VPN connection dies after about 10 minutes, app doesn't work at all

oaim

Hello,

I've tried to install PIA on a Xubuntu 16.04 system. The result is as follows.

- The PIA icon stays red at all times. Left-clicking or doubleclicking it does nothing, and a right click opens a menu with a disabled "Loading...", "Help" and "Exit".

- The only way I can access the PIA app configuration screen is to (re)run the installation script. Trying to run pia_nw from the commandline gives me a window with just a large text saying "NW.JS". I've tried running everything I can find in ~/pia_manager with no better results.

- There's nothing else at all. All I had is the red icon and the installation script.

Then I set up OpenVPN with the how-to at https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/forum/discussion/18003/openvpn-step-by-step-setups-for-various-debian-based-linux-oss-with-videos-ubuntu-mint-debian/p1. This worked, but the VPN connection stays up for about 6-13 minutes and then dies so that not even a ping goes through, and only a reboot will let me get another functional VPN connection again and even then for only another 6-13 minutes.

I have tried fiddling with ports in the Linux network-manager and through editing the .ovpn files but all changes have just resulted in failure to establish a VPN connection, as opposed to establishing a dead connection. I'm not a technically minded person and I bought PIA expecting something that Just Works. I would really appreciate any help!

Finally here are some logs.

An excerpt from grep VPN syslog, and the same period of time from pia_manager.log: https://pastebin.com/GpQ8KPZb
In syslog there's first a successful VPN connection after a fresh boot; then at 22:38 I shut the VPN connection after it had become unresponsive, and a few minutes later I established a reconnection that doesn't work. The reconnection messages are identical save for the gateway IP...

What ifconfig shows when the VPN connection is functional and using US East:

enp18s0   Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:19:(...)
          inet addr:192.168.0.12  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::(...)/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:162 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:237 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:46013 (46.0 KB)  TX bytes:87813 (87.8 KB)
          Interrupt:17

tun0      Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  
          inet addr:10.5.10.6  P-t-P:10.5.10.5  Mask:255.255.255.255
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:47 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:65 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          RX bytes:26187 (26.1 KB)  TX bytes:6847 (6.8 KB)

After the VPN connection dies:

tun0      Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  
          inet addr:10.5.10.6  P-t-P:10.5.10.5  Mask:255.255.255.255
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:48525 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:18372 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          RX bytes:64004870 (64.0 MB)  TX bytes:1265174 (1.2 MB)

After I've shut down the dead VPN connection and re-established it and it's in a non-working state:

tun0      Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  
          inet addr:10.77.10.6  P-t-P:10.77.10.5  Mask:255.255.255.255
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          RX bytes:0 (0.0   TX bytes:0 (0.0

oaim

sorry, double post

Max-P

Hi!

We are currently aware of the issue with the "Loading..." text. There is already a thread with a temporary workaround there: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/forum/discussion/comment/53376/#Comment_53376

Unfortunately the system log you shared doesn't contain any information as to why the VPN stalled, but I seriously doubt you'd have to reboot to resolve that! However, if you're not sure if your settings are correct or not, I would suggest first maybe reinstalling the VPN profiles with our script here as it preconfigures everything with known correct settings (it's for Ubuntu but the script is compatible with a lot more): https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/client-support/ubuntu-openvpn


For your connectivity issue, for now I think you might want to have a try connecting using TCP instead of UDP as it seems likely that your router somehow doesn't like long-lived UDP sessions. It's an option in both the PIA app and the script depending on whichever option you take!

If you get the app working and it has the same disconnection issue, can you submit a debug log so we have the full OpenVPN log with it? The instructions are available here: https://helpdesk.privateinternetaccess.com/hc/en-us/articles/219459157-How-do-I-create-a-debug-log-for-the-PIA-app-desktop-laptop-

oaim

Ah, I hadn't noticed the Ubuntu script. I reinstalled the profiles with that and now I've been running for an hour and a half without a hitch. Thank you!

martouf

Just Works ..