Question Windscribe always makes me lose internet connection even when I exit out of windscribe

[andrepartthree]

Hi guys..I'm really scratching my head trying to figure out what happened and why Windscribe is suddenly having issues.

I don't know what changed... for several years Windscribe worked flawlessly on my Windows 8 computer and after that seemed to be working okay on my Windows 10 computer... then suddenly (Nov 2022) it would knock out my internet connection completely .. even after exiting out of Windscribe I still wouldn't have my internet connection.. after some terrified troubleshooting I ended up manually forcing an ethernet reset by going into the "network connections" panel , right clicking on "ethernet network 2", disabling it and enabling it then waiting until the internet connection "caught" itself and started working again.. the internet connection troubleshooter program commented more than once that there was a problem with DHCP. (you can probably guess from the "ethernet " thing but I connect to the 'net through an ethernet cable )

I did try following the troubleshooting steps given here including turning off the firewall, uninstalling and reinstalling windscribe (I'm using the latest version of windscribe) ... and no good same problem with the internet disconnecting and refusing to connect again

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Windscribe/comments/r9r51n/no_internet_connection_after_disconnecting_from/


in theory I could just keep following the above steps to regain internet connection I mentioned above after using windscribe but.. I'll be honest guys it's really scary for me when I lose that internet connection in that I find myself fearing (quite possibly irrationally I know ) that I'll never get it back but.. well you guys all know just how crazy Windows can act sometimes.

I'm posting this because I really don't want to give Windscribe up, I love the program but I don't see any other alternative for me unless someone here has a suggestion to get around this? I have followed all the suggestions here

Windows 10 losing internet connection intermittently? Here how to fix it

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https://thedroidguy.com/windows-ethernet-connection-keeps-dropping-1219367

Alternately ... and I'll be honest Windscribe was super nice and ran this free promotion where I got to use it's services for free for life (60 GB download per month ! ) which is why I'm so sad about being forced to give it up ... but I would like to ask you guys.... are there other VPN's, paid or free either way, that you guys have had good experiences with in terms of it not making you lose your internet connection whenever you lose it? Much as I hate to give up Windscribe I think I'm going to be forced to start looking at other options now assuming there's a better one out there that won't give my PC the same internet problems.

Thanks so much to anyone who reads this and responds

 

[bill001g]

In general I would never recommend any so called "free" vpn service. They have to make money to pay for all their servers and all the internet bandwidth somehow and many times that is by stealing customer information. Some very shady ones got caught mining bit coin on peoples machines.
In this case it appears this has changed to a pay service so if you get it for free then I guess you are one of the lucky ones.

I stopped running vpn on my machines after I tried a couple out and they did not properly uninstall and I actually had to reinstall windows. I now run the on a router but I guess if you can get them to run with a one of the standard windows versions of openvpn then that would be ok also. These clients are all different and have all kinds of strange hooks into the OS that make the vpn work. When they have added feature like yours does related to filtering of stuff they also can conflict with virus and firewall stuff on the machine. Best to run only the vpn part if you can.

It would not be unexpected that microsoft updated something and broke the vpn client. They seem to break all kinds of stuff with every update.

If you are looking for a vpn be extremely careful and suspect of anything you read. The vast majority of search results are paid advertising. It is surprising how many so called "best vpn" have some completely unkown ones near the top with some of the other more common ones like say Nord in their so people don't suspect that it is all a lie. Most the major vpn services will run with the public openvpn client. Since you manually install and configure that you will at least know exactly how to uninstall it if you start to have issues.

 

[andrepartthree]

Thanks so much for your reply Bill001g ... that's a lot of useful info I appreciate that .. (groans) that's an excellent point too it wouldn't surprise me at all if Microsoft did some update that caused windows to "not play nice" with Windscribe anymore.. I've completely uninstalled Windscribe off my PC and STILL have intermittent connection issues where everthing's going fine, turn off the computer for the night, turn it back on and wham PC cannot connect to the internet.. and it's the ONLY PC with this problem all the other PC's, phones, tablet, laptops, no problem at all connecting to the 'net and the problems started when I used Windscribe recently thus the blaming of the Windscribe ...

I did contact Xfnity/comcast and as usual results vary , first rep was like " Nope, you're using your own modem I can't help you (nice enough person polite and all but didn't know a lot I am sorry to say), realizing that was totally different from what other xfinity reps have said in the past called back and got a super nice guy who did what reps have done before - sent a "refresh signal" to my modem (despite it not being comcast/xfinity property) ... so for the time being I have internet , I'll have to wait and see tomorrow if I can still connect to the internet or same problem as before where if I wait too many hours before turning on the PC again it suddenly can't connect to the 'net.

Based on what Bill001g said though it sounds like all VPN's basically suck and can ruin your connection to the internet or worse ruin Windows completely such that you have to reinstall Windows if I'm understanding correctly? Man they've gone downhill ! I remember when I used express VPN .. admittedly for one whole month out of the year each year because I didn't want to pay for an entire year (long story but I will tell it if anyone wants to hear it ) ... and it worked flawlessly without disrupting my Windows 8 PC at all.. that was many years ago though ....

 

[bill001g]

The problem tends to be vpn leave stupid virtual interfacing laying around even when they are uninstalled.

If your problem is DHCP the best "fix?" is to just not use it. First disable IPv6 support if that is turned on. Then configure the nic to use a static IP. Best are IP that are outside the DHCP range on your router but in general you can use something like x.x.x.250. Most routers start giving out IP addresses at the bottom of the range and never get that high in most houses.

You might also find something interesting by comparing the IPCONFIG /ALL when it is working and when it broken.

