[SOLVED] VPN connects over wifi hotspot and usb ethernet adapter, but not ethernet jack

[banjofrog]

My system has been working flawlessly for about a month, then yesterday it stopped connecting to my work VPN when I plug the ethernet cable directly into the ethernet jack on the PC. It works fine when I connect over a wifi hotspot. The especially weird thing is that it also works fine if I use a USB ethernet adapter...same cable, same modem, same everything else. Also, I can access the internet just fine by hardwiring the ethernet into the ethernet jack. I just can't access my VPN.

The adapter is a j5 Create USB 3.0 Gigabit Ethernet adapter. The modem is an Archer CR700 with the router portion turned off and everything hardwired to the modem portion.

The error I get is "The network connection between your computer and the VPN server could not be established because the remote server is not responding. This could be because one of the network devices (e.g., firewalls, NAT, routers, etc.) between you computer and the remote server is not configured to allow VPN connections...)

 

[SamirD]

Honestly, if the j5 gigabit adapter is working, just use that. There's probably some sort of network configuration between your place and work that messes up the vpn, but it is easier just to plug in the j5 and have everything work than to deal with diagnosing all this.

 

[banjofrog]

If there is no other solution, I'll do that, but it's not ideal, because I would need to buy another j5, since I'm just borrowing my wife's, which she needs since her laptop doesn't have an ethernet port.

It seems there's some setting/malfunction with the ethernet port on my desktop that is blocking VPNs. It would be nice to solve this without having to buy a piece of hardware.

 

[SamirD]

VPNs when connecting to work can be a complicated animal. And when they don't work can be a real fuss to get working again. If the j5 is a quick solution, I would just use that because if we break the vpn completely trying to fix your on board ethernet, that would be a lot more trouble than what you've got.

 

[bill001g]

Agree with above especially if it is a commercial vpn like cisco anyconnect. That has so many option many of which can only be set by the IT at your work.

Maybe something more simple is if you don't activate the vpn client can you use the internet directly. Does the IP config command show that you have a IP address. Both these conditions indicate that it is likely the vpn client messing things up. The vpn even if it is not active may still have hooks in that block/redirect traffic.

I has a similar experience when I was testing out VPN clinets to see which service runs best for me. Something did not uninstall correctly and I had to reload windows to fix it. I now only run vpn on my router.....also after I read that some vpn clients dd stuff like run bit coin mining even after you uninstalled and were not using the vpn.