VPN doesn't work after switching from BT to Plusnet

[#1]

My VPN is Private Internet Access, installed as a browser extension. I used it for years with BT broadband (Smart Hub 2) without issue.

On Sep 28, 2021 I switched from BT to Plusnet, and continued using the Smart Hub 2 as my router.

Since switching, every web page yields the same error message when the VPN is running:

This site can’t be reached

The webpage at https://www.google.com/search?q=google&oq=google&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0i271l3j69i65l3j69i60.632j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.

ERR_PROXY_CERTIFICATE_INVALID

The VPN client is working as per usual, I just can't connect to anything. 

Things I've tried that haven't helped:

• restarting the router
• enabling port clamping in Smart Hub 2 Manager
• disabling router firewall in Smart Hub 2 Manager (I also have Plusnet firewall set to "Off")

I've read about possible solutions involving:

• port forwarding
• using a static IP to escape problematic IP ranges

But I'm not sure how to safely troubleshoot beyond what I've already tried.

Help and suggestions greatly appreciated 👍

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Post released from Spam Filter.

[#2]

Thanks for your post @fontwell and welcome to our Community Forums.

I'm sorry to see you're having issues using your VPN with us. Could you contact the developer to look into this and let us know what they say? They should be able to see logs of you trying to connect.

[#3]

Hi, thank you Gandalf.

Good idea. Unfortunately I cannot contact PIA, a cloudflare error on their server prevents me from submitting support tickets, and their is no response from online chat, which keeps silently auto-ending... 🙄

The PIA browser extension does have a built-in debug log, so I've included it below.

This is me connecting to a server in the Netherlands, and then trying to access Google. Most recent log entry is at the top:

ipmanager: {"stack":"TypeError: Failed to fetch\n    at Object.get (chrome-extension://jplnlifepflhkbkgonidnobkakhmpnmh/js/background.js:535:21)\n    at attemptUpdate (chrome-extension://jplnlifepflhkbkgonidnobkakhmpnmh/js/background.js:6697:87)\n    at IpManager.update (chrome-extension://jplnlifepflhkbkgonidnobkakhmpnmh/js/background.js:6723:15)","message":"Failed to fetch","cause":"error"}

ipmanager: {"stack":"TypeError: Failed to fetch\n    at Object.get (chrome-extension://jplnlifepflhkbkgonidnobkakhmpnmh/js/background.js:535:21)\n    at attemptUpdate (chrome-extension://jplnlifepflhkbkgonidnobkakhmpnmh/js/background.js:6697:87)\n    at IpManager.update (chrome-extension://jplnlifepflhkbkgonidnobkakhmpnmh/js/background.js:6723:15)","message":"Failed to fetch","cause":"error"}

icon.js: tooltip updated
icon.js: set icon online
icon.js: tooltip updated
icon.js: set icon online
icon.js: tooltip updated
icon.js: set icon online

ipmanager: {"stack":"TypeError: Failed to fetch\n    at Object.get (chrome-extension://jplnlifepflhkbkgonidnobkakhmpnmh/js/background.js:535:21)\n    at attemptUpdate (chrome-extension://jplnlifepflhkbkgonidnobkakhmpnmh/js/background.js:6697:87)\n    at IpManager.update (chrome-extension://jplnlifepflhkbkgonidnobkakhmpnmh/js/background.js:6723:15)","message":"Failed to fetch","cause":"error"}

ipmanager: {"stack":"TypeError: Failed to fetch\n    at Object.get (chrome-extension://jplnlifepflhkbkgonidnobkakhmpnmh/js/background.js:535:21)\n    at attemptUpdate (chrome-extension://jplnlifepflhkbkgonidnobkakhmpnmh/js/background.js:6697:87)\n    at IpManager.update (chrome-extension://jplnlifepflhkbkgonidnobkakhmpnmh/js/background.js:6723:15)","message":"Failed to fetch","cause":"error"}

ipmanager: {"stack":"TypeError: Failed to fetch\n    at Object.get (chrome-extension://jplnlifepflhkbkgonidnobkakhmpnmh/js/background.js:535:21)\n    at attemptUpdate (chrome-extension://jplnlifepflhkbkgonidnobkakhmpnmh/js/background.js:6697:87)\n    at IpManager.update (chrome-extension://jplnlifepflhkbkgonidnobkakhmpnmh/js/background.js:6723:15)","message":"Failed to fetch","cause":"error"}

icon.js: tooltip updated
icon.js: set icon online

proxy.js: enabled

ipmanager: updating ip address
ipmanager: updating ip address

icon.js: ignore set icon online, not online
icon.js: ignore set icon online, not online
icon.js: ignore set icon online, not online

This resulted in the same error I described in my first post:

This site can’t be reached

The webpage at https://www.google.com/search?q=google&oq=google&aqs=chrome.0.69i59l2j0i271l3j69i65l3.1264j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.

ERR_PROXY_CERTIFICATE_INVALID

The PIA client is acting normally and connects to different countries just fine, but when I actually try to load a web page I get this error.

The fact that this problem arose immediately after switching from BT to Plusnet makes me think it's some strange Plusnet configuration causing the issue, rather than a problem with PIA, but I could be wrong.

I'm not sure how to troubleshoot this further, any ideas?

In the meantime I will try to get in contact with PIA.

[#4]

Hi @fontwell,

I'm sorry to hear that you've encountered this issue. As my colleague, @Gandalf, has suggested, the best thing to do for the time being would be to contact the VPN devs and see what they say about the case. That being said, would you be able to try installing the Plusnet Hub One router we'd sent you? I'm not entirely convinced this will resolve this particular issue, but it wouldn't hurt to try any method of troubleshooting available to us.