 

[andrepartthree]

that's great advice thank you so much .. I will be sure to do that ... today when I turned on the computer it did connect to the internet but yesterday for the longest time even after comcast/xfinity sent the refresh signal to my router the PC wasn't connnecting to the 'net, tried all sorts of troubleshooting steps ... windows internet troubleshooter eventually got it resolved on the third or fourth try but it was definitely a recurring problem.

The strange thing is when you click on the little icon lower right hand corner that shows you the status of the internet (looks like a little monitor with a plug connected to it) it goes back and forth between saying "no internet" and "internet connected" for "ethernet 2" (ethernet 2 being the same network that the other desktop computers are on). Despite this though I'm still able to connect to the internet normally.

To disable IPv6 support would I go into network connections, and on the "ethernet network 2 realtek pci" icon right click properties, and uncheck " internet protocol version 6" ? And to use a static IP would I go into settings, ethernet 2, and under "IP settings click "edit" and change "automatic DHCP" from "automatic" to "manual?"

Also after those steps is there a specific IP address like 1.1.1.250 I should use ? Or should I contact my internet provider (xfinity/comcast) and ask what IP address they recommend I should use?

Again thank you so much for all this help and advice I really appreciate it

 

[bill001g]

Those are the correct steps.

You want to use the same IP range as your current ip address. I did not want to put in exact value since there are few common ones and some routers use very different subnets. You can see it with the ipconfig /all.

One very common one is 192.168.0.x so if you are using that range you would use 192.168.0.250

 

[andrepartthree]

again thank you so much .. but I do have a new bit of information

https://forums.xfinity.com/conversa...are unable,provide them to Business customers.

xfinity says here " Sadly, residential accounts are unable to have static IPs. We only provide them to Business customers"

I find myself hoping Xfinity is just "lying" to me and I can really do this they just don't want me to (I am a residential customer ) ... do you know if trying for a static IP would work for a residential xfinity customer?

 

[bill001g]

That is the wan IP on your router. I assume you are using a router ?

You are in full control of the LAN ip addresses. They only exist between your router and your end device they never leave your house.

 

[andrepartthree]

Oh I see ! Well that's great news thank you so much .. and yes I do use a router ...

 

[andrepartthree]

Hi guys just wanted to give an update in case this helps anybody at all .. although honestly from what I'm seeing online with windscribe it's REALLY hit and miss with a lot of people bitterly complaining that it messes up their internet connection when you turn windscribe off.. so you probably want to run some sort of backup before installing windscribe

(I hear AEOMI is a good free version if your budget is limited, I've heard great things about Macrium Reflect but be aware after the 45 day .. 30 days then they extend it by another 15... trial period ....you're limited to just the backups you made during that trial period, still a good solution if windscribe gets you into trouble even if it's not an ideal "permanent" backup method.. if you're lucky enough to have windscribe 7.0 or an earlier version then from what I understand you don't have to worry about this ) .. no idea if restoring from the backup would get your internet connection back up and running or if it messes up your connection to the router regardless but.. worth a shot?)

I did so many things differently this time I have no idea which of them helped or if it was none of them and just blind luck .. I was having problems with my Windows 10 PC that I built myself which meant I had my own copy of Win 10 on it... I screwed up my courage and installed windscribe again on an older acer laptop which I'm going to lose internet connection to come Oct 2025 anyways since it's too old to qualify for a Win 11 upgrade plus it got replaced with a newer laptop that was on sale. So that means windscribe was installed on a laptop that comes with it's own version of Windows preinstalled no idea if that makes things better or worse. Also it means windscribe was going off a wireless internet connection no idea if that makes a difference either.

Prior to installing windscribe I went into my online windscribe account and told it to log me out of all sessions I might be logged into.. I then downloaded the legacy version of Windscribe not the most recent version... a lot of the bitter complaints I read online talk about how windscribe used to be good and now it's not so ... maybe the legacy version helped in some way?

Also no idea if this makes a difference (I'm guessing not) .. but the windscribe I have is technically a paid version that was given to me for free as part of a promotion they were running many years ago I'm guessing when windscribe was new and they were trying to get people to start using it.

I also made darn sure the firewall built into windscribe was turned off although I realize this limits the usefulness since windscribe can leak your real IP address when it stops working and indeed there were a few times today when I got a "windscribe has connected to the internet " again message meaning there were random disconnects, not terribly reassuring... so really this post is intended to help stubborn people like me who have a free version of windscribe given to them and want to make use of it (honestly putting two kids through college gets expensive too ) ...

I realized that I'd left the "turn windscribe on when the PC starts" setting to on when I rebooted the laptop and a windows security message came up asking if I wanted windscribe to connect to private networks like at home, public networks like at an airport.. I just exited right out of that window without saying yes or no and turned off the windscribe setting that auto starts it when the laptop turns on.

For the past two days windscribe has been running successfully without screwing up my internet connection when windscribe is not running .. so happy about that for now and hoping my luck holds

Come Oct 2025 when all us Windows users have to switch over to Win 11 if we want to keep getting our security updates I'll try the legacy version of Windscribe again (downloaded that setup file and hanging onto it for dear life .. the windscribe web page said it was compatible with both Win 10 and Win 11 we'll find out) and I'll repeat the steps described above except on my desktop PC which will be running a clean install of Win 11 and we'll see how that goes although I'm going to wait as close as possible to Oct 2025 to give Microsoft the maximum amount of time to fix any Win 11 bugs people report ... having said that the new laptop my daughter is using (inherited her old laptop as a result) seems to be running Win 11 without any issues or problems aside from my daughter's annoyed complaint about win 11 constantly trying to sell you microsoft products and services