Proton VPN messed up my DNS? I'm connected to my router, but there's no internet!

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kykex
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Proton VPN messed up my DNS? I'm connected to my router, but there's no internet!

Post by kykex »

Hello all,

Sorry I'm new to this forum and really not saavy with computers, I hope I don't waste your time, and that I'm posting at the right place.

My problem is that this morning I discovered I could not connect to internet, wether through wifi or Ethernet. I thought my box had a problem but my smartphone can connect to internet when I connect through the box wifi, and my girlfriend's computer also works fine.

I tried to dig through some old posts to resolve the problem, but either it doesn't work or it's a little too technical for me. From what I gathered the commands "inxi -Fxz” and "lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net" could be of interest. I tried that but not sure how I can paste the results here, since my comp won't connect to internet, and I'm writing this message from my smartphone...

I'll try to see if I can attach photos to this post, so maybe we can start from here? I'm embarrassed, I feel clueless lol. My gratitude to whomever takes from his/her precious time to help!

Image
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 3 times in total.
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kykex
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Re: Computer connected but no access to internet, although other devices work

Post by kykex »

Ok apparently I'm not even good enough to attach images here, sorry all I have are URLs for the pics... Tell me if i can proceed differently

https://ibb.co/2SkTS4r

https://ibb.co/NFv4hQ8

https://ibb.co/JjYPsqj

I hope it works...
mikeflan
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Re: Computer connected but no access to internet, although other devices work

Post by mikeflan »

Can we assume the network worked fine for years?
Any updates applied recently?
Any programs installed recently?

Even though other devices work fine, I would reboot the modem and the computer - just to eliminate that.
Also click on the network icon and check settings and connections:
net.png
Last edited by mikeflan on Sun Oct 24, 2021 9:20 am, edited 2 times in total.
kykex
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Re: Computer connected but no access to internet, although other devices work

Post by kykex »

Thank you for your answer!! As you figured out, the connection has worked fine for 3 years now, and I don't remember having installed any kind of program lately. I regularly update mint from the update system but haven't done so in like a week or two. I tried updating now but of course... No internet, so it won't download packages.

Here's the image from the connection settings and connections if it helps:

https://ibb.co/P9dtMxX
mikeflan
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Re: Computer connected but no access to internet, although other devices work

Post by mikeflan »

I would reboot the modem and the computer just as a test.

It appears your network connection is working - "3 minutes ago" and "1 hour ago". Have you tried different browsers?
mikeflan
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Re: Computer connected but no access to internet, although other devices work

Post by mikeflan »

Please open a terminal, type this, and report the response:

Code: Select all

curl -I https://linuxconfig.org
I get this:

Code: Select all

$ curl -I https://linuxconfig.org
HTTP/2 403 
date: Sun, 24 Oct 2021 13:28:10 GMT
content-type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
content-length: 16
x-frame-options: SAMEORIGIN
referrer-policy: same-origin
cache-control: private, max-age=0, no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
expires: Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:01 GMT
expect-ct: max-age=604800, report-uri="https://report-uri.cloudflare.com/cdn-cgi/beacon/expect-ct"
report-to: {"endpoints":[{"url":"https:\/\/a.nel.cloudflare.com\/report\/v3?s=gmKBh%2FHYAiDYwY%2FnLycMMF2xXkisUugR6O2UMMv%2FZkRlN%2FiE2S%2BIH25hiaNojtiWVm8gdRw%2Ff5DLagMtY8zhtuiozFWKzx3kPHOEHHsXoln0t3BWG3fVxkdBUWb%2FWNGUWqjmSgp9Yet40bZAxw%3D%3D"}],"group":"cf-nel","max_age":604800}
nel: {"success_fraction":0,"report_to":"cf-nel","max_age":604800}
server: cloudflare
cf-ray: 6a338bf92aa60b82-DFW
alt-svc: h3=":443"; ma=86400, h3-29=":443"; ma=86400, h3-28=":443"; ma=86400, h3-27=":443"; ma=86400
Then type this and report the response:

Code: Select all

ping -c 2 8.8.8.8
I get this:

Code: Select all

$ ping -c 2 8.8.8.8
PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=115 time=29.6 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=115 time=28.9 ms

--- 8.8.8.8 ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1001ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 28.911/29.296/29.682/0.421 ms
kykex
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Re: Computer connected but no access to internet, although other devices work

Post by kykex »

Thank you again!

