VPN Manager for OpenVPN

  • A similar thing happened to me here recently. I was watching a saved video file within my Pi3 when I lost connection. I didn't notice it actually until a notification from VPN Manager popped up which was going through the motions of reconnecting. During that process the saved video file I was watching kicked out like I had stopped it. I was surprised to say the least.

    There was no PVR device involved...but it was a saved video.

  • zomboided Little update for you on my issue:

    First off I donated a couple of bucks to my favorite charity the EFF.

    Next, I have installed a fresh install of libreelec and simply added repo's I did not install any zips except for your zip file.

    NordVPN still errors out on downloading using the latest libreelec.

    So, It is for sure an issue with OPENVPN at this point. I notice the downloads lag hard core.

    Idea for you I am desperately seeking a solution that will work so the program functions as it should would it be possible to download the zip file and then just extract it using the OPENVPN software it just seems it would stop the issues with the downloads as you would be downloading a single zip file and unzipping locally I think failure would disappear all together while I could be wrong it seems this would be excellent if this avenue could be taken instead. It is like the pi does not like all the individual files being downloaded.

    So have software download the zip. zip

    Then software unpacks files to /dowload/NordVPN

    Then software imports. Errr not sure as to where it imports

    Optionally a resume function to pickup where it craps out would be nice so it don't just download things again and waste bandwidth and time I swear I must have tried to download the listing like 20+ times waiting forever in a day over the last 3 days all for it to crap out very discouraging.

    I'd like to see this work without a hack job really which is why I made the above suggestions.

    What lines of code and such on the github are for nordvpn I wonder if I could maybe try to fork the code for a nordvpn build or something never did it so I really don't have a clue how to do anything with github nor program but I'm kind of out of options here.

    You are telling me that it is working when I assure you it is not a connection like this one is hard to come by it is not my internet either I got a massive pipe and everything else is ticking along fine. My SD Card is one of the best on the market at the current time. My Pi's are all brand new and run everything else fine about a couple weeks old. Retropie, Linux and other builds I have messed with without issue. All USB ports work bluetooth works power adapters are all 5v 3a tried all 3 of these. Tried every hardware angle I can think of.

    I have a new install of LibreElec 8.1.0 wrote that image with etcher direct from LibreElec's website.

    /shrug Kind of at a loss here.

    I thank you for the software and everything really I guess my original trial of using it it worked dang good and I was spoiled by it I believe as now it seems I cannot get it going if I took a month of Sundays trying to download the ovpn files.

    I don't mind a challenge I suppose but really this thing should work on a fresh installation.

    Any other openvpn apps available for LibreElec or do you hold the only existing application for it?

    @everyone

    Anyone else using zomboided's openvpn and the latest libreelec in conjunction with NordVPN?

    If so have you tried to update the latest listing of ovpn files?

    Edited once, last by forlotto: Added a few things for clarity. (September 19, 2017 at 6:21 AM).

  • Here is the debug log snippet. I hope you can fix the issue. Let me know if you require any further information.

    Movie played from library stored locally on HDD

    20:05:38.941 T:1567617952 NONE: VPN Mgr Debug: Changing VPN. Current playing /var/media/Arpit-Kodi/Videos/Vault, The (2017)/The Vault.2017.BR-Rip.mkv


    Played a video file stored locally but not in library

    20:06:41.815 T:1567617952 NONE: VPN Mgr Debug: Changing VPN. Current playing /media/Arpit-Kodi/Baby Songs/ABC Song - Nursery Rhymes - 3D Baby Songs - Alphabet Rhyme.mp4


    Played pvr stream

    20:07:26.084 T:1567617952 NONE: VPN Mgr Debug: Changing VPN. Current playing pvr://channels/tv/All channels/pvr.hts_1621620544.pvr


    Here is the full log file 20:03:54.268 T:1962302416 NOTICE: special://profile/ is mapped to: special://ma - Pastebin.com

    Edited 2 times, last by ace310: Added full log (September 19, 2017 at 11:45 AM).

  • @fotlotto, here's my issue : On my crappy connection in the location I'm at currently, it takes ~5 minutes to download the Nord files. I can just about do low quality streaming on that connection. On my home connection which far more suitable for streaming, download would be much quicker. I agree using a zip would be better, and restarting would be good too, but this is a problem unique to NordVPN and their insistence on having 1000s of ovpn files. As you can imagine, my interest in writing a load of code to solve a problem for 1 out of ~40 providers is pretty low.

