New problem with iOS VPN Connection

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TrojanHorse
OpenVpn Newbie
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2021 9:45 pm

New problem with iOS VPN Connection

Post by TrojanHorse » Mon Sep 20, 2021 9:54 pm

hello,

First post here. I had been running the OpenVPN just fine on both a Windows 10 laptop and iOS phones. OpenaVPN is the default VPN service on my Netgear Nighthawk R7000 Router. I recently changed from a cable modem to a Verizon Wireless gateway with Verizon as my new ISP. While this gateway can act as a router, I believe I have it set up to act properly as a gateway only, and routing is handled with the Netgear router as it has been for years.

After this change, the VPN on the Windows laptop works fine but the iOS phones do not. The iOS phones work with some apps but not others. Much of my need for the VPN on my phone is for home security and automation apps. So for example, I cannot view my cameras on my phone anymore (although I can on the laptop). However, I am able to use an app that controls my stereo and another app that controls my lighting and security system. Neither of these apps connect through the cloud so I know that the VPN is working properly on these apps.

Any thoughts on why I can't access everything on my network with my phones anymore? I know enough to have set this up before but don't know how to troubleshoot this problem. I suspect that the new Verizon gateway is part of the problem but I'm not sure what to do.

Thanks in advance for any help.

connex
OpenVpn Newbie
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Sep 27, 2021 12:05 am

Re: New problem with iOS VPN Connection

Post by connex » Mon Sep 27, 2021 12:12 am

I have been experiencing issues connecting over 4G from my iOS device. It connects fine, but accessing services can be hit and miss. Sometimes only ports 80 and 443 are accessible on endpoints. I add an additional route to the config as my OpenVPN server gives me an address in a different subnet to the one my server resides in. Quite often I won’t be able to RDP into a server, but disconnecting and reconnecting my OpenVPN connection has sometimes resolved this, though this is now becoming less often and it simply doesn’t work.
To me this makes no sense as everything should be being tunneled through the OpenVPN connection. I have no issues using the same connection file from a laptop.
The only thing which fixes the issue is if I have an additional device with me which I can hotspot to over wifi. Once done I have no issue connecting to all my services behind the VPN. I’d suggest you try this to see if it makes any difference.
If anyone can shed any light on this behaviour I’d welcome any suggestions.

connex
OpenVpn Newbie
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Sep 27, 2021 12:05 am

Re: New problem with iOS VPN Connection

Post by connex » Sun Oct 24, 2021 10:29 pm

Just wanted to give an update to this issue as no one has commented so am presuming the problem is not widespread. I have resolved the problem by ensuring by phone is connected to a commercial VPN service on my phone before VPNing into my network. From previous observations, this makes sense as the commercial VPN is encapsulating all my traffic instead of the telco carrier being able to modify it or cause the connection to break.
Would love to hear if anyone else had experienced these issues. Am running this in Australia and I experience the same problem over 4G and 5G networks if I don’t connect to a VPN first.

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