The app says "connected", the VPN icon in the status bar is lit, but sites will not open. This is a separate fault, and it differs from the "VPN will not connect" situation: the tunnel is established, but traffic does not pass through it.
The short answer
The "connected" icon means the client has established a connection to the server. It does not mean data is flowing through that connection. The problem lives between these two states.
Check in order
- Open any site by its address, not from bookmarks. The browser may have shown a page from cache, and it will seem to you that the internet is working when it is not — or the other way around.
- Switch the server. If a particular location is overloaded or unavailable, the tunnel will come up but data will not flow through it. Changing the location solves most such cases.
- Turn off the VPN and check the internet without it. If nothing opens without the VPN either, the cause is not the service: the problem is in the network, the plan or the device.
- Restart the app completely. Do not minimize it — close it and open it again. The client may have been left in an intermediate state after a network change.
- Check whether a second VPN is running. Two simultaneously active VPN configurations on one device conflict: the system hands the route to one, while the app shows the status of the other. On a phone, look into the system VPN settings and disable the extra profiles.
- Reboot the device. It is trite, but it helps: the network stack is reset along with stuck routes and DNS records.
Common causes
Stale DNS records
The device remembers which address a site is at. After connecting to the VPN the route changed, but the remembered address stayed the same — and the request goes nowhere. It is cured by restarting the app, rebooting the device or simply waiting: the records live for a limited time.
Two VPNs at once
The most underrated cause. The user tried another service, its configuration stayed in the system and keeps intercepting traffic. From the outside it looks like a fault of the new app.
An overloaded or unavailable location
The server accepts the connection but cannot cope with the traffic or has itself lost its link to the external network. There is a tunnel, but no internet. It is checked by changing the location in five seconds.
Restrictions in the network itself
On guest and corporate networks sometimes only web traffic is open. The tunnel may establish, but application data will not pass. It is checked by switching to mobile internet.
How this differs from "VPN will not connect"
If the app never reaches the "connected" state — that is a different fault, and it is handled differently: there the matter is establishing the connection, not the passage of traffic. For that case we have a separate write-up.
What to tell support
If nothing helped, write to us — no registration needed. So the diagnosis does not drag on, state right away: your operator and city, the connection type (mobile or home), the chosen location, the app version and what exactly will not open — all sites or a specific service. The last point matters: "the internet does not work" and "one site will not open" are different stories.