Your VPN keeps disconnecting because something between your device and the VPN server is interrupting the tunnel. The usual suspects are power-saving settings, a shaky wi-fi signal, switching between wi-fi and mobile data, an older protocol, or a busy server. Most of these take less than five minutes to fix. The trick is working out which one applies to you, and the timing of the drops almost always gives it away.

This guide starts with how to read those clues, explains in plain English why VPNs drop at all, then walks you through a step-by-step checklist in the order that fixes the most people fastest. After that there are notes for Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, routers and Fire Stick, plus answers to the questions people ask most. If you'd rather be guided through it, our free VPN troubleshooter covers connection problems one question at a time.

Read the pattern first

Before you change a single setting, spend a minute noticing when the drops happen. It sounds like a delay, but it saves you trying ten fixes that were never going to work. Here's what each pattern usually means:

  • Only on wi-fi, but fine on a cable: your wi-fi signal is the weak link, not the VPN.
  • Only on mobile data, or when you leave the house: your phone is hopping between masts or between wi-fi and 4G/5G, and the tunnel isn't surviving the switch.
  • Only when the screen locks or the laptop sleeps: your device is shutting down network activity to save battery.
  • Only on one network, such as a hotel, office or university: that network's firewall is getting in the way.
  • Everywhere, all the time: it's more likely the protocol, an overloaded server, security software or the app itself.
  • After a fixed amount of time, like every 30 or 60 minutes: often a router or firewall that times out long-running connections.

Keep your answer in mind as you go through the rest of this page. You'll be able to skip straight to the step that matters.

Why VPNs disconnect

A VPN works by building a private, encrypted tunnel between your device and a server run by your VPN provider. All your internet traffic travels through that tunnel. To keep it open, your device and the server constantly check in with each other, a bit like two people on a phone call saying "still there?" every few seconds. If those check-ins go unanswered for long enough, the app decides the tunnel has broken and either reconnects or gives up.

So anything that briefly stops your device talking to the server can trigger a disconnect. That includes a wi-fi signal that dips for a second, a phone moving from your home wi-fi to mobile data, a laptop going to sleep, a router deciding a connection has been open too long, or a server so busy that it's slow to answer. Your normal browsing often hides these tiny blips because web pages just retry quietly. A VPN tunnel is less forgiving, which is why the VPN can seem like the problem when it's really just the first thing to notice one.

The protocol matters here too. A protocol is simply the set of rules your VPN uses to build and maintain the tunnel. Older ones, like OpenVPN, were designed when people mostly sat at desks on one connection. They can take a while to rebuild the tunnel after an interruption. Newer ones, like WireGuard, were built with phones and changing networks in mind, and they pick up where they left off much faster. NordVPN's version of WireGuard is called NordLynx. ExpressVPN has its own modern protocol called Lightway, which works along similar lines. PureVPN offers standard WireGuard.

Then there's power saving. Phones and laptops are very keen to save battery, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to pause apps running in the background or turn off the network adapter when the screen goes dark. Your VPN is a background app, so it's often the first casualty.

Step-by-step fix for a VPN that keeps dropping

Work through these in order. Test for a while after each one, ideally doing whatever normally triggers the drop, before moving on.

  1. Check your connection without the VPN. Disconnect the VPN and use the internet normally for ten or fifteen minutes. If pages still stall, video still buffers or your connection drops, the problem is your broadband or wi-fi, not the VPN. Restart your router and fix that first, because no VPN setting will make an unstable connection stable.
  2. Update the VPN app. Providers regularly ship stability fixes. If you're a few versions behind, you could be fighting a bug that's already been squashed. Check your app store or the app's own update option.
  3. Switch to a modern protocol. In NordVPN, open Settings and find the VPN Protocol option (it sits under Connection or Connection and security, depending on your app version), then choose NordLynx. In ExpressVPN, open the menu, go to the protocol option and choose Lightway. In PureVPN on Windows, open Settings, then the Protocol tab, switch off automatic protocol selection and choose WireGuard (on Android and iPhone it's under the Advanced tab). Our guide to changing VPN protocol has the steps for each app on every device. This one change fixes a big share of disconnection problems on its own.
  4. Try a different server. A server handling a lot of people can be slow to answer those "still there?" check-ins, so the tunnel times out. Pick another server in the same country, ideally a city closer to you. Our guide to switching VPN server shows how to choose a specific one rather than letting the app decide.
  5. Stop power saving from cutting the VPN. Exclude the VPN app from battery optimisation on your phone and stop your laptop turning off its network adapter. The device sections below have the exact steps.
  6. Turn on auto-connect or always-on VPN. Most VPN apps can reconnect automatically after a drop. On Android, the system-level Always-on VPN setting keeps the tunnel going at all times. On iPhone, look for an auto-connect or "connect on demand" option in your VPN app.
  7. Check your security software. Antivirus suites with their own firewall, web shield or "secure browsing" features can clash with VPN tunnels. Temporarily pause the firewall part and test. If the drops stop, add the VPN app as an exception (sometimes called an allowed app) and switch the protection back on.
  8. Look at your router. Restart it, check for a firmware update, and make sure any setting called VPN passthrough is on. If you use a router-level VPN, check that one too.
  9. Try obfuscation if you suspect blocking. If drops only happen on certain networks, or soon after you connect, the network might be spotting and interfering with VPN traffic. Obfuscation disguises the tunnel so it looks like normal encrypted web traffic. In NordVPN, this is the Obfuscated Servers option; NordVPN now runs those servers on its NordWhisper protocol.
  10. Reinstall the app cleanly. If nothing else has worked, uninstall the VPN, restart the device, then download a fresh copy from the provider's website or official app store and sign in again.