    You're also suggesting fixes when the problem of Nord failing to download has not been understood. If there's something in your environment that's causing it to crap out, then that's what needs fixing. I'd like to see a debug log of it failing before I do anything more.

  • forlotto: I just want to mention that I also use NordVPN and it works fine with me (Thx zomboided for your plugin!).

    I had to enable the default up/down scripts as well, so maybe that might be the issue?

    zomboided: on Kodi 18 (Leia) the addon-filter plugin selection pages do not work, but when edited into the settings.xml, it will function. Do you happen to know how to get the interface also working?

    Regards

  • Ok, will keep an eye on it. Guess that Leia being still in alfa, this might not be most important issue yet... And it is possible to make it work with workaround, so I will give it some time.

  • Hi,

    in the last couple of days openvpn manager can't connect to my Synology's openvpn server, altough i can connect with the same config from several different devices.

    Could you please give me some advice, what should i check. You can see my log below:

    20:06:32.660 T:140513526241024 NOTICE: Tue Sep 19 20:05:15 2017 WARNING: file '/storage/.kodi/addons/service.vpn.manager/UserDefined/pass.txt' is group or others accessible

    20:06:32.660 T:140513526241024 NOTICE: Tue Sep 19 20:05:15 2017 OpenVPN 2.4.0 x86_64-libreelec-linux-gnu [SSL (OpenSSL)] [LZO] [LZ4] [EPOLL] [AEAD] built on Aug 29 2017

    20:06:32.660 T:140513526241024 NOTICE: Tue Sep 19 20:05:15 2017 library versions: OpenSSL 1.0.2l 25 May 2017, LZO 2.09

    20:06:32.660 T:140513526241024 NOTICE: Tue Sep 19 20:05:15 2017 WARNING: No server certificate verification method has been enabled. See howto.html#mitm for more info.

    20:06:32.660 T:140513526241024 NOTICE: Tue Sep 19 20:05:15 2017 TCP/UDP: Preserving recently used remote address: [AF_INET]xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:xxx

    20:06:32.660 T:140513526241024 NOTICE: Tue Sep 19 20:05:15 2017 Socket Buffers: R=[212992->212992] S=[212992->212992]

    20:06:32.660 T:140513526241024 NOTICE: Tue Sep 19 20:05:15 2017 UDP link local (bound): [AF_INET][undef]:1194

    20:06:32.660 T:140513526241024 NOTICE: Tue Sep 19 20:05:15 2017 UDP link remote: [AF_INET]xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:xxx

    20:06:32.660 T:140513526241024 NOTICE: Tue Sep 19 20:05:45 2017 [UNDEF] Inactivity timeout (--ping-exit), exiting

    20:06:32.660 T:140513526241024 NOTICE: Tue Sep 19 20:05:45 2017 SIGTERM[soft,ping-exit] received, process exiting

    20:06:32.660 T:140513526241024 NOTICE: VPN Mgr : (platform.py) <<< VPN log file end

  • ace310 thanks, that's helpful, 4.1.6 will work for you, you can get it on Github, I'll put it in the repo when it's been tested by a few people. I might need to refine it further based on some other feedback/more testing, but right now it'll only stop your remote streams based on what I see in the log.

  • ace310 thanks, that's helpful, 4.1.6 will work for you, you can get it on Github, I'll put it in the repo when it's been tested by a few people. I might need to refine it further based on some other feedback/more testing, but right now it'll only stop your remote streams based on what I see in the log.

    Thanks. Will test it out later today and report back.

  • @fotlotto, here's my issue : On my crappy connection in the location I'm at currently, it takes ~5 minutes to download the Nord files. I can just about do low quality streaming on that connection. On my home connection which far more suitable for streaming, download would be much quicker. I agree using a zip would be better, and restarting would be good too, but this is a problem unique to NordVPN and their insistence on having 1000s of ovpn files. As you can imagine, my interest in writing a load of code to solve a problem for 1 out of ~40 providers is pretty low.

