Question Virgin TV and VPN.

[joeryan161]

I just purchased a GL.iNet Flint 2 router that allows for the install of a VPN directly onto the router so that my whole home network would be behind a VPN, I set up the router and all is running fine so I installed SurfSharks WireGuard VPN onto the router however after a short time the Virgin TV box disconnects from the Wi-Fi then the set top box tells me I am connected to the wrong server.

As soon as I turn off the VPN the Virgin TV box works fine and connects to the 5GHz Wi-Fi signal without issue.

I have tried setting the router/VPN to be based on the client device then allowing the MAC address of the Virgin-TV box through the VPN but get the same issue.

Does anybody know of a way around this?

Cheers.

 

[bill001g]

Sound like the ISP only allows the TV box to connect from IP addresses within their network. Hard to say why companies do this part of it is contract they have with the companies that sell them the tv show on their platform. Kinda like why netflix is different in different countries. It is not uncommon for video services to not function at all behind a vpn. Amazon video seem to have colleceted a large list of all the IP that VPN providers use and blocked them. You get a warning saying you can't watch amazon from a vpn service.

Is your goal to try to watch tv in some other region or for some reason not to connect to the local tv services.

If you just want the box to work there should be a option to allow the tv box to "bypass" the vpn. Kinda the reverse of what you said you did. How exactly you configure this option varies a lot between vpn software packages. You might be able to do it via mac address but most times it is easier to use IP. What you want to do is go into the DHCP part of your router and set it up so the router always gives the same IP to the mac of the tv box. You also likely can set a fixed IP on the tv box.
After you get the IP address fixed on the tv box you should be able to set it to bypass the vpn. When this works properly the tv box should be working the same as if the vpn software did not exist on the router.