The VPN Stopped Working: What to Do When It Worked Yesterday and Not Today

A familiar situation: yesterday the VPN connected and everything opened, and today it has stopped working - it spins and will not connect, or it connects but there is no internet. It is worth separating this case from another one right away: this is not “the VPN never worked and was never set up” - this is “it worked and suddenly stopped”. The cause is almost always one of four things, and three of them are fixed in a minute by yourself.

Below are the four causes in order, from the most common and simplest to the one that calls for changing service. Work from the top down: you will most likely stop at the first two.

If you would rather have a working connection straight away without the investigation, you can try Tainet VPN with no card and compare: if things open on our subscription and not on the old one, the service was the problem, not your device.

First, a 30-second check

Before changing anything, rule out a false alarm:

• Switch the VPN off and on - the toggle in the app down and back up. Half of all “breakages” are cured by reconnecting to another server.
• Change the server in the app to another country or another city - the current one may simply be overloaded.
• Check that you have internet at all without the VPN: open any site with the app switched off. If nothing loads without the VPN either, the problem is the internet itself, not the connection.
• Switch between Wi-Fi and mobile data. If the VPN stopped working over Wi-Fi but connects over the mobile network (or the other way round), the issue is that particular network, not the app or the subscription. It is a quick way to see where the break is.

Did not help? Then on to the main question - “the VPN is not working, what next”: it is one of the four causes below, and we go through them in order.

Cause 1. The client is out of date

The most common and the most harmless. The app you connect through (Happ, INCY, v2RayTun and the like) has not been updated in a long time, while the server has moved on - the old version simply cannot agree with it.

What to do:

• open the app store and update the client to the latest version;
• if the client was installed outside the store, reinstall a fresh build from the official site;
• reconnect after updating.

This is entirely fixable by yourself and costs nothing.

If you have an old or abandoned client, it is better to install a current one right away: setting up Happ step by step or the INCY client for iPhone - both free, and the subscription in them is the same.

Cause 2. The subscription has run out

The least dramatic cause, and the one people forget first. A VPN service runs on a subscription: once the term is up, the server stops accepting the connection - from the outside it looks exactly like “it broke”, although nothing is broken.

What to do:

• go into your service’s account and check the subscription end date;
• if it has expired, renew it, and the connection comes back at once with nothing to reconfigure.

With Tainet the date is visible in your VPN subscription account, and the first 7 days of a subscription are free with no card, so you can check whether the subscription was the cause.

So that a subscription does not run out unexpectedly, it can be set up with auto-renewal - then the term will not expire at the wrong moment and the connection will not drop.

Or take a subscription for a long term at once: it works out cheaper and you can forget about renewal entirely.

Set up a Tainet subscription with auto-renewal - the first 7 days free, no card needed.

Cause 3. The protocol has stopped getting through

A little harder, but still solvable. A VPN has a protocol - the way traffic travels to the server. Older, “noisy” protocols get through worse over time: the connection breaks, the speed drops to nothing, pages hang while loading. Modern masking protocols do not have this problem - traffic over them looks ordinary and the connection holds steadily.

What to do: if the app lets you pick a protocol, switch to a modern one (VLESS with Reality masking, Hysteria2, AmneziaWG).

But here is what is rarely said honestly: the protocol is set on the service’s side - all you can do is switch between what it offers. And if the service sits on one old protocol and does not update it, “stopped working” will keep coming back no matter how much you switch.

There are two routes:

• The long one - find out which protocol your service uses, work out whether it can be changed, and hope the service is maintained at all.
• The short one - check it directly in a minute: put a subscription on a modern protocol alongside and see whether it holds where the old one fell over.

With Tainet that is VLESS with Reality masking - 7 days free, no card; if the connection is steady on it, the cause was the old service’s protocol.

And if you would rather work through the protocols yourself, here is how the VLESS protocol and Reality masking work.

Cause 4. The service itself has stopped working

If you have checked the first three and there is still no connection, the cause is most likely not your device but the service. It happens: VPN services have mass outages, when the VPN stops working today for everyone at once. If your VPN has stopped connecting for all your friends at the same time, the problem is on its side, and you cannot fix it by hand.

