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  3. Losing Network Connectivity Once Disconnected

Losing Network Connectivity Once Disconnected

If your computer loses network connectivity once you disconnect from your VPN connection, it is likely the IP range you are connecting from, and an IP range you access through the VPN network, are the same. You may find the message WARNING: potential route subnet conflict between local LAN [x.x.x.x/y.y.y.y] and remote VPN in your connection log when this occurs.

When you connect, OpenVPN will add the relevant routes to your computer so it knows to access certain addresses over the VPN connection. If one of the routes added happens to be the same as the route for the network from which your computer is connecting from, OpenVPN will overwrite it. When you disconnect, OpenVPN will remove all routes it added, resulting in your computer no longer having a route for the local network. Hence it will appear like your computer has dropped off the network.

Tip

Viscosity includes a feature that will reset your network interfaces on disconnect, which will in most cases restore your computer's original routes.

You can set Viscosity to reset your network interfaces on disconnect like so:

  1. Open Viscosity's Settings window
  2. Click on the Advanced toolbar icon
  3. Tick the Reset network interfaces on disconnect option
  4. Close the Settings window and reconnect your VPN connection

If the above option doesn't appear to work, you can either change the IP range your VPN connection uses (if you are the server administrator), or change the IP range your computer is connecting from. For example, if both your home network and work network (which you are connecting to via VPN) use a range of 10.0.0.x, try changing your home network to 10.1.0.x.

Finally, a quick solution to restore network connectivity (without rebooting) is to toggle your network interface off and back on again. For example, with wireless you can turn Wi-Fi off and back on again from the Wi-Fi menu. With a wired connection you can manually un-plug and re-plug in the network cable, or disable and re-enable the network interface from the Network area in System Settings.