Viscosity Working Settings - No more disconnects

DavidG

For a long time I have been plagued with random disconnects using both the PIA client and Viscosity. Finally I think I have it sorted.

First of all visit this link and make sure you have installed Viscosity and imported the appropriate regional settings file. The one shown below is for UK Southhampton but yours may well be different.

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/client-support/osx-viscosity

Once you have this edit the connection and make the following changes shown in green.

I used to get intermittent disconnects even when the connection was idle. Now it seems rock solid,

[Deleted User]

@DavidG Thank you kindly for this! While I don't use OS X and can't test it firsthand, I hope it can be helpful to others!

DavidG

I would imagine it's appropriate to Viscosity on all platforms.

tomeworm

I've been a long time user of Viscosity (on Mac). Among other things I've found it to be far more stable than the PIA app, and that includes the OpenVPN files as furnished from PIA, generally with no changes needing to be made.

I'm glad to see you've found a solution that works for you. However, I have serious doubts the changes you've made have much if anything at all to do with your random disconnects ceasing. There's nothing in the default settings that could cause or result in random disconnects and, thus, nothing you've changed that could stop the disconnects. As such something else you've missed has not been factored in.

What may be at play here is a random problem that has only ceased temporarily. Proper troubleshooting necessitates factoring that possibility in and not assuming that just because a problem seemingly went away when you changed a setting that that setting change "fixed" anything.

You've also changed several unrelated settings, which makes it impossible to gain any insight as to the underlying issues(s) at play. Proper troubleshooting also necessitates changing only one thing at a time, testing the result, then changing the setting back to the original and testing again to validate your findings. Only then is it reasonable to report your results.

I have several theories about what it is you actually did change, and none of them are what you have highlighted in green. Please go back and double check your work by resetting those settings to the default ones, one at a time, and report back which one (if any) puts you back in the random disconnect situation.

Start by disabling ping. If your disconnects resume then we'll have a bread crumb trail to follow. Then we can check your Viscosity logs.

Max-P

Actually the only setting that likely has an effect on this is the first one: ping and ping restart. Those options tells OpenVPN to ping the server every 10 seconds and to force restart the VPN after 3600 seconds (1 hour) of not receiving a reply to the pings.

You can probably speed up the reconnect process by lowering the Ping Restart option as needed since you're pinging the server every 10 seconds.

tomeworm

Max-P said:

Actually the only setting that likely has an effect on this is the first one: ping and ping restart.

Agreed. But the question is why, unless something is messed up, would the client need to ping the server? The server is supposed to be pinging the client as a "keep alive signal." The client pinging the server isn't a "fix" is it?

Max-P

@tomeworm The server does, yes. The problem is that depending on the version of OpenVPN and how it is configured, the *client* doesn't realize the server's gone and just keeps trying. So the VPN effectively stalls while OpenVPN just keeps sending data that's getting dropped at the other end.

There is a few things that irks me about that one tho as the VPN *should* fail for inactivity timeout and failure to renegociate the keys hourly. But it's Viscosity, it's not unlikely it configures OpenVPN or tries to handle disconnections differently and whoops, and that this fixes it.

If it works...

tomeworm

Max-P said:

@tomeworm The server does, yes. The problem is that depending on the version of OpenVPN and how it is configured, the *client* doesn't realize the server's gone and just keeps trying.

You're losing me. The OP's problem is "random disconnects using both the PIA client and Viscosity." He came up with not a fix but a bandaid by pinging the server. But that bandaid is one not available to him in the PIA app. But even if the PIA app had a setting like Viscosity does to ping the server that still wouldn't be a fix. Furthermore, there isn't a setting in the PIA app to select what version of OpenVPN to use either

How about a genuine fix for the OP, okay?

@DavidG, I can suggest you check your OpenVPN version set to in Viscosity (you have a couple of choices). It should be set to at least to 2.4 (under the "Advanced" tab). This is just part of the troubleshooting steps. Regardless of what we find it's still not a fix. Any such efforts are pointless if you can't even get a reliable connection using the PIA app. The actual problem is elsewhere and I hope PIA will step in and fix it for you.

[Deleted User]

@tomeworm in the future I'd appreciate if you tag me in on this kind of issue when you become aware of it! It will be extremely helpful to me in my own lists of needed fixes and criticisms to push through. I wasn't even aware this issue existed, but I am now! I don't like the thought that something could go unnoticed or unchanged for as long as DavidG is mentioning, but I shudder to think it would have continued on without my knowledge if I hadn't stumbled upon this thread. I need support from the community to call things out to my attention if I want to make a difference.

@DavidG tomeworm is right more or less, there's logically an underlying issue that isn't discussed here, but it needs to be looked into properly. I can't tell for sure what the cause is as it could be on your side or PIA's to be honest. I would like to ask you to open a technical support ticket and I will have them escalate it to keep a record of the issue. It doesn't matter if you've already opened tickets in the past, I'm requesting you to open one now just the same. Feel free to mention that s0wmonster asked you to do it for records purposes. Thank you for bringing this to my attention!

tomeworm

sn0wmonster said:

@tomeworm in the future I'd appreciate if you tag me in on this kind of issue when you become aware of it!

Will do.

Glad to see someone now functioning in the role of a customer advocate. That's much needed.