The first command did not go through, the result was:

curl: (6) Could not resolve host: linuxconfig.org

The second one does ping fine:

PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=115 time=7.50 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=115 time=8.91 ms
- - - 8.8.8.8 ping statistics - - -
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1002 ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 7.495/8.202/8.910/0.707 ms

It also works if I try the ping with 127.0.0.1 (I read that somewhere on the forum). But if I type 8.8.8.8 in my searchbar (or Google.com or anything else) I still got the time out error message :(
kykex
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Re: Computer connected but no access to internet, although other devices work

Post by kykex »

Oh and by the way, yes I did reboot the computer and the box. I can test with Firefox and chrome (none work), and I cannot access the router via my browser
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Larry78723
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Re: Computer connected but no access to internet, although other devices work

Post by Larry78723 »

Most routers have a sticker on them, usually on the bottom, giving its IP address. See if you can ping the router's IP address.
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kykex
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Re: Computer connected but no access to internet, although other devices work

Post by kykex »

Thank you Larry! The ping goes through! Also, thanks to you I realize I had the bad IP address for the router (duuuh), so I am able to connect to the router via my browser, my bad. I'm just not sure what to change next. Here's the result for the ping test:

Ping -c 2 192.168.0.1
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1002 ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 2.617/90.488/178.359/87.871 ms
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Larry78723
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Re: Computer connected but no access to internet, although other devices work

Post by Larry78723 »

Before you do anything else, open a browser and see if you can connect to http://8.8.8.8. If yes, try to connect to http://google.com. Let me know the results.
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mikeflan
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Re: Computer connected but no access to internet, although other devices work

Post by mikeflan »

see if you can connect to http://8.8.8.8.
Correcting Larry. This doesn't happen much :)
See if you can connect to this in your browser:
https://8.8.8.8

Also post the response to this in a terminal:

Code: Select all

ping -c 2 www.google.com
kykex
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Re: Computer connected but no access to internet, although other devices work

Post by kykex »

Sorry, I thought I had already told you but I tried that and it doesn't connect. The browser times out, even with the 8.8.8.8 address, and the ping command answers:

Ping: www.google.com Name or service not known
kykex
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Re: Computer connected but no access to internet, although other devices work

Post by kykex »

My computer is a bit over 5 years old, could the network card be dead? Or the ping command wouldn't work either?
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Larry78723
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Re: Computer connected but no access to internet, although other devices work

Post by Larry78723 »

Are you using wifi or ethernet cable?
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kykex
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Re: Computer connected but no access to internet, although other devices work

Post by kykex »

Usually Ethernet cable, but I have the option of using WiFi too. I even tried switching both on, but nothing :(
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Re: Computer connected but no access to internet, although other devices work

Post by kykex »

I also tried to use my smartphone as a portable hotspot, and after connecting to it through wifi, still no internet on my computer (of course it works on my smartphone)
kykex
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Re: Computer connected but no access to internet, although other devices work

Post by kykex »

Ohh I've found something very interesting: when I switched my VPN on (protonVPN) I can finally connect to internet. But as soon as I switched it off, internet goes back to oblivion. It's strange, I've already used that VPN in the past without any problem, but it seems that, somehow, that VPN may have messed up my settings? I tried to look at the DNS settings but I think they're still on "automatic", could that helps anybody with the diagnosis?
mikeflan
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Re: Computer connected but no access to internet, although other devices work

Post by mikeflan »

Ohh I've found something very interesting: when I switched my VPN on (protonVPN) I can finally connect to internet.
Hmm. I don't know much about VPN, so waiting on better help. It is a DNS issue, but I don't understand that much either:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/question ... main-names
Sorry, I thought I had already told you but I tried that and it doesn't connect. The browser times out, even with the 8.8.8.8 address, and the ping command answers:

Ping: www.google.com Name or service not known
No need to do this now, but in the future it's best to just copy straight out of the terminal and include the command you issued.
Like this:

Code: Select all

$ ping -c 2 www.google.com
PING www.google.com(dfw28s23-in-x04.1e100.net (2607:f8b0:4000:817::2004)) 56 data bytes
64 bytes from dfw28s23-in-x04.1e100.net (2607:f8b0:4000:817::2004): icmp_seq=1 ttl=115 time=30.2 ms
64 bytes from dfw28s23-in-x04.1e100.net (2607:f8b0:4000:817::2004): icmp_seq=2 ttl=115 time=30.8 ms

--- www.google.com ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1001ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 30.249/30.551/30.853/0.302 ms
$
kykex
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Re: Computer connected but no access to internet, although other devices work

Post by kykex »

A quick update in case this could help anyone else with the same problems: It's finally fixed!

So my VPN must have messed something with the DNS, but I have no idea what or where. I ended up going to the network settings, and for my ethernet connection, I noticed that in the parameters (the little clockwork icon at the bottom right) there was a tab (below iPv4 and iPv6) that was called "reset". I simply logged out of my VPN, hit the reset button (several times because nothing seemed to happen), but when I checked back on my internet, it was fixed.

Hope this helps, and thank you again for the people that took from their time to help me, I appreciate! :)
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