Barrier suddenly stopped working

I have been using Barrier with no issues for about 6 weeks across my Kubuntu 23.04 and Windows 11 laptop. Yesterday, W11 issues with my VPN caused me to use support and allow control of that laptop. While active with support, things like no keyboard on W11 occurred and thankfully I had Barrier to type on my Linux machine and copy/paste to the chat window in W11. After 7 hours of support and no resolution, I gave up on fixing the issue in W11 and was using Kubuntu with barrier and noticed it would no longer travel to the W11 machine. I have tried reinstalling on W11 and am about to do the same on Kubuntu to see if it will change anything, but the log file currently states that Kubuntu Barrier has no clients (which is true as everytime I add the W11 machine name it never connects so I delete) and log file on W11 says unable to connect. I do remember while trying to add a W11 tablet at one point I actually got a notification on the Linux side that the tablet was trying to connect and I accepted the request and it connected, but still I was never able to move to that screen. Log in Kubuntu shows me attempting to move up, down, left, right but no client located there.

I have to believe that something on the W11 side changed to cause this sudden non-working state as nothing has changed on Linux except a couple of system upgrade packages installed earlier on this same day, but Barrier was working after that. I also used timeshift to go back to that early morning before contacting support in hopes it would right whatever was wrong, but no change.

My opinion of most tech support has been low: they never seem to know any more than I do and now it appears something else got messed up in the process. Could be wrong but I am hoping someone here can help me troubleshoot this.

Anything you need, let me know. TIA.

Just updating my results here:
Found that support person for my VPN program had somehow enabled a “VPN network connection” within Windows 11 and it was active; no wonder I was having trouble logging into some of my sites in the browser there.
Disabled that network in Windows 11.
Uninstalled/reinstalled on both Ubuntu and Windows
THIS time though, I had to put in the server IP address in the client side on W11 in order for Ubuntu to let the client through; whereas last time auto config did it.
Now everything is working again.

1 Like

Hi @myviolinsings ,
Thanks for letting us know. Good outcome for you.
When somthing happens, it always pays to ask “What has changed recently?”
Especially when more than one person is involved.

Regards
Neville