Work VPN occasionally dropping

[#1]

Hi,

When working from home, my connection will often drop. When I click on the Wi-Fi, my VPN will say “connecting” as if that’s what’s dropped. Occasionally my internet connection will follow.

I spoke to my IT department and they advised it was a Plusnet issue. They couldn’t find anything and the same thing didn’t happen when connected to the office Wi-Fi. I spoke to someone from Plusnet today and they also said they couldn’t find anything wrong so directed me here.

I’ve tried the classics - turning laptop on/off, resetting router. Following advice on another post, I’ve disabled the firewall in my router admin settings - is this wise? I’m yet to test if this resolved the issue.

I’ve had the following error message under the VPN connection: “the remote connection was not made because the name of the remote access server did not resolve.”

My browser will often say “your internet access is blocked. Firewall or anti-virus software may have blocked the connection.”

Using work-specific software, I’ll get the error message “your connection was interrupted - a network change was detected. ERR_NETWORK_CHANGED

I don’t know if any of that is relevant or helpful, but thought it would be worth posting.

Hope you can help!

[#2]

Hi @stef12,

I can see you spoke to a colleague yesterday regarding this and they directed you to another post.

Did any of that manage to get the issue resolved?

My testing can't pick up any problems.

How long would you say this has been impacting you?

Thanks,

Lex

[#3]

Hi Lex,

Thank you for your reply. It hasn’t been resolved yet, unfortunately. I couldn’t access the other post when I tried yesterday, which is why I created a new one. Is it worth trying the old post again?

It happened as soon as I switched to Plusnet. I didn’t have any issues with Sky before that.

[#4]

Hi,

Can I ask if you altered any settings please? I’ve just logged on to check my work computer before tomorrow and it won’t connect at all. Even though WiFi and VPN are connected.

I’m quite frustrated now. My IT department are saying it’s nothing to do with them as it looks like it’s my internet connection and Plus net are saying it’s not them because they don’t deal with VPNs! Plusnet support advising I post on the community, but nothing here either.

What am I supposed to do?

[#5]

I’d arrange a set time with your IT Dept to try again. They could then monitor attempted connections and failures.

Knowing the time would also help when they look through the logs. Good luck.

Added : I see you’ve just moved from Sky, I wonder if the remote system is setup to accept your old IP address not the new Plusnet one. Unless you’ve a fixed IP the IP address will frequently change.

[#6]

Thank you for your reply - please can I ask how you can tell if the IP address is fixed? I’m sure the Plusnet chap told me it was “dynamic” and he couldn’t change it.

[#7]

It’s unlikely to be fixed as I don’t think Plusnet supply them now. If dynamic there are work arounds.
Your IT Dept should advise else there are probably forum members with relevant experience.

[#8]

Something I often recommend when there are VPN problems is to reduce the MTU that your computer uses - VPNs encapsulate the packets and so add a size overhead. If a packet is sent that happens to be larger than the MTU that something along the path can handle it will be split. It is relatively common for something else along the path to the VPN server to not handle the split packets correctly, leading to packet loss and general unhappiness.

Often an MTU of 1472 or less helps.

[#9]

Thank you for your reply - can I ask how I’d find out if this is the issue and how to go about resolving it please?

[#10]

Thank you for replying - I don’t suppose you know how to tell if it’s dynamic or static do you please?

[#11]

@stef12 How long have you been with PN, and have you ever requested a static IP?

[#12]

Since the middle of June.

I mentioned that there’d been discussion about static/dynamic IP addresses on this forum to the chap on the phone and he said that he couldn’t amend those settings.

Can I?

[#13]

Can I? 

No , static IPs have not been available to new customers for some while now. As you joined in June, they certainly wont be available to you.

[#14]

Righty-ho!

[#15]

@stef12 

Which VPN client are you using?

I know plusnet support suggest no fault some of your opening text might suggest there might be, you reference WiFi but do you mean your broadband connection?

Have you a Part Fibre (FTTC/SoGEA) or Full Fibre connection?

Have you noticed the Hub Two light changing from Blue to Orange or Flash Orange when your VPN stops working?

If you have not factory reset the Hub recently or since the last VPN fault could you attach the Hubs event.log to a post?

Using a PC; from the Hubs home page navigate >Advanced Settings >Technical log >Event log select Export 

The event log is exported to the Downloads folder as a CSV file, use the paper clip below the reply window to attach to a post.