Tagged “troubleshooting”
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Which Route Wins When the Tunnel and the Local Network Disagree
Your device holds several overlapping routes at once. The rule that picks between them explains the tunnel-is-up-but-unused failure exactly.
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What a Traceroute Shows Before and After You Connect
A traceroute lists the network hops to a destination. Comparing one with and without a VPN makes the tunnel visible.
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Why Port Forwarding Breaks Behind a VPN
Inbound connections arrive at the VPN server, not your router. Your forwarding rules are correct and never get consulted.
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How to Read Your Own Network Settings
Address, gateway, subnet mask, and resolver: what each field means and what it tells you when a VPN misbehaves.
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Why Flushing the DNS Cache Fixes Odd VPN Behavior
Cached name lookups outlive a VPN connection change, so sites resolve to the wrong place. Clearing the cache is a real fix, not folklore.
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Where the Slowdown Comes From When You Connect a VPN
Longer paths, an extra header on every packet, packet-size limits, shared server capacity, protocol behaviour. Which one is yours is knowable.
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The Four Kinds of VPN Leak, and How Each Is Detected
A leak is traffic that skipped the tunnel. It comes in four categories — address, DNS, IPv6, and WebRTC — and each is found a different way.
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Confirming Your VPN Is Working, in the Right Order
Connected is not the same as working. Six observations, from your own device outward, that together show a tunnel is doing its job.
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Narrowing Down Why Your VPN Is Not Working
A VPN failure lives in one of five places on your device. Here is the question that eliminates each, in the order worth asking them.
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Installing a VPN on a Firestick: Why the Realistic Answer Is Upstream
A Fire TV stick can run a client, but you cannot inspect it and sideloading one is a trust problem. Covering it upstream is the honest answer.
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A VPN on a Mac: What Happens to Name Resolution and Local Devices
On a Mac the tunnel is the easy part. One system resolver, a cache that outlives the change, and printers that vanish are the real subject.