Can I disable the always on VPN service?

VPN
1

I have different VPN software for different purposes… OpenVPN to access my home network, Nord for global servers, and Datally for general data conservation. Previously, I would open the app I wanted to use and tap connect or disconnect. Now when I want to switch VPN services the process is:

  1. Swipe down from the top of the screen
  2. Swipe down again
  3. Tap the gear icon
  4. Choose Network settings
  5. Tap Advanced
  6. Tap VPN
  7. Locate the service I want to use and tap the gear next to it
  8. Tap the slider switch to make it the Always On VPN service
  9. Close settings
  10. Open the appropriate VPN app
  11. Tap connect

Why??!

Edit: clearly I have no idea how to do bullet numbers above 9.

2

This won’t get you all the way there but might help: OVPN has its own “always on” option (apologies, not sure if needs root) and you can add an OVPN connection to your dropdown bar. In this cas, about half of your steps would be eliminated since you can disable that connection and then go over to Network.

Additionally, your first 6 steps can be condensed down to 4 since you get the little key icon at the bottom of the expanded dropdown when connected to a VPN, so you can get to VPN settings much faster by tapping that.

3

Previously, I would open the app I wanted to use and tap connect or disconnect.

Why can’t you keep doing that? What happens when you try to do so?

4

I just tried your method using the key and it worked, so that’s a little bit of progress. Thanks.

I browsed in OVPN a bit and didn’t see anything that looked like what you refer to, so maybe it requires root. I have a rooted tablet with OVPN so I’ll check on that when I get a chance.

5

If it is not the app identified as your always on VPN, it simply won’t connect. No error, no message, it just times out.

Once you go into settings and change it to be the always on VPN everything works fine.

6

It’s under the generic settings in OVPN https://imgur.com/puGrTwd.jpg. I’ll be honest though I haven’t had much luck with it, the OS autoconnect works better.

7

What if you disable the Always on setting for all your VPNs?

8

You know, I could swear that I tried this already, but I just did it and it is working like it used to. So I think that I was having some connection issues with OpenVPN because my router was defaulting to UDP and I could never get connected. I must have tried disabling them all while I was still dealing with that issue so it seemed as though it didn’t work.

That fixed the problem though. Thanks for making me go back to the basics! I was looking for a master switch of some sort to deactivate the always on setting.