While you're testing, turn on your VPN's kill switch. It stops all internet traffic the moment the tunnel breaks, so your real IP address isn't exposed during those gaps. Our kill switch guide explains how to switch it on in each app. Once you've made changes, use our guide on how to check if your VPN is working to confirm the tunnel is up and your location is hidden.

Power saving and battery optimisation

If your VPN drops when the screen locks, or you come back to your phone and find it's quietly disconnected, power saving is almost certainly the cause. Your device is doing what it was designed to do: save battery by pausing anything it thinks you're not using. It just doesn't realise the VPN is protecting everything else.

The fix is to tell your device the VPN is important. On phones, that means excluding the VPN app from battery optimisation. On laptops, it means stopping the computer from turning off the network adapter. Low power and battery saver modes are more aggressive still, so if you leave those on all the time, expect the VPN to struggle when your battery is low. You don't have to give up on battery life completely; just make an exception for this one app.

Wi-fi, mobile data and the handover problem

Every time your phone moves from wi-fi to mobile data, or back again, its internet address changes. From the VPN server's point of view, you've suddenly vanished and someone new has turned up. Older protocols treat that as a break and have to set up the whole tunnel again, which can take several seconds and sometimes fails.

Modern protocols cope much better. WireGuard, NordLynx and Lightway are built to carry on when your address changes, so a handover often goes unnoticed. That's why switching protocol is such an effective fix on phones.

Wi-fi itself can be the weak point too. Thick walls, distance from the router, and lots of neighbouring networks on the same channel all cause tiny dropouts that you'd never spot when browsing. Try sitting closer to the router, connecting to the 5GHz network if your router offers one (it's faster and less crowded, though it doesn't reach as far), or plugging in a network cable as a test. If the VPN is rock solid on a cable, you've found your answer. If you're on cafe or train wi-fi, our guide to VPNs on public wi-fi covers the extra hurdles those networks add.

Router settings that cause drops

Your router sits between every device in your home and the internet, so its settings affect your VPN more than you might expect. Three things come up again and again.

First, firmware. That's the router's own built-in software. Old firmware can handle long-running connections badly, which shows up as a VPN that drops after a set amount of time. Log in to your router's admin page (the address is usually printed on a sticker on the router) and look for an update option. If you rent your router from your broadband provider, it may update itself, but a restart never hurts.

Second, VPN passthrough. Some routers have a setting that lets VPN traffic pass through their built-in firewall. It's usually on by default, but it's worth confirming if you've reset the router or changed security settings. Third, strict firewall or "security" modes. Some routers offer extra protection levels that can cut off connections they don't recognise. Try a lower setting to test.

If you run the VPN on the router itself rather than on your devices, remember that routers have much less processing power than a laptop. Under heavy use, they can struggle to keep the tunnel going. Updating firmware and choosing WireGuard where the router supports it both help.

Servers, distance and busy times

Not all VPN servers are equally busy. A popular server in a big city can be handling a huge number of people at peak times, typically in the evening. When it's stretched, it can be slow to respond, and your app may decide the connection has died.

The further away a server is, the more hops your data takes to reach it, and each hop is another place for a brief hiccup. For everyday use, pick a server in or near your own country. If you need a specific country, try a few different cities and servers there rather than sticking with one that keeps letting you down. If the drops only happen in the evening, that's a strong hint the server, not your setup, is the issue.

Antivirus, firewalls and other VPN apps

Security software is designed to be suspicious of anything that reroutes your traffic, and a VPN does exactly that. Some antivirus programs add their own network filter or even their own built-in VPN, and two things trying to control your connection at once rarely end well.

People often blame the VPN when the real problem is the connection underneath it. A half-second wobble on your normal wi-fi goes unnoticed, but a VPN has to drop and reconnect every time it happens. Steadying the connection fixes more VPN drops than any setting in the app.

