Norton Secure VPN is causing problems

I'm having the same issue, which appeared with the last update - the one that saddled us with the piece of dysfunctional nastiness known as Software Updater, so is wrong on all fronts. Prior to that, it was working for me just fine.  Of the websites I visit regularly, only one did not function through the VPN; the others worked as normal through it.

Now, I'm lucky if I can get anywhere on the internet without disabling it. It crashes several times a day, or at least inexplicably disables itself - I see a pop-up telling me so. It then automatically restarts - maybe 15 or 20 minutes later. If I turn it off manually (to access the aforementioned website), it takes me at least that long, and usually several retries, before it can manage to lumber back into the air. Prior to the last update, it did not crash and to restart it after I'd manually disabled it took maybe 1 minute.

Over the last few days, the problem has gotten even worse. The VPN comes on at startup, the pop-up on the WiFi icon says I have internet access through it, but I can't reach *any* websites at all. Meanwhile, all other devices on our WiFi are working as normal. If I disable the VPN and start up a browser, everything starts to work immediately. After that, I can usually restart the VPN and all will behave as normal, but I'm quickly losing faith in it.

In response to: "Many web sites do not allow access from known VPN IP addresses. They do this for copyright, legal, and political reasons. There is nothing a VPN provider can or should do to circumvent these legal protections."

That isn't at all what's going on. And, I was so happy this morning to finally find others, countless others, who began experiencing the same issue as I am around the same exact time as I did (early March 2022). Norton Secure VPN is literally stopping people from connecting to their browsers, multiple browsers, on MAC and Windows, it's cutting off all Internet connection. And when some of us on rare occasion can connect to our browsers or a site, within minutes it disconnects our connection again. I've been using Norton Secure VPN as part of my yearly paid subscription for Norton 360 since the onset of Secure VPN and it worked on every single site, company, game, banking, Facebook and enumerable others all the time, perfectly, no glitches, until early March 2022 when this problem everyone is reporting in many Norton forums and all over the Net. Your response can't possibly be correct, or that would mean that the infinite number of sites I go to each and every day, and have for years, suddenly "all" stopped allowing a secure VPN? That's not possible - and again, as bad as the complete disconnect from connection on the rare occasion that it allows you to even have a connection, more times than not, it's not even allowing a very large amount of us to have connectivity in our browsers, so that's not even  a site - we literally lose connectivity completely when it's on, unable to connect to our browsers, and then the very moment we shut it, poof, we have instant connection to our browsers again. 

I do, very much, thank you for trying to help and share information, and I am very thankful for that, and grateful for people who try and share information that could help, genuinely, but I wanted to make it abundantly clear that what you're stating isn't at all what this particular issue is for all of us that are reporting this same issue.  

Now that you mention it, my problem may have started around the time the unwelcome "Software Updater" appeared.

My experience is VPN is working fine then just drops internet connection.  I try to refresh browser page or enter a new URL and I get FireFox browser notice that server cannot be reached.  The connection may resume after a time (I have auto-connect turned on), or I can turn VPN off and internet is restored.  Usually can enable VPN right after.

Norton needs to figure this out and fix it.

And BTW, dump the Software Updater or make it run optionally.  Apparently it is running in the background and slowing down my already slow internet connection!

@ssadars7 - I definitely must have known at one point, because I no longer receive auto-updates or notifications when there is an update... somehow, at some point, I set it up to manual updates only, so every few weeks I check do an update check via the Norton 360 control panel (for lack of a better term re: control panel). I'd actually like to be notified when there's an update (though not auto install). I think I'll have to look into finding that setting again, it's in there somewhere lol - likely under settings, but could also be under updates (from with the Norton program itself).

MargB:

I wonder if the programming bug is related to the "kill switch" function, which is supposed to block internet access if the VPN goes down? I have mine turned off in the configuration settings, but if it's screwed up internally so that it is hard set to "on", and combined with whatever bug is causing the VPN to crash all the time, it would explain the behavior. (Makes one wonder if anything in this release - 22.22.1.58 in my case - is actually working.... Isn't that a reassuring thought?)

Interesting thought about the Kill Switch. But that would mean that all those seeing this issue were having their internet connection dropping out. That would be a huge coincidence for users in different parts of the world see this happening fairly often.

I have the same problem. It started a couple of weeks ago. Microsoft Teams gets disconnected, and Skype, Outlook and others. If I turn VPN off and back on again, everything goes back to normal. Running Windows 10 Home 2022-03 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 21H2 for X64-based Systems (KB5011487) installed.

i'd like to chime in with the same problems with VPN...  i'd like to add that it gets turned off without me knowing it.  i have to check from time to time.  i use windows 10 on 1 laptop and 11 on another.

Not sure yet this will help in all cases, but it may be of help in the interim.

I have also noted this problem in Win11 Home on a 2021 Dell 15 5505 AMDRyzen7 laptop. It has persisted (also I think since software updater) but is seems to persist on only some of Norton's Servers and not all of them. I say this because I began to log IP addresses for which I could not access the internet with MS Edge or MS Outlook Live mail, etc.

Whenever I could not access, I began simply to turn off Norton VPN on My Norton, & then turn it back on, which then logged me back unto another Norton secure server in the same default region. I have stayed with this region for the most part, although initially I had allowed Norton 360 to auto-select the region; I don't know this will work in all selected regions.

Simply switching out from one secure server to another in the same region seems to solve the problem, although I dislike even a few seconds of unsecured internet while it is off.  I have not yet run into not being able to connect & browse websites twice in a row, but I suspect it is possible and I will likely experience it someday until this issue is fixed.

Hope this helps in the interim, and God bless.

Try dumping Norton VPN for Express VPN. I did and it just works. Maintains connection speed (may be slightly degraded, but not much). But no reboot - uninstall - reinstall - chat- etc.,  etc. every few days or weeks - only to have the problems resurface and having to do this all over again. In my experience these VPN issues have been present since the first launch of the product - and Norton refuses to do anything to fix it. If one peruses the community threads regarding VPN issues, most are marked "Still in need of a solution" but then have been closed from posting additional comment.

So pleasedto see this thread!! I have the same problem - almost impossible to browse with VPN connected - all sorts of websites closed to me until I disable VPN. I bought Norton 360 primarily for the VPN -- for online shopping & banking -- so utterly useless if I can't access my sites using the VPN!! I use safesearch but have never been offered the Isolation Mode. I find Norton 360 to be very USA centric so as a UK user that's very frustratting too and many UK banks not recognised. Can we have a solution please?! My subscription ends March 2023 and I'll probably be looking elsewhere for my next security suite.