Merlin VPN client keeps going out without warning

[Big Ry]

I have a handful of Openvpn clients configured in merlin. Only 2 ever really get used at a time, with one running mostly nonstop. I've had this config for at least a year without issue. Now over the last couple weeks they keep going out on me for no apparent reason. There's no it's no warning either, just all of a sudden i lose internet and it's due to these vpn clients. The expressvpn NJ server won't even come back online. I had to configure the client with a new server in NY, but now that's down. What gives!? I haven't changed any settings recently except switching everything to cloudfare dns like a month or so ago, but all my clients off the vpn work fine. Anyone know if expressvpn is having issues? Anything i should check? I can't have this happening when i work from home.

 

[cooloutac]

I'm a total newbie. But I just switched off expressvpn to nordvpn myself and now went to PIA. What do your logs show? I don't know if I was having the same problem but I was getting inactivity timeouts and reconnects in the syslog, then sometimes I would get the auth failed and I would have manually change the config to get it back online. Talking to the tech support wasn't much help. expressvpn was totally useless and off the wall. nordvpn was a little more helpful and gave me some settings to try, but it always came back down to change my password or there is a bug in the firmware. The merlin forums was blaming my isp.

I think what it boiled down to was they have a limit on maximum number of clients and I kept getting red flagged or booted off as if they assumed I was going over my limit or who knows..... Maybe they trying to keep bandwidth available when they get congested. Just like you none of my clients with android or windows apps ever had an issue but the router was constantly losing connection. PIA allows 10 clients, so I figured man if I still have problems with them I got big issues and I got a whole family stealing my passwords haha. . but low and behold, no issue with PIA.

But make sure it is actually a problem in the router log and not just a dns issue with the client. Many networks do time to time block the vpn ip's and sometimes certain dns servers have routing issues. Probably due to abuse from others. Why not use the VPN's dns servers? Try to add the dhcp-dns options in the config lines. and put your router wan setting to automatic to test or specify one there. I also use excluded option for dns since i'm routing certain cliens to wan. Also make sure you have your router ip set to wan if you use policy rules since you are using multiple clients. I'm surprised nobody has chimed in here you might want to ask your question in the asus router, merlin section. I'm new to VPN's but learning these are common problems that apparently are always a mystery...lol