Signs that it is the service and not your phone that died:

• not a single server connects, although they all used to work;
• the same on another device with the same subscription;
• other users of the same service see the same thing.

What to do: change the service. This is the only one of the four causes where the fix is moving to a different VPN.

The good news is that moving a subscription is simple:

• the client (Happ, INCY, v2RayTun) can stay the same;
• only the subscription inside it changes.

Here too the short route is the more honest one. You can wait for your service to fix itself (if it is alive at all) - or put a working subscription alongside in a minute and stop guessing.

With Tainet a subscription can be tried with no card - 7 days free:

• the link goes into your app with a single “Add subscription” button, provided the client is already installed - the old client (Happ, INCY, v2RayTun) does not need changing;
• the servers run on a modern protocol and our own infrastructure: in 4 years there has never been a case of all of them going down at once - when individual nodes dropped out, traffic went through the others.

Put it alongside and compare: what stopped opening because of the connection will open.

What comes back and what does not

Honestly about the limits, so there are no inflated expectations. Changing VPN brings back what stopped opening because of the connection - sites and services that simply would not load. But there are things a VPN does not solve in principle, and that has nothing to do with the particular service:

• Banking apps often restrict the login themselves when they see any VPN - that is their policy, not a fault in your connection.
• Game consoles (PlayStation, Xbox) need separate setup through the router, and not everything there is solved by a connection.
• Some services restrict VPN users themselves - those are their rules, the same for every VPN.

If one of these will not open, changing service will not help: the cause is not there.

How not to end up here again

So that “it worked yesterday, not today” happens less often:

• keep the client updated - switch on auto-updates in the app store;
• choose a service on a modern protocol rather than the cheapest one on an old protocol;
• keep an eye on the subscription term so it does not run out unexpectedly;
• keep a spare server or a second subscription to hand if you need the VPN for work.

One Tainet subscription works across every device - how many devices one VPN subscription can carry and in any client, so if it drops on one device the others carry on.

FAQ

The VPN was working and suddenly stopped - what should I check first?

Reconnect and change the server - that cures half of all cases. Did not help: update the client (cause 1), check the subscription term (cause 2). If that did not help either, it is the protocol or the service itself (causes 3 and 4).

Why did the VPN stop working today when everything was fine yesterday?

Most often for one of three reasons: the client was updated and fell out of step with the server, the subscription ran out, or the service is having a mass outage. Check in order - the client update, the subscription term, then try a different service.

The VPN stopped working on iPhone - is the cause the same as on other devices?

Yes, the causes are the same: client, subscription, protocol, service. If the VPN stopped working on an iPhone, also check that the VPN configuration is allowed in the settings and that the app has been updated through the App Store. If it stopped on the iPhone while another device on the same subscription still works, the issue is the app, not the service.

What to do if the VPN stopped working on a phone - on Android or in general?

The order is the same as on a computer. First reconnect and change the server, then update the app through the store (on Android, check that the client was installed from a trustworthy source and is up to date). If the VPN stopped working on your phone, or on Android, after that - check the subscription term and try a different service. One Tainet subscription works on the phone and on your other devices at the same time, so there is no need to switch between them.

A paid VPN stopped working - will I get my money back?

That depends on the service, but it is usually settled without a refund: if a paid VPN has stopped connecting, the cause is normally the service’s outdated protocol. It is simpler to move the subscription to a service with a modern protocol - the client stays the same. With Tainet you can check it free for 7 days with no card before paying.

Do I have to set everything up again if I change service?

No. The client app (Happ, INCY, v2RayTun) stays the same - only the subscription link inside it changes. With Tainet it is added with a single “Add subscription” button, provided the client is already installed.

Summary

In short: a VPN that worked and then stopped is almost always the client, the subscription, the protocol or the service itself, and that is the order to check in. The first three are fixed in a minute by yourself; the fourth is a reason to change service while keeping the client you are used to.

Questions go to support.