Can't get Proton VPN to work

Support
1

Hello,

Requirements:

I have Searched the forum for my issue and found nothing related or helpful
I have checked the Resources category (Resources Index)
I have reviewed the Wiki for relevant information
I have read the the Release Notes and Errata

OpenMandriva Lx version:

OpenMandriva LX 6.0

Desktop environment (KDE, LXQT…):

KDE

Description of the issue (screenshots if relevant):

I’ve installed Proton VPN flatpak from flathub, and it won’t connect. When I try to connect, I get a pop-up in right corner of screen that says: Connection ‘pvpn-killswitch’ activated. The title-bar says “Network Management” - I can’t find an app that is named that?? Any help would be appreciated.

Relevant informations (hardware involved, software version, logs or output…):

I don’t know how to get logs.

1 Like
2

Greetings.

Because it is a flatpak, the entire application is self contained along with all the libraries and dependencies you will need. I think it is also a GTK application. Please also see the guidance here:

" We currently don’t support installation of our official app through Flatpak(new window) or the Arch official extra repositories(new window), although community contributors have published unofficial versions that you can use at your own risk. These may work, but they are not developed by us and we can’t provide support for them."

It looks like you will need to contact the authors of the flatpak.

3

Killswitch is an option in ProtonVPN. You can turn it off from the menu in the vpn app, or you could manually disconnect the killswitch entry in the network manager in your system tray.

2 Likes
4

How do you know it’s not working? What have you done to test that assumption? Because based on what you’ve written, I don’t see anything obvious that indicates it’s not working. Have you tested your IP before and after turning it on? Visit somewhere like whatismyip.com and see if it shows a different IP address after you activate it.

Otherwise, let’s start with something like journalctl -u NetworkManager.service --since=today to see what the NetworkManager logs show around the time you are activating the VPN.

If you give me a few minutes, I’ll test it on my system and see what I come up with (though I’m running Rome and not Rock 6.0, but, I don’t think that will matter honestly)

Edit: Just tested on my system, I get connected, and verify that my connectivity is going through the VPN.

2 Likes
5

Wow! Thanks for the quick responses!

@zeroability - are you suggesting installing an alternative way (other than flatpak)? Would / Should I follow the instructions for installing on Fedora - since OpenMandriva is dnf based?

@ajgraves - I know it’s not working because when I try to connect to a server - it says connecting… then says “connection error” … and that repeats over and over. While that is happening in the app window, I get the pop-up in right corner of screen that goes back and forth between pvpn-killswitch and wired connection 1 … over and over until I cancel.

@LeeTalbert - That is very interesting. I looked and killswitch seems to be turned off in ProtonVPN settings.

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1 Like
6

I would try some other suggestions for the flatpak from people here that use it. It may or may not work to use a package from another distribution. Their dependency names may be different or older and things may end up not working, but in a different and possibly worse way.

1 Like
7

Didn’t read your edit until now. I guess since it works for you it’s unique to my system somehow. And to follow up, I get – No entries – when I do ‘journalctl -u NetworkManager.service --since=today’

8

I found it! Thanks everyone. For future reference, I had to go to settings in the ProtonVPN app, and change the “Protocol” setting to “OpenVPN (TCP)”. For some reason my default setting was “Wireguard” (whatever that is??).

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Edit: duckduckgo-ing I see that Wireguard is an open-source VPN protocol. Doing a ‘dnf search wireguard’ I see a package named ‘wireguard-tools.znver1 : Fast, modern, secure VPN tunnel’

Is that something I should consider installing? Is it better than using OpenVPN ?

1 Like
9

I use the ProtonVPN flatpak on three computers, and all of them have occosional trouble with wireguard, but my Arch computer and android phone have no problems with wireguard. I think it is just an issue with the flatpak. There is nothing wrong with OpenVPN protocol.

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10

I also use the flatpak, and after a recent update, I started having issues. After searching the Proton VPN Flatpak GitHub repo, I found that others were having a similar issue. Following a suggestion in the below post to downgrade to an earlier version fixed the issue for me.

Also, if this works, you can stop flatpak from updating the app until the issue is fully resolved, but I can’t remember the command to do that.

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11

Oh…and this fix only worked on my ROME system. I have a second computer running ROCK 6.0, and this fix didn’t work.

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