Why does your VPN keep disconnecting?

Usually the connection underneath, an overloaded server, or a protocol that recovers badly from brief interruptions.

A VPN cannot be more stable than what carries it

The tunnel runs over your ordinary connection. If the Wi-Fi wavers for a second, the tunnel goes with it — and because the VPN is the thing that visibly announces the interruption, it gets the blame for something it did not cause.

This is worth ruling out first. If the dropouts happen on Wi-Fi but not on a cable, or in one room but not another, the VPN is a symptom. The Wi-Fi optimiser looks at that side.

The kill switch problem

Most VPN apps include a kill switch: when the tunnel drops, it blocks all traffic rather than letting anything travel unprotected. That is exactly what it should do, and it is the reason people install it.

The consequence is that a brief, ordinary dropout stops being invisible. Instead of a moment of instability you get a hard stop, and it looks identical to the internet failing. If your connection reconnects but nothing loads until you toggle the VPN, this is very likely what you are seeing.

Devices moving between networks

A phone that hands over from Wi-Fi to mobile data as you walk out of a building will drop the tunnel. So will a laptop moving between mesh access points. Some apps handle this smoothly and some do not, and the protocol in use makes a real difference — newer ones are considerably better at surviving a change of network.

Server load

An overloaded server will drop connections, particularly at peak times. If reconnecting gives you a different server and the problem goes away for a while, that is what was happening. Picking a server manually rather than accepting the automatic assignment is often enough.

What to try, in order

  1. Check whether it happens on a wired connection too. That splits the problem in half.
  2. Change protocol in the app’s settings. This fixes a surprising share of dropouts.
  3. Reconnect to get a different server, or choose one manually.
  4. Update the app — repeated breakage after a system update is often already fixed.
  5. Check whether a kill switch is turning brief interruptions into hard stops.

The VPN troubleshooter works through these against what you are actually seeing.