    You're also suggesting fixes when the problem of Nord failing to download has not been understood. If there's something in your environment that's causing it to crap out, then that's what needs fixing. I'd like to see a debug log of it failing before I do anything more.

    huey could you do me a favor and just try to reset everything maybe even uninstall and reinstall and try the latest version to see if you have the error as well? Whats killing me is this is a brand spanking new image with almost nothing but zomboided on it and everything is new and fully capable of functioning as fast as any residential person could 1GB/1GB fiber is a huge pipe. Everything is new and functions fine microsd is a rather speedy little microsd 90mb/s 32GB samsung evo. Errr not to sure about the bluetooth dongle possibly I should remove that as I have yet to really give it a test it is for my bluetooth keyboard/mousepad combo using the plugin usb keyboard for now until I figure all this out I am trying to eliminate any existing elements to be sure it is the software and as far as I can tell I have but this is why I am here at this discussion board sometimes it is the little thing you miss and no one has pointed it out to me yet except enabling default up/down scripts which I should try for kickers as well but I thought that had to do with something all together different looking at the code I will give it a try now actually and post back in case you are on to something there! EDIT: No go did not help a bit.

    What version of LibreElec are you using?

    zomboided

    Alright I posted the area where your program failed for me the first time if you want say a full log from boot I would be glad to provide that but I find it rather pointless as you say it is a problem for one of 40 so not worth the time to write code I totally get that and appreciate your honesty.

    Log Provided : cDSN

    Alternative1: Paste.ee - Zomboided Log

    Yeah was looking at the code it appears that your github is hosting all of the files and you actually change the names of the files as well from the originals to new ones. Seems to me like a lot of crap that could be cut out if you did the zip thing as suggested but I'm no programmer I am kind of curious though I I could change or modify the code to fit my needs being the 1 in 40.

    I have already purchased NordVPN so I am going to be with them for some time it seems as I have a plan that lasts at least a few more months prepaid so I am stuck unless I want to shell out more for yet another VPN... Which is why I'd rather pay you to update the code to make it a single file download so we don't trigger anything maybe github has limitations on the number of get requests for a time frame on a project to prevent DDOS type stuff from happening lets say 100 people want to use NordVPN that is a ton of requests. Its weird to me because the files are not repeating as far as failure goes.

    Who knows surely not me if I did I wouldn't be here badgering the guy that gave the community a great program for nothing I hate doing this as much as you hate hearing about it.

    Maybe the log will shed some light and provide a simple fix but I don't see nothing in there other than an odd warning about updating something in future versions. I also see that update monitor seems to be invoking rather frequently maybe I should try an older version of LibreElec as well IDK.

    I am open to suggestions if you are interested in fixing the 1 out of 40 but if not just verify that with me and I'll have to take another approach possibly as I said looking further into things to see if there is a way I can modify your code while I know nothing about it other than what is readable maybe between stack exchange or other resources I could figure a method of doing the single zip file IDK.


    Thank You!

    Edited 5 times, last by forlotto (September 20, 2017 at 4:51 AM).

  • forlotto. I had something similar to the issue you're reporting. I was unable to get automatic updates working which also come from a github url. I ran some network traces and could see that my connections were being re-routed to the wrong ip by my isp (virgin media). I did a little googling and found that there were some anti-malware/parental controls which i could set in the myvirgin web interface. I had the problem both on and off vpn because the controls seemed to cause dns requests for certain hostnames to resolve to a virgin media ip. After i turned off those limitations in the myvirgin web interface then my dns requests routed to the correct place any everything worked as it should. It would be worth checking whether your isp has any similar anti-malware/parental controls, and if so switch them off and see if the problem goes away.

    Edited once, last by jahutchi (September 20, 2017 at 10:15 AM).

  • @fotlotto your download is failing because after 35-40 downloads the connection is timing out - here's the return back from the http request to fetch the file from your log.

    Code
    urlopen error [Errno 110] Connection timed out

    After seeing 10 failures, the addon gives up trying by design.

    I've tried Nord again this morning and it downloads fine for me. I don't think Github is limiting downloads.

    I think your connection is timing out because something in your environment is blocking it. jahutchi is making a good point and that's where you should investigate.

    I'm not going to change any code here because I don't perceive there's any overall value, and certainly no functional value once it's set up and working. If this doesn't work for you, then you have the option of using User Defined to import the files that have been downloaded and unzipped outside of the addon, or as you say, you can rewrite it.