No connectivity using nord vpn

mrochester · 3 Mar 2019 at 06:50

hi all.

I’ve used nord vpn for nearly a year now and at home connected to my home WiFi and out and about on my mobile network it works fine.

I’ve just arrived at a holiday cottage yesterday and I have been sad enough to bring my own Tenda mesh WiFi system with me. (different to the one I use at home).

The problem I’m having is that no matter what nord vpn server I connect to, none of my devices have any connectivity. As soon as I turn the vpn off, everything works great. I’ve tried numerous different vpn servers.

I’ve also tried taking my tenda mesh WiFi system out of the loop and connecting directly to the supplied router. No good either.

The broadband supplied is one of these alternative methods of getting broadband as I believe it’s a 4G base station up on the hill which gets beamed down to a receiver on the outside of the property.

Has anyone got any idea why my vpn would suddenly stop working connected to this particular WiFi?

RetiredIT · 3 Mar 2019 at 11:11

It sounds as though the 4G connection supplying internet is blocking VPN access. You will need a different holiday cottage.

mrochester · 3 Mar 2019 at 11:12

RetiredIT said:
It sounds as though the 4G connection supplying internet is blocking VPN access. You will need a different holiday cottage.

That’s a shame! I’ll just have to live without the VPN for the week.

mrkev · 3 Mar 2019 at 14:19

NordVPN has multiple ways to connect. Have you tried the different options?

mrochester · 3 Mar 2019 at 14:20

mrkev said:
NordVPN has multiple ways to connect. Have you tried the different options?

Other than selecting different servers I haven’t tried anything else. What were you thinking?

APM · 3 Mar 2019 at 14:26

Different ports or protocols,should all be there in settings.

UDP could be worth a pop.

mrochester · 3 Mar 2019 at 14:27

APM said:
Different ports or protocols,should all be there in settings.

UDP could be worth a pop.

The only settings are ‘kill switch’ and ‘cybersec’.

Kol · 3 Mar 2019 at 15:26

Strange, what device you using (without the mesh system)?

My default is UDP on the android app, there's an option (cog, top left) for cybersec, obfuscated and use TCP

mrochester · 3 Mar 2019 at 15:28

Kol said:
Strange, what device you using (without the mesh system)?

My default is UDP on the android app, there's an option (cog, top left) for cybersec, obfuscated and use TCP

It's just the standard iOS NordVPN app.

APM · 3 Mar 2019 at 18:45

What does cybersec bring up?

mrochester · 3 Mar 2019 at 18:53

APM said:
What does cybersec bring up?

Cybersec just says ‘blocks ads and malware’.

Rainmaker · 3 Mar 2019 at 22:49

The iOS app uses Apple's native IKEv2 IPSEC for the VPN rather than OpenVPN or something else. Likely the ports are blocked by your holiday wifi provider. You ideally need something that uses port 443, even better if there's a choice of TCP (just in case UDP is blocked, though UDP on port 53 will work). You can download ovpn files from Nord and install the open source OpenVPN app, then add the configs to it and try again.