Home/Answers/Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting · Plain-English answer

Why does my VPN keep disconnecting?

Frequent drops usually come from the network underneath the VPN: weak Wi-Fi, switching between Wi-Fi and mobile data, or a router that times out idle connections. On phones, aggressive battery optimisation often kills the VPN app in the background. A kill switch keeps traffic protected during each drop.

Find the layer that is actually dropping

A VPN can only be as stable as the connection underneath it, so start there. If your Wi-Fi signal is marginal, the VPN disconnects every time the wireless link stutters, and it gets blamed for a radio problem. Moving closer to the router or using a cable settles the question quickly.

On phones, the usual culprit is the operating system itself. Battery optimisation kills background apps to save power, and VPN apps are frequent victims. Exempting the app from battery optimisation in system settings stops most mysterious mobile drops.

Settings and habits that help

Use WireGuard if the app offers protocol choices, since it survives network changes and sleep far better than older protocols and reconnects in moments when a drop does happen. Keep the app updated, and if drops cluster on one server, switch, because individual servers do get restarted.

Finally, turn the kill switch on. It cannot prevent disconnections, but it guarantees nothing leaks in the seconds before the tunnel comes back, which turns drops from a privacy problem into a minor annoyance.

Related questions

Why does my VPN drop when my phone locks?
The operating system suspends background apps to save battery, and the VPN goes with them. Exclude the VPN app from battery optimisation, and on Android consider the always on VPN option in system settings.
Does a kill switch stop my VPN disconnecting?
No, it does something different: it blocks all traffic whenever the tunnel is down, so nothing leaks during a drop. Fixing the disconnections is about the network and app settings, not the kill switch.

Keep reading

More from the ROOT VPN answers hub.

Private in one tap.

ROOT VPN is free to start with unlimited data, no card needed, and no activity logs.

Get ROOT VPN, free