UPDATE: Have no idea what this result means, but I went to Mega on W11 on my laptop and connected while on the Verizon hotspot. Then I reconnected to home network and turned off the VPN on the router and Mega logged in and started fetching file list and is now about 30% through that. LM still connected to Verizon and fetching files 60% complete.
VPN has always been on router except for a few times when I couldn’t get to a certain website, I’d turn it off then back on after that site. So again, did Protonmail server issue affect my network in such a way that the VPN began blocking Mega, cause Protonmail has continued to work with VPN on all this time.
UPDATE: LM Mega fetched the file list and upon completion brought up that window I keep mentioning asking for full sync or partial and LM notified Mega is now syncing. W11 on laptop completed file fetch and is now running/syncing.
VPN is currently off. I may try connecting to a different VPN server and see if that makes a difference. I figured out after contacting VPN support one time that certain websites will not connect while VPN is on, say Atlanta, GA but if you connect to New York, it will suddenly work. I am hoping to avoid having to chat with VPN support, albeit they are the best support of all products I have.
Will report back on switching VPN locations but I would like to hear from you guys on why you think this happened.
Thanks so much for all the help…couldn’t have done it without you.
Sheila
Update again: After some time of changing VPN locations, I checked W11 and saw the spinning white arrows and again got the message “process taking longer than expected” then checked LM as Mega is still syncing files there. I saw one file in the middle of being synced and there was a slight delay, but suddenly that file went to 0 bytes. When I disconnected the VPN completely, it started over with that same file and began syncing. Same on W11, appears I cannot use the VPN with Mega after using it since 2020 with it on my router.
Thoughts on this before I contact VPN support to resolve this?
Congratulations.
We still dont understand why having a VPN interferes
My guess is packets are routing the wrong way… ie when the VPN is on, your comouter does not know what the default route is. It guesses wrong and sends the mega packets to the VPN
So can we look at ip route again
with vpn off, and mega working, and
with vpn on and mega not working
Not sure I will be able to interpret it, but we need to look.
myviolinsings@mint-desktop:~$ ip route
default via 192.168.132.1 dev wlo1 proto dhcp metric 600
169.254.0.0/16 dev wlo1 scope link metric 1000
192.168.132.0/24 dev wlo1 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.132.109 metric 600
VPN on/Mega not working: output is the same. I waited a few seconds to get the error symbol on Mega but still got the same output. Then I changed back to NY where it was connected when we first had the issue–same output.
That is the old one… couple of days ago.
It has no default route
Today you have a default route
but the default is 192.168.132.1 ??
That is the bridge
I would think you would want the default route to be 169.254.0.0 ie the internet
What happens is , when your computer receives TCP packet, it has to decide what to do with it. If its address is your computer it keeps it. If its address is 192.168.132.x it send it to the bridge. If its address is 169.254.x.x it send it to the internet. If its address is anything else (mega case) it sends it to the default route. So the default route should be the internet.
You can change it with the ip comnand … I would have to look up how
but
I suspect protonmail is interfering with your routing table… so it might just change it back again… nasty.
So I would get in touch with the VPN people and ask them if their software might change your default route. The changes it makes might persist, so comparing vpn on and off like you did above could well be the same… you did off first, but what was there might be a hangover from the last on.
Nev,
Okay, thanks…I think…lol. I will contact VPN support as they are actually very helpful anytime I have needed them: never have to be “escalated” with them.
Probably will do it tomorrow sometime and let you know. Maybe they can figure out when it happened as I do see in the VPN router control that the app was updated since I last looked, so sometime in the past week…along with everything else that happened this past week.
@Sheila_Flanagan ,
Afterthought,
Sorry, but there is another possibility.
Maybe your default route has always been set to the VPN, so that all your internet traffic goes thru it. If that is the case there is some problem with mega not receiving VPN routed packets.
I have never seen a route table of a VPN setup before, so it is confusing for me.
Does the VPN only exist for protonmail, or do you use it for everything? I was assuming it was only for protonmail?
Thanks, @Daniel_Phillips . So since I installed the VPN on the router vs each individual machine, the VPN and router are controlled on the dashboard in a browser (I guess so as not to mess directly with the router outside the VPN that could cause issues…idk). There is a reboot router command from there, although I have always rebooted the physical router and modem per ISP instructions. So if I understand correctly, running this in terminal is the same effect of clearing the DNS cache without having to reboot both?
@nevj the VPN is for my entire home network and I could have installed it on individual machines, but since I have so many and limit is 5, I chose to install on the router itself, meaning all traffic on my home network is protected by the VPN (computers, smart tvs, etc.).
I do not use Proton’s VPN as I had already been using ExpressVPN for a few years before they offered one. Protonmail using a bridge is only on a computer wanting to use a desktop app (like Thunderbird) for their secure email and that does not have a VPN involved. Without the bridge, you have to use the web browser for email & calendar as they do not offer a desktop app.
Now I do have a dashboard in a browser tab where I control the on/off switch of the VPN on the router and all the settings we might need to see & use.
This is the local network settings displayed. Since I know nothing about network routing, I do not know how this compares to what we saw in ip route in terminal on LM or if there are other commands in terminal we can use to compare.
Yes, something like that, that is the command I use, and can remember, there are other commands, that deals with resetting the router. When was the last time you logged into your router to check your settings? Also a VPN can and will do strange things to a network, since it is essentially masking your IP address.
I see you have a " reboot router " in your screenshot, that would, and more than likely does the same thing as ipconfig /flushdns.
And this is causing problems for your entire network and all your PC’s. I am no VPN expert, I just know I do not use a VPN.
But the fact remains that it has never caused any issues until this week. I have been using it, as is, on all the same pcs, including other family members which I am working on.
Either the recent update by ExpressVPN caused this or something else. But logic says if something works for 3 years without issue and suddenly one program has an issue, it is not the working thing of 3 years that caused it, correct?
I am certainly no VPN expert. I had to read/research on how beneficial it was and how to use it. I don’t even understand network routing, etc. But I do intend to contact the VPN support, if nothing else other than to see what they say about this and maybe they (being the best support ever) can read logs or whatever and tell us what happened in the history of my home network. And I intend to report back here their findings. After all, this is a learning experience like all the rest on itsfoss that can help others and provide a trail of steps taken to resolve issues.
@nevj This is the answer, I think, and was just thinking I should reply to their last support email regarding exactly this, since they are the only app having an issue with the VPN.
Yes, it would seem that something has happened with Mega and the VPN login, especially since I can login into Mega with both Linux and Windows.
Mega did help in transferring a login file from my W11 PC to my Linux only PC, so I have found a new way too move my data.
Yes, @Daniel_Phillips and while having this issue I researched other cloud/sync providers (besides OneDrive as I already have them on W11) and Mega is the best value for me. An itsfoss article suggested pcloud, but they only do lifetime licenses and it is quite expensive for me to do it up front.
Having computers with different OS makes transferring files easy with Mega, and knowing you can access files from all computers outside of the home network has been crucial for me in my business when I am away from home and need to access a customer’s file.
