Why is it behaving this way? It’s either that or it’s disconnected. You can’t have it on ALL the time. I don’t want it disconnecting randomly and then connecting pretty much when it feels like and I’m suppose to hope it’s connected or keep on endlessly checking the status. It’s silly.
Not to mention every time I pick up the phone and unlock it, I see signal status showing LTE instead of WiFi icon. And then after several seconds it changes to WiFi. And it’s all because of ProtonVPN keeps disconnecting and reconnecting.
What’s the catch here? The point of VPN is that ALL traffic on phone at ALL times gets routed through, even when phone just sits there with screen off and background traffic is going in and out. Not when app feels like it and “Connects on demand”. Whose demand seems to be from app, not mine to have it bloody running at all times. So, what gives?! Why I can’t have it on ALL the time?
It’s an IOS feature that turns off the WiFi so it can save energy
VPN On Demand is a feature from iOS which works with compatible vpn services only.
Good news : ProtonVPN is fully compatible with this nice feature.
Now what does the “On demand” do ? Essentially what it does is it connects you to your VPN automatically when it’s needed so you don’t have to toggle it on manually before accessing the internet from your device. Which means that the VPN app can automatically reconnect by itself if the connection had dropped. it’s a nice feature made to make your life easier and make things just work. Now if you don’t like it then too bad, have a good day.
EDIT : what you see when you wake up from sleep is the On Demand feature working as expected in the background —> it prevents connecting to wifi unless it detects your vpn connection is established. During sleep iOS may prevent some apps to have full access to everything and I believe it results in any vpn app to be disconnected. Id you would have used a non “on demand” compatible vpn service then every time you would have waked up from sleep you would have needed to open the vpn app, login/identify, then connects to the server and wait for it to establish connection. Thanks to the fact ProtonVPN is compatible with On Demand as you can see it makes your life easier : waking from sleep and the connection re-establish by itself within seconds.
Eh, this is stupid. I’m removing ProtonVPN because it’s totally useless. What’s the point of VPN when phone just decides not to use it on its own when screen is off and instead of being on my WiFi it sticks on LTE. Coz somehow pinging a tower 2 kilometers away is suppose to save power over a router WiFi antenna 5m away. Makes no god damn sense what so ever.
It doesn’t seem to do this when I’m not using ProtonVPN tho. When I didn’t have ProtonVPN it was always on WiFi. But with ProtonVPN, I constantly see it flip between LTE and WiFi.
And like I said, I can’t even turn off “Connect on demand”. If I do, Protonmail will disconnect at some random point and just stay disconnected. And if it’s set to on demand it keeps flipping around the connection constantly which is also annoying.
Just turn off the feature shrug
It doesn’t sound or behave like it. Something being “on-demand” literally means using it only in some cases when something or someone requests its functionality. And i don’t want that, I want it to be ON at ALL times. Instead it’s constantly dropping and reconnecting and it doesn’t seem to be because it falls from the server, but because it’s being forcibly disconnected and then reconnects back when I turn the display on. And that’s just stupid and entirely defeats the point of even using VPN if 3/4 of stuff when phone is in standby just goes past it.
Something being “on-demand” literally means using it only in some cases when something or someone requests its functionality.
Which is exactly what it does here : Protonvpn request iOS to establish connection after a drop and it does it.
And i don’t want that
It’s a feature of ProtonVPN app. Then you can look into connecting to ProtonVPN without using the app : How to use Proton VPN with the OpenVPN Connect on iOS | Proton VPN
I want it to be ON at ALL times.
In the ProtonVPN app you just let the toggle to “on” all the time.
Instead it’s constantly dropping
Because of iOS security sandboxing things.
and reconnecting
Thanks to the “On Demand” feature.
and it doesn’t seem to be because it falls from the server, but because it’s being forcibly disconnected
Thanks to iOS.
and then reconnects back when I turn the display on.
That’s the “On Demand” kicking in.
And that’s just stupid and entirely defeats the point of even using VPN if 3/4 of stuff when phone is in standby just goes past it.
I understand this point but unless you are using your phone more in sleep mode than in wake mode it does not make a lot of sense. Anyway, you can communicate with ProtonVPN regarding feature request : Proton VPN - Support Form | Proton VPN but keep in mind they may refer you to communicate with Apple support for feature request as what you don’t like here is mainly something created by iOs.
I’ve tried setting it directly and it never managed to connect to any server. Also I couldn’t use NextDNS together with it like I could when I used it via app. Anyways, I’ve thrown it off my phone because it caused my phone to sit on LTE instead of WiFi and that’s just dumb behavior. Now that ProtonVPN is gone, phone is on WiFi even when in standby. So, I don’t know what the hell ProtonVPN is doing, but it’s breaking it and I hate that behavior.
It doesn’t make any sense. Without On Demand thing it should’ve been on at all times and yet that doesn’t seem to be the case. For NextDNS I can set it without On Demand and it’ll work. Where with Proton VPN it just borks itself and when it disconnects it never reconnects again. But at least it’s not disconnecting and flipping to LTE anymore. So I’m stuck in a limbo of having it broken either way. Fun.