VPN disconnects when iPhone goes into auto-lock ?

My company had to get rid of all our iPhones and iPads because of this VPN problem.

What's more, we informed several other companies in the SF bay area of the problem and they are getting rid of their Apple mobile devices and replacing them with Android devices which do not have this problem.

Please help us to spread the word. As it turns out switching to Android devices is pretty easy and they are more easily managed in a corporate environment.

I am a disappointed iPad Air user for this meaningless VPN defect. I believe that they are legelly responsible for this. A main function on in internet device does not serve its purpose.

I live in Turkey. We have a surveillance state. We have strict censorship online. We need VPN.

OpenVPN app users, do you have this problem? Which VPN service do you use?

Can I use a prepaid VPN service with Cisco Anyconnect if it is a solution? Which one do you suggest?

Any other idea?

Dear Apple, it is 2014. We pay lots of money for your devices. Please make them work as they should be! Please hear your customers once in a while!

This is how Apple gets their superior battery life: their products don't do anything useful.

That's also how BSD keeps from crashing as much as other operating systems. 🙂

If I knew this, I would not buy this product. I don't know if I should apply to a court for a refund. I am not sure courts would understand how important VPN is... It is unlikely to get a positive result. If they would not, I must also bear proceedings expenses...

Too bad, reallly. This device is useless without an internet connection.

Maybe I just should sell the device with a big price drop as I have my name on its back... :)

I feel like an idiot for buying this. :)

This issue has been going on for four years. FOUR years, and I just experienced it myself too, as many other users did. Sounds like Apple don't like people wanting a bit of online safety/privacy...

Anyway? Is there a workaround for this? Will I have to root my phone to get it to work properly?

Otherwise, what is Apple's policy regarding refunds when the hardware/software is faulty? Because it is by definition faulty, if one sells a device with advertised features not working.

Did they advertise it as having a VPN on 24/7? Can you show where they said that... I think they "get away with it" because they haven't said it can do that. So technically - it's not faulty, it's just missing a critical feature.

I believe there are some MDM solutions which offer a way to do VPN, by means of installing an apple Profile configured for such - but I've never dealt with it before... just read about it...

Customers have a right to expect that VPN will work without interruption, because otherwise it is meaningless and useless.

Moreover, VPN function with interruption without any warning for interruption creates a false safety sense among customers, which might be defined as a customer deception.

I think, as a lawyer, according to Article 4 of Turkish Customer Protection Law, Apple may be hold responsible for VPN problem on its products. However I am not sure whether courts would be on customers' side.

On the other hand if customers do not take legal action it seems that Apple would never care how much we complain on these forums. I think this is obvious after long years.

mavisiyah wrote:

Customers have a right to expect that VPN will work without interruption, because otherwise it is meaningless and useless.

You have no right to expect anything. You do have right to do your homework, before buying expensive product and just like every Apple customer - you didn't.

Hotspot Shield connects automatically whenever I unlock the phone. It's not the best when it reconnects (some minor issues) but I didn't realize that was something unique to that app, I thought all VPNs would do that! So imagine my suprise when I just paid for ExpressVPN and have been looking for how to turn "always-on" like HSS did? Dangit...guess i'll stick with HSS. I have no complaints about HSS except in hotels when the router bogs down and it kicks everyone off and re-initiates hotel login screen, then the "always-on" hangs up trying to get reconnected. But other than that it works great. i wouldn't have switched if I would have known HSS was the only one with that setting.

HotSpot Shield...i am coming back...

OpenVPN app automatically reconnects whenever my iPhone (iOS 6) or iPad (iOS 7) returns from sleep. This solves this problem to some extent. To use this app you can rent a VPS and install openvpn on it, or you can use privatetunnel VPN service.

This solution would solve everything If there was a basic option in settings: "Transfer internet data only via VPN".

Hi,

I just discovered this issue. Only became an issue for me because I need to travel. I'm assuming when travelling one could adopt the following procedure as a work around to this problem.

1) Before locking iPad simply turn off Wifi.

2) when I get back on the iPad turn on Wifi and immediately turn on VPN.

This is a hassle but I would only need to do this when travelling in my case which means I probably won't use VPN when at home and hence only subscribe to a VPN service monthly I.e. only on those months when I'm away. I.e. So this bug will hurt VPN providers' bottom line as well since I would have considered using VPN all the time if it wasn't such a hassle to use on the iPad.

mavisiyah wrote:

OpenVPN app automatically reconnects whenever my iPhone (iOS 6) or iPad (iOS 7) returns from sleep. This solves this problem to some extent. To use this app you can rent a VPS and install openvpn on it, or you can use privatetunnel VPN service.

This solution would solve everything If there was a basic option in settings: "Transfer internet data only via VPN".

It may be a little hard to understand how to rent a VPS and how to install openvpn for avarage users, so maybe I should give some detail on how do I exactly use this method for the ones who need.

1. Rent a VPS. I have got one from digitalocean.com. Very simple. Just a few clicks.
2. Install a Softether VPN server, which is free and open source, on your VPS following the instructions here. To enter the commands you need to use PuTTy. You may use Softether VPN Server Manager for Windows after step 4. I recommend it.
3. Using Softether VPN Server Manager for Windows, get the OpenVPN configuration file (.opvn), download it. There will be two files, use the "L3" one.
4. Install OpenVPN client for iOS to your Apple device.
5. Import that .ovpn file into that app.
6. Connect.

I recommend Softether server instead of OpenVPN server because it is fully OpenVPN compatible and there is no user limit unlike OpenVPN server, in which only 2 users can connect simultaneously in free mode. For more users a 10 users license should be bought.

This works for me iPhone 5 iso 6.1.4;

http://www.ehow.com/how_12133063_keep-vpn-alive-iphone.html#page=0

I use the VPN to access my company network and works good, I tried manually going to sleep and then awakening back and the connection is still there, then letting go auto-lock and worked good.

I'm using a profile provided by company IT.

Now, we use a tunnel for security reasons and of course if your current IP changes for any reason (going cellular to Wi-Fi or viceversa) of course the tunnel goes down and you need to re-open the VPN.

We also use a soft token as password for bringing the tunnel up so it is a little bit cumbersome but it is the same as using accessing the VPN with a laptop, either in Windows or OSX. I guess if we were to use a certificate the VPN should connect immediately but I have no way to tell.

So I think the problem may be related on the characteristic of the VPN. Just an opninion.

leave your iphone locked for 10-20 minutes and then see if vpn is still on,

to will be surprised to find out that vpn goes off after a while, unless you have your phone charging.