I try to connect to a site without a VPN. It works fine on both PC and Android. I try to connect to the same site using a VPN service on PC, and it works fine. I try to connect to the site using the same VPN, same server, on an Android device and the site won’t load. It refuses the connection. Why would the behavior be so different between a PC and an Android if they’re both connected to the same VPN server? Is there anything I can try to make the site work on Android as well as PC?
Are you certain that it’s actually the same server (as in the same server IP address) and not, for example, a different server from that provider that is located in the same city?
What happens if you put the site’s IP address in the address bar instead of its domain name? If the IP address works but the domain name does not, that would point to a DNS issue on the Android phone, caused by the VPN app when the VPN is in use. The workaround would then be to change which DNS servers you use.
- Is the Android phone unable to connect to any site while using the VPN, or is it just this specific site that’s not working?
- Have you tried this with the phone connected to the same WiFi network as the PC, or is the PC connected to your home/work/school Internet while your phone is connected to cellular data?
- For either machine, did you use a generic VPN client that you configured manually (or imported some configuration file) to give it the settings needed to work with your VPN provider? Or for both machines, are you using a VPN client developed by your VPN provider?
Yeah, it’s the same server. But even if it wasn’t, any random server works on PC and none work on Android.
IKEv2, WireGuard, none work on Android.
Interesting idea but no dice.
Just one specific site. There are two or three sites that this happens to; as in a PC will connect to the site but an Android running the same VPN won’t. But the internet in general works fine.
Same wifi networks. The Android won’t connect to these sites on LTE or wifi. I’ve toggled the MTU and no change.
The VPN client is provided by the VPN provider in both cases.
Literally all conditions are exactly the same except for the device, being a PC or an Android running the latest version of Android. I can’t figure out why the site would refuse an Android connection, even when the Android browser is set to display a PC screen. Somehow the site detects a difference and blocks the connection based on that. Other locations won’t work either, so it isn’t a location thing.
It might be worth mentioning that only 1 VPN provider has this specific issue. Other VPNs don’t have this problem. So it’s less of a “VPN” problem and more of “this VPN” but I still want to figure out why.
I wonder if this could be an IPv6 autoconfiguration issue. I’m no expert on this, but I peek in /r/IPv6 from time to time and I’ve seen them mention that Android supports SLAAC, but not DHCPv6.
Some VPN providers provide IPv6 tunnels and some don’t. The two VPN providers I’ve used over the years were both IPv4 only, and because of that their official clients automatically disabled IPv6 when connected to the VPN (otherwise, users’ IPv4 traffic would go through their VPN, but their IPv6 traffic would reveal their true ISP and IP address).
My theory in this comment is that maybe your VPN provider implements an IPv6 tunnel, but the DHCPv6 is correctly autoconfigured by the VPN provider, but SLAAC is not. Thus, your PC is correctly configured for IPv6 while using the VPN (because it can use DHCPv6), but your Android phone has to use SLAAC (which happens to have a misconfiguration) and therefore can’t properly connect to IPv6 sites.
I could be way offbase here. If someone reads this comment knows more about IPv6, please feel free to correct me. I’m not saying IPv6 = bad or that SLAAC = bad, but maybe this particular VPN provider bungled their SLAAC settings somehow. OP, you could ask in /r/ipv6 if that is even a thing.
Yeah. Nothing changes. The PC connection also isn’t an OpenVPN connection. It isn’t being throttled/blocked by the ISP, the target site refuses the connection.
That’s interesting, thank you for putting so much effort into your reply. I’ll definitely look further into that.