Eddie doesn't work anymore, keeps restarting for weeks now, was working before

[967819f75c 0]

Using Eddie unfortunately never have been a completely foolproof experience, however at least I could connect most of the time.

But last weeks it's a pain and it NEVER connects anymore. With having this issue I recently upgraded to version 2.20.0, but still it's not connecting. I searched everywhere and checked all kind of settings, but none of them worked.

There's nothing wrong with the internet connection here and I never changed any setting in Eddie nor in Windows network settings that could've cause this either except for just installing the regular Windows 10 updates. Really from one day to the other Eddie completely stopped working. This makes Eddie feel pretty unreliable and very critical. Now I'm paying money everyday for a VPN which has so much issues with its client. It doesn't feel right to say the least. The logs really aren't telling anything useful either. It just says 'restarting'.

BUT when looking in the System Report by clicking on the emergency icon, there seem to be an IPv6 error: 'Test HTTP IPv6: Error: Fetch url error:Couldn't connect to server'. The IPv4 test says OK though. But again; nothing changed in the network here and it was working most of the time before.

Please tell me what to do to fix this issue!

[OpenSourcerer 1441]

7 hours ago, 967819f75c said:

Please tell me what to do to fix this issue!

Post that system report, maybe?

[Fly AirVPN 12]

Eddie works well with both my MS Windows 10 Home and Pro edition on two separate PCs. Have you considered doing a complete uninstall including removing any remaining AirVPN and Eddie leftover folders? Perhaps a registry clean up would help as well though I'm not sure Windows adds any Eddie items to the registry. I would also suggest a reboot after the uninstall. There is also consideration of doing a Network reset in Windows before doing a clean Eddie install. Though this may be inconvenient, it may also be the "fix".

[monstrocity 31]

20 hours ago, Fly AirVPN said:

Eddie works well with both my MS Windows 10 Home and Pro edition on two separate PCs. Have you considered doing a complete uninstall including removing any remaining AirVPN and Eddie leftover folders