Norton VPN and Hotspot or (Internet connection sharing)

Archive
1

I had earlier raised a request in https://community.norton.com/en/comment/8508537#comment-8508537

The issue is unresolved. Norton took more than 6 months to come back (It was raised to l3 team but there is no response) case number xxxxxxxxx 

Laptop A has internet connection and hotspot activated. Laptop B connects to Laptop A via hotspot.

Whenever I enable Norton VPN on my laptop A, my laptop B cannot access internet via hotspot on my laptop A. 

There is no update on what is wrong. I assume that Norton VPN uses a PPP connection and I cannot see the connection in my "Network Connections". It disables traffic over normal connection. It was identified as a bug in earlier releases of Norton and fixed and has resurfaced again. Please help.

[Edit: Masked case ID to conform with the Participation Guidelines and Terms of Service]

2

@Myidea I replied in your other thread.

SA

3

Hi SA. I set my desktop as you indicated with the firewall and the wifi properties. Norton VPN so far connects OK. I will try it some more tomorrow to make sure it’s OK. Did have some problems with T MOBILE hotspot connections before I made the changes.
Will let you know the results.

4

Hi SA, 

My WIFI is my connection that has internet. So i right click it and go to properties --> sharing tab and enable first checkbox and disable second one. When i enable hotspot, i see the "Local Area Connection *2" created by windows.

Check attached properties.zip. I get these two options for the first field and I select Local Area Connection *2 because this is my hotspot where other machines connect.

Do you agree that my selection is correct? 

On point 2. I believe that if i setup VPN via windows (instead of using norton vpn product), it is a good chance that windows recognizes the vpn connection and that kind of vpn supports hotspot. 

However, it requires details as server address, id and password.

 

5

 

Here lies the crux of your problem. Below is your screenshot. Local area connection 2 is the incorrect selection. Use your WiFI as there is where you VPN connection lies. Uncheck the second box as well. 

Sharing2.png

First mobile data makes no difference with the connections. I tried the connections both ways, mobile data on and off with the same results, until, I then opened the network status in Windows 10 and opened "Change adapter properties". On the icon for WiFi I right clicked and it opened to a properties dialog with 2 tabs, one labeled sharing. I checked the first box to allow connections through this device connections and UNCHECKED the second box below it. Closed out. Went to Windows notifications area and disabled hotspot then reenabled it. As long as I am in range of my home network mobile data isn't used for anything.

Answering your questions:

1 - Windows 10 Professional 21H2 version 19044.1347, the HP laptop used. Also using Norton 360 Deluxe version 22.21.10.40 fully updated.

2 - Why would you? That would defeat the purpose of enabling Norton VPN in the first place. That connection would be totally different. I have not attempted to do so, your mileage may vary. 

3 - You ONLY need to adjust the two settings outlined previously. https://community.norton.com/en/comment/8516423#comment-8516423. Other VPN's most likely will need a similar setup for tunneling into a hotspot as well.

4 - PPP adapter NortonSecureVpn will never show as an "Internet Connection", it is the adapter driver being used by the VPN when it requests Turedo tunneling to enable the VPN.

SA

6

First of all, thank you so much for trying this.

I re-installed Windows 10. I also reinstalled Norton 360 on my laptop A. And enabled VPN and hotspot on laptop A. 

I enabled the services you pinged above in Norton settings and then setup a hotspot. Connection works fine in laptop A. But when trying from another laptop / mobile that connects to the hotspot of laptop A, the connection doesn't work.

After right clicking the Internet adapter (Wifi, in my case), and going to properties --> sharing tab --> enabling first checkbox (tried enable as well as disable second checkbox) the result is the same = I see that DNS resolves fine (after doing this) but DNS doesn't resolve without this sharing bit.

Irrespective of doing the above sharing, the connection happens (I can #telnet www.google.com 443) from laptop B and it works, but when i do a #ping www.google.com, it wont work (request timed out).

Thus, there is no response that my laptop B receives. 

Traffic starts from laptop B, reaches server via laptop A, laptop A receives the response but it is not fed to laptop B. 

Hope this clarifies where the problem is ? 

Can you check in your case the IPs for both mobile and your laptop A? Are they same and do they change after you disconnect VPN ? (they should because then you know you had VPN IPs). Also note that it seems your mobile data is ON, despite that the wifi is connected. Can you disable mobile data and see if it works.

I couldnt put the screenshots in the body for some reason. So I've attached them in a zip file.

Also notice when i run #curl -vvv www.google.com on my laptop B, I get

...

...

> Connected to www.google.com (142.xxx.179.132) port 80 (#0)

> GET / HTTP/1.1

> Host : www.google.com

> User-Agent: curl/7.55.1

> Accept: */*

>

> Recv failure: Connection was reset

> Closing connection 0

> curl: (56) Recv failure: Connection was reset.

No settings were changed on laptop B.

