Troubleshooting · Plain-English answer
This usually means the tunnel is up but something inside it is broken, most often DNS. Your device cannot turn names into addresses, so pages fail even though the VPN shows connected. Switching servers, changing DNS settings, or reconnecting after toggling the kill switch fixes the majority of cases.
A connected VPN with no internet is a routing or DNS problem, not an outage. If websites fail by name, DNS inside the tunnel has stopped answering. If nothing responds at all, the tunnel is up but the server is not passing traffic, which happens when a server goes unhealthy without dropping connections.
The quickest check is switching to another server. If the internet returns immediately, the first server was the problem and there is nothing to fix on your side.
Disconnect and reconnect, then try a different server. If that fails, restart the app, since a kill switch can stay engaged after a crash and silently block everything until the app resets it. On desktop, disabling and re-enabling the network adapter or rebooting clears stuck routes.
Remove custom DNS entries on the device, because manual settings that fight the VPN's own DNS are a classic cause. Once you are back online, a quick run of /tools/dns-leak-test/ confirms your lookups are flowing through the tunnel as they should.
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