VPN apps keep loosing connectivity

water1151

I have the same issue with both wireguard and tailscale VPNs. I'll loose all connectivity randomly every 2-10 hours and have to cycle the VPN on/off to fix. I can monitor packets on my router and there is nothing at all leaving the phone when this happens. The wireguard app log is just repeated handshake attempts.

I have 2 Pixel 6 phones, one with Graphene and one stock. The stock google pixel doesn't have these issues.

I've tried:
Always on VPN enabled/disabled
MTU: 1420
Battery mode: unrestricted
Unrestricted data usage
Exploit protection compatibility mode
Reset network settings
Private DNS: Automatic/OFF
All kinds of different DNS settings/servers

Anyone else experience this issue? I'm loosing my mind.

guser39

water1151 what is your network connectivity setup? Do you have mobile and WiFi connectivity enabled simultaneously? What happens if you disable one?

[deleted]

I use Proton VPN and have experienced zero issues using it on GrapheneOS.

water1151

I always have wifi and mobile data enabled. I could try to disable wifi for a day but it happens when I'm at home on wifi and also when I'm out of the house on mobile data.

Edit: Also forgot to mention this phone with the issues uses 2 sim cards, my wife's pixel 6 that works with the same VPN configurations is a single sim. Maybe I'll try to find an old phone for one of the sims for a day to see if that's related.

f13a-6c3a

I've had a very similar problem for years with Proton VPN - started with Pixel 6 and continued through 2 versions of Android and 2 versions of Pixels. I've worked for months with Proton support but unfortunately solution was never found. I think I've tried every possible setting and configuration to no avail. The issue persisted on GOS as well.
I eventually "solved" the problem by switching from Proton VPN app to Wireguard native client - still using Proton VPN servers and now my connection stays on for weeks.

The uniqueness of the issue makes me think that my own environment, such as wireless router and/or firewall configs, possibly, somehow either contributed or outright caused the issue - I dont have any other explanation of why only I on different hardware phones each with different versions of OS experienced this. Could something like that pertain to you? Maybe try disabling WiFi completely to test if if connection drop will occur on mobile data only.

user

Could it be related on GOS mac randomization?

f13a-6c3a

user it wasn't in my case and most likely not related to OP issue either as it would only affect connection to a WiFi router

water1151

user
I use radius authentication on my home network so it's setup to use device MAC.

water1151

I think I have figured it out. My wireguard server at home is behind a NAT firewall and I now have persistent keepalive set on the server to 25 seconds. So far so good for the last day.

Referencing:
NAT and Firewall Traversal Persistence Section of Wireguard quick start guide
This reddit thread

Edit: I'll update this post and mark as resolved in a couple days if the issue is completely resolved. I now don't think this is GrapheneOS related but someone might find this in a search for the same issue.

water1151

It's been a couple days now and the VPN issues are resolved.

In case anyone finds this thread on a search, if you are running a Wireguard server behind a NAT firewall and loose connectivity look into persistent keepalive.

pinetree_raccoon

I’m running wireguard on my home opnsense box and experiencing the same thing. the persistent keep alive setting you changed to 25 seconds, was that on the firewall appliance or in the android wireguard app?

Hb1hf

This is likely unrelated to OP's problem, but I just wanted to leave it here because it might help someone who stumbles into this thread.

Having both 2GHz and 5GHz enabled under the same SSID can be a problem. Maybe because of Mac randomization, as pointed here, I don't know.

You might not notice the networks changing (unless more visibly by the change of signal strength), but OpenVPN for Android certainly does, and can lose connectivity when it happens.

It may be a good idea to separate them, or disable 5GHz altogether of 2g is enough to handle the isp speed.