PIA still doesn't work with Mac OS 10.13 High Sierra? Apparently this has been reported since June.
PIA connecting by "auto" takes me to a domestic server in my region (but it doesn't matter which server I select); then I have no Internet access. No Web, and can't even ping Google.
I see forum posts about this going back to the High Sierra betas early in the summer.
Anybody know what the story is here? That's pretty insufferable.
I see forum posts about this going back to the High Sierra betas early in the summer.
Anybody know what the story is here? That's pretty insufferable.
Comments
WHAT IS GOING ON?
Thanks for reaching out today.
There's not even a "check for updates" menu item in your application. Come on!
Let me suggest ya'll just uninstall the PIA app altogether and install either Tunnelblick or Viscosity. That's what I did a couple years ago after too many problems with the PIA app to count. No problems since then.
As far as I'm aware Viscosity has no port forwarding options. So if you absolutely need it then you may have no choice but to use the PIA app on an as-needed basis (that is if you can even identify a version of it that might sort of work for you).
The only thing I ever used port forwarding in the PIA app (when I did use it long ago) was for downloading a non-tracker DHT-only torrent file that had run into "announce" issues. Connecting to a PIA server that supports port forwarding can get those downloads going much more quickly. But I also found that such torrents even without port forwarding usually do eventually start up on their own. It just takes patience.
Of course I'm just guessing at this point and really don't know what you're trying to accomplish. Feel free to elaborate. Happy to help if I can.
So summary of the above ramble is that for torrent related apps Viscosity seems excellent and I like what it offers but can't use Mail or browsers - so sadly not a viable solution for me. PIA with the port forward endpoint etc is now working with the reversion to v71.
Hope that all makes sense.
Switching to TCP and using different ports is usually to workaround router or ISP bugs. For the operating system it's all the same. Your router should have no problem with NAT'ing UDP properly, as it's about the same as TCP but usually implemented with a simple timeout instead. Changing ports is nothing but ISP throttling/blocking as it's a number all the way down to the raw packets and they shouldn't mess with it at all.
If you do forward ports to your computer, the forwarded port is what the "Local port" field is for in the app. When blank, OpenVPN just picks a random port (as does 99% of everything else on your computer), but you can force it to use one in particular. It doesn't have to match the one you're connecting to, only the one that's forwarded to your computer so it makes use of it. But again, this shouldn't be needed as your router is supposed to learn it automagically.
Unfortunately I don't have a Mac so I have no idea why or how it could work with some apps but not the others. What's the exact error message your browsers and Mail says?
Not sure if it helps to clarify but I have the cable modem from my ISP (which can provide wifi and DHCP etc) set to bridge mode which turns off NAT so then my LAN DHCP etc is via the Nighthawk R8000. Turning on wifi (manual switch) on the cable modem (the one set to bridge mode) requires me to type the same wifi password as the R8000 uses rather than the one if the cable modem / router were the only network device, so the R8000 is managing wifi authentication. Connecting my Mac via wifi rather than the standard network cable to the network SSID on the bridged cable modem allows me to connect ok. E.g. my son has in-game comms working in Warframe if he connects to the SSID on the bridged cable modem but if he connects to my R8000, even with port forwards set up for the 2 UDP ports that Warframe stipulates the in-game comms does not work.
So I suspect you're correct - there is some issue in the R8000 that is causing things that should work to not work. The only other "non standard" thing is that I use Parental Control on the R8000 which basically uses OpenDNS and as you know that simply changes the DNS and with my account it gives access to some basic whitelist / blacklist facilities.
With the PIA app even since day 1 - using the pre v7x versions - I have had to "fiddle" the network settings to ensure I can access the Mail server, browser access works and the torrent apps work. The torrent apps have always only worked also when I connect to a port-forward endpoint and I have port-forwarding enabled in the PIA app and a corresponding port-forward configured in the R8000. It should be a whole lot simpler and more automatic I know. Viscosity works fine with the torrent apps but Mail and browsers don't, hence reverting to v71 PIA and the protocol settings being manually set rather than using the default "auto".
@fprovo, yes, the PIA app is working on High Sierra. However, there are quite a few things that can still cause connectivity issues when the app is fundamentally operational, usually due to network configuration or interference from security software.