It works fine if i disable VPN on laptop A but it gives this issue whenever i enable VPN on laptop A.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some more questions:

1. What version of windows do you use ? Mine is Windows 10 Home and I hope you're using Norton 360. 

2. Can i use Norton VPN via the feature in Start --> Settings --> VPN --> Add VPN connection in Windows 10 ? 

3. Do you know of any other VPN service that works better and allows hotspot. So I can cancel norton. Given that the connection doesn't reply back to the source, do you think of something ? I already enabled all rules in firewall traffic settings. (All Allowed).

4. When i run #ipconfig on Laptop A that has internet + Norton VPN installed, I see "PPP adapter NortonSecureVpn:". However, I am unable to see this adapter in the "Network Connections". Do you know why ? Can i make it visible ? 

Let me know if you see something else please ? I wonder if i can show it to you remotely ?

7

Update: With laptop A running, the VPN started, and Hotspot setup in Windows. I went into the Norton 360 firewall and checked the boxes for Network Discovery and Internet connection sharing as shown in my previous post. https://community.norton.com/en/comment/8516423#comment-8516423

I then opened the network status in Windows 10 and opened "Change adapter properties". On the icon for WiFi I right clicked and it opened to a properties dialog with 2 tabs, one labeled sharing. I checked the first box to allow connections through this device connections and UNCHECKED the second box below it. Closed out. Went to Windows notifications area and disabled hotspot then reenabled it. 

On my Galazy Z-fold 3 I connected WiFi to the HP hotspot connection on laptop A and entered the password for it as shown in Windows. It connected and had internet services .

Internet service on my mobile device with laptop A VPN enabled. The Opera GX also has a built in VPN which is NOT enabled on the mobile device B.

Connection to my HP laptop A shown as Current Connection, the screenshot shows without internet and was taken before the above settings to show the connection connecting to.

Feedback please!!

SA

8

@JB1234 Give this article a look over for some tips that may help. Getting a Norton VPN is an additional cost on my part ATM so I will have to setup a standby laptop I have with N360 Deluxe tonight to do our test. Let me know if the article provides any meaningful results.

SA

9

JB, my apologies for the visual that I had disappeared from the thread and doing the promised "test" setup for everyone. I will get that accomplished, I'm currently NO LONGER on a N360 product and will have to install a stand alone version of the VPN to test. Time hasn't been on my side this week lol. Its that time of year again. You have my word, I will test this for everyone so that we can try getting to the bottom of what the issues are and on the road for a resolution. Thanks for the patience.

SA

10

Hi @MARTINNEWBOLD

If you can see the assignee for the request, can you find if another person can be assigned it ? May be someone to followup and assign to another person ?

Yet another reason why i think it is a product bug is because there is same behavior on Android. 

I download norton vpn on my mobile and i enable vpn. Thereafter I enable hotspot on my android mobile. Anyone connecting to hotspot cannot access internet. I think it is more to do with the product. 

I will wait for @SoulAsylum to publish his findings.

Thanks !

11

Hi JB I don't know why Norton is not helping either its been 128days or more and level 3 case too. The person dealing it has just disappeared. SA is trying to help. check the DNS are set on both machines . I have recently found one of mine set to automatic which didn't appear to work in Windows 10 as  much of it now its on the change to Windows 11. Even Insider Update crash and having service running go figure! https://community.norton.com/en/forums/symantec-tap-adapter-missing-network-connections

12

I will give that a go later in the day for you as a test to see what, if anything I can see is different on this end. I'll do my best to get screenshots as I go as well. 

SA

13

That was a good suggesion SA!  Thank you for your time.

However, it doesn't solve the issue. I even tried with Norton firewall OFF 

May I request if you could try the vpn+hotspot on your windows machine and try to access the hotspot from your mobile. You'll be connected to the hotspot surely but does it allow you to access internet ? If yes, does it give the same public IP on both laptop + hotspot. 

I dont know why but Norton support is not attending to my issue. I dont know if it is affecting other installations too.

14

JB have a look at these settings in Norton if you haven't already.

public network exceptions.png

Check other settings as needed and recheck. I'm almost out of suggestive possibilities.

SA

15

As was posted in the other thread. If your laptop B is connecting to the network labeled "Norton SecureVPN public network" both should be able to share the same VPN tunnel.

The "Norton SecureVPN public network" doesn't exist as a network in Network Connections. If it could, i would set up internet sharing (ICS) on this connection.

Also, check into Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Network and Sharing Center\Advanced sharing settings. Scroll down to "Guest or Public">Turn on Network Discovery. Reboot BOTH devices at the same time and recheck the VPN status on both devices.

This is already on.

 

16

Hello again JB. As was posted in the other thread. If your laptop B is connecting to the network labeled "Norton SecureVPN public network" both should be able to share the same VPN tunnel. Also, check into Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Network and Sharing Center\Advanced sharing settings. Scroll down to "Guest or Public">Turn on Network Discovery. Reboot BOTH devices at the same time and recheck the VPN status on both devices.

SA