Orbot vs Proton VPN and disconnects from both

New2MeOS

I've got both Orbot and Proton VPN installed, the latter I added after being frustrated with Orbot randomly disconnecting and/or shutting itself off if left unattended. For a short while, Proton VPN seemed to work better, but that didn't last long and I find myself checking the phone, seeing Proton VPN is still conencted (so says the app), but nothing will open up. A switch back to Orbot fixes this - for a while, until Orbot decides to disconnect again. Ugh.

I understand that Orbot can be buggy, and that a basic VPN can serve people with low threat models better, but I'm wondering why the performance of Proton VPN seems so erratic. I'm in the US and choosing US servers. Wondering if it is simply the lack of available servers that causes this.

I've used both Proton and Nord on my laptop and found Nord stayed connected far better, but I also know Nord is kind of a shit company that sells data and might make the whole point of a VPN useless. I wouldn't want to go back to them unless there's no other choice for reliability.

Wondering what the most reliable way to stay connected is, be that VPN, Orbot or something else. Thoughts?

Chipper

New2MeOS Im a paid user of proton and have never experienced these problems, could be a free (if your free) thing or related to something else ie your isp, wifi router.. Some kind of bug or conflict in apps you run, power/ idle settings etc etc. It sounds like your experiencing this on a home network across multiple devices so that sounds more like a network issue to me...

WorkerBee

New2MeOS Your VPN connection will normally require the 'Always On' setting to be enabled. If you switch between VPNs you will be prompted to disable one and then enable the other. This includes Orbot. 'Always On' is whst keeps your VPN session active.

New2MeOS

Chipper I'm paid with the version that comes with Proton mail, but I know that is the low tier option. There is a higher up that can be had, with more VPN servers and a few other benefits. I used them temporarily once on a trip to China but did not keep the upgrade. I may need to try that again, for local use.

I hadn't explored power/idle settings but that's a good possibility too. I'm going to take the phone out and about today using Proton VPN with 5G (or whatever it comes across) versus wifi to see if that's got something to do with it.

What power/idle setting(s) should I look at?

New2MeOS

WorkerBee Yes, did that - always on, and shut down either Orbot or Proton VPN when switching.
Seems like Proton is the less reliable option.

rustybird

Downgrading Orbot to 17.4.1-BETA-2 (until they fix #1263) should avoid the kind of crash after a few hours that logs the message "android.app.ForegroundServiceStartNotAllowedException: Time limit already exhausted for foreground service type dataSync"

New2MeOS

rustybird I've been going back and forth with Proton VPN and they requested logs, will see what they find, or not. Meanwhile I've gone back to using Orbot, though I didn't try a different version. I may need to do that since I still have the problem of the "Always On" Orbot VPN deciding to shut down now and again.

locked

Also paid Proton, and have not had any major problems.

New2MeOS

Following up with this - Proton service said they would let me know when they figured anything out from the logs I sent, but meanwhile I'm still stumped. Just to ensure it wasn't something else about the phone, I tried Mullvad for a month to see how it goes, and so far, it's been great. Similar features and a good price point, so I may just use this. It would be nice to make full use of the Proton suite since I've got it as part of an email subscription but overall this works well.

jrunck

I have the same issue with Proton VPN continually disconnecting. I think I figured out how to finally resolve it. This has worked for me since yesterday with no disconnects.

FIX: Settings / VpnDialogs / App Battery Usage / Restricted

Set VpnDialogs from Optimized to Restricted. I also did this on Proton VPN and it's resolved the issue on my Pixel 7 Pro.

TGOS

jrunck

I'm using Proton Free via Wireguard App.
I only noticed that a lot of Updates via Obtainium failed so I did the same like you & hope it'll be better

TGOS

Update: still problems.
There's a bug on github https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium/issues/1549#issue-2253556904

New2MeOS

Bringing up this thread because for some reason after Proton VPN working great, it started acting up again. IDK if it was from a recent update, but all instances on every profile started acting weird. I went through and double checked each one, and eventually after force stopping, clearing the cache and in some cases choosing a different country (Canada vs US) I got them all working except for one profile.

This profile is my daily driver profile with most of the apps I use regularly, so it is frustrating. I uninstalled and reinstalled the app, then tried logging in. Proton VPN wouldn't accept my username, and rather than be gaslit into doubting what I know to be true, I tried the guest feature just to see if I could get it going, to no avail.

What could be stopping the VPN from operating even in guest mode? I can't do anything other than uninstall/reinstall again. Other than that the profile works fine with no VPN or even using Orbot, but FFS, I don't want to do either of those every day. Is Proton having problems for others lately?

EDIT: in every profile, battery is unrestricted, Mobile data unrestricted, no fancy DNS settings, and I let the unit pick which service to use (Wireguard, etc). Never had problems, but manually selecting Wireguard didn't help or hurt anything with the other instances of ProtonVPN. I just can't even get Proton going in this one remaining profile at all. "Could not connect to the server" message. What would be in GOS that could stop this?

Rambler

Technically, Orbot is a proxy server, not a VPN in the truest sense of the term. There are differences. If you want to get the best out of it, you have to spend a bit of time understanding its quirks. There are pro's and con's, but your mileage may vary depending on what it is you're doing.

For instance, some platforms don't even allow TOR connections, and if you're downloading, and you have Orbot set to rotating nodes, then the download connection drops halfway through.

Remember also, Orbot is not officially a product created by the Guardian Project. I guess the main reason people use TOR other than the perceived security benefits is that it's free, so with that in mind, the old adage "you get what you pay for" readily comes to mind.

HecticHector

In the VPN settings, go to protocol, change from UDP to TCP.
UDP is for speed, TCP is for reliability.
If on UDP my ProtonVPN disconnects 6 times an hour. On TCP, barely ever.