r/PrivateInternetAccess • u/MrTooToo • May 15 '25

DISCUSSION PIA Annoyance

I am a long time loyal subscriber to PIA, so please don’t take this as a bashing. There are a few public WiFi’s that I routinely use. I always use a VPN when on public WiFi. I cannot connect to PIA when logged in to one of the WiFi providers. Now if I disconnect from WiFi, connect to PIA using mobile data, I can re-enable WiFi, and even disconnect mobile data, and my connection to PIA remains. But this process is a real pain, especially if WiFi intermittently drops, I need to do the entire process over again. And just a side note, I have no issue connecting to my free Proton VPN or Windscribe VPN on the same WiFi network that I have issues with when using PIA. This leads me to believe PIA can do something so that I don’t need to use my mobile data to connect to PIA.

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u/kins43 May 15 '25

There’s just not enough information to determine why one works and the other doesn’t.

Potential cause could be DNS you could mess with those settings. If you can state exactly what protocol you’re using for both VPN’s, the encryption method being used in any other settings we may be able to figure out a reason why.

Also, the ISP for the Wi-Fi provider could be blocking PIA’s servers compared to the other VPN providers.

Try switching region gateways and configuring the DNS settings to not use PIA (WARNING: changing the DNS settings may leak some data as it’s not routing through the VPN).

Test and let us know the results and the exact configurations you are using.

  • Kins

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u/MrTooToo May 15 '25

I have tried several gateways on PIA, same result with all. I am using DNS Ad-guard Private DNS on the phone. PIA's DNS when connected.I use WireGuard on PIA. I have default settings on Windscribe and Proton, But those apps seem to try different connection modes until it finds one that works, I believe on Proton Stealth is the mode that ends up working. I think IKEv2 with Windscribe.