is likely to be served by a different ISP than your current one (if such exists, perhaps in another town or district). -
blackbird71 last edited by
@craigsn Opera currently operates its own VPN servers; it used to use SurfEasy's when the VPN capability was first included in the browser. That change resulted in Opera offering only regional connections instead of country connections. In using a VPN, multiple steps (and factors) are involved. When you employ Opera's VPN option, the browser obtains proper credentials and talks to the IP of a specified Opera proxy server, using an https connection (which inherently includes https encryption). When a user makes connection to a website URL, Opera's browser VPN mode sends packets to the IP of the VPN server using proxy-authorization request headers over the https connection. The VPN server performs a DNS lookup of the URL to obtain the website's IP and contacts that site. Site data is received by the VPN server, encrypted by https, and sent to the user, who then views the site as if he were able to visit it directly.
Things that might block the VPN from functioning would include:
- Defective/corrupted https certificates for the VPN server as accessed by the browser, or unavailability on the user's system of the necessary encryption protocols specified by the cert and/or VPN server.
- Blockage by the ISP or regional Internet backbone of the IP of Opera's VPN server.
- Interference by the ISP or regional Internet backbone with proxy-authorization request headers in general.
- Problems with the VPN server's DNS lookup of the user-sought URL.
- VPN server problems in general.
- Problems with a site responding to a particular VPN's IP (either intentional or accidental).
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craigsn last edited by
@blackbird71 Thanks for the suggestions. I'll try at a public wifi spot with my laptop. Also, I really appreciate the description of how it works and options.
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