Thomas Richard
Thomas Richard Editor, FixYourVPN.com

Also check you've only got one VPN installed and running. Old VPN apps you've stopped using, or a VPN built into your antivirus or browser, can leave network settings behind that fight with your main VPN. Uninstall anything you don't use.

Could your internet provider be interfering?

Some networks use a technique called deep packet inspection, which means looking closely at traffic to work out what kind it is. If a network decides it doesn't like VPN traffic, it can slow it down or cut it off. It's rare on UK home broadband. You're more likely to meet it on work, school and hotel networks, some mobile networks, and in countries that restrict VPNs.

The giveaway is a VPN that works fine elsewhere but drops on one particular connection. Switching protocol helps, and obfuscation helps more, because it disguises the VPN as everyday encrypted browsing. Our guides to VPNs on hotel wi-fi and university networks go deeper on getting past this kind of filtering.

Packet size (MTU), in plain English

This one is rarer, so only look at it if nothing else has helped. Data travels across the internet in small parcels called packets. Every network has a maximum parcel size it will accept, known as the MTU. A VPN wraps each parcel in an extra layer of packaging, so it gets a little bigger. If it ends up too big for some part of the journey, it can get dropped, and the VPN may connect fine but then stall or disconnect, especially on certain websites or apps.

Many VPN apps adjust for this automatically. If yours has an MTU setting, lowering it slightly can help, but don't guess wildly; check your provider's help pages for a recommended value first. Switching protocol often sorts it out without you touching the setting at all.

Device-specific fixes

Windows

Open Device Manager, expand Network adapters, right-click your wi-fi or ethernet adapter and choose Properties. On the Power Management tab, untick "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power". Then check your power plan isn't set to an aggressive battery saver while you need the VPN. If you've recently installed antivirus software, check its firewall settings as described above, and make sure the VPN app is allowed through Windows Defender Firewall.

Mac

Open System Settings and look at the Battery section. If Low Power Mode is on, try switching it off to test. Check the network-related sleep options too, such as waking for network access, since a Mac that fully sleeps will drop the VPN. Also look in System Settings under Network, then VPN, for any leftover VPN configurations from apps you no longer use, and remove them.

iPhone and iPad

Make sure Background App Refresh is on for your VPN app in Settings, and turn off Low Power Mode while testing. iPhones also have a feature called Wi-Fi Assist, found near the bottom of your iPhone's mobile data settings, which quietly switches you to mobile data when wi-fi is weak. That switch can break older VPN tunnels, so either turn it off or use a modern protocol that handles the change. Turning on your VPN app's auto-connect option helps it come back by itself.

Android

Go to Settings, then Apps, find your VPN app and set its battery usage to unrestricted (the wording varies between phone makers, so look for "battery optimisation" or "background usage"). Some brands are especially keen on closing background apps, so you may also need to lock the app in the recent apps screen. Then go to Settings, Network and internet, VPN, tap the cog next to your VPN and switch on Always-on VPN. That tells Android to keep the tunnel going at all times.

Routers

Restart the router, update its firmware, confirm VPN passthrough is on and try a less strict firewall setting. If the router itself runs the VPN, switch it to WireGuard if it's supported and avoid overloading it with too many devices at once.

Amazon Fire Stick

Fire Sticks are small, low-powered devices, so they can find older, heavier protocols hard work. Switch to NordLynx, Lightway or WireGuard in the VPN app, keep the app updated, and restart the stick from Settings, then My Fire TV. If the stick is tucked behind the TV, the wi-fi signal can be weak, so a short HDMI extender or moving the router closer can help. Our full Fire Stick VPN guide covers the rest. Roku can't run VPN apps directly, so if that's your device, see our Roku VPN guide for router-based options.

Is it actually slowness, not a drop?

Sometimes what feels like a disconnect is really the connection slowing so much that videos freeze and pages time out. The VPN icon still says connected, but nothing loads. The causes overlap a lot, with busy servers, long distances and older protocols all playing a part. If that sounds more like your problem, our guide on why your VPN is so slow walks through measuring and fixing it.

VPNs that stay connected

Once you've worked through the steps above, most VPNs settle down. But if your VPN keeps dropping on every network and every device, the provider itself may be the weak link. Free VPNs are a common culprit, with small, overcrowded server networks.

NordVPN is our first pick for a stable connection: NordLynx copes well with network changes, the server network is large enough that you can always find a quieter option, and the kill switch is easy to set up. ExpressVPN is a strong second, with Lightway built for reconnecting quickly on phones. PureVPN is a decent budget-friendly third, offering WireGuard and an internet kill switch. For more help with connection issues across the board, browse our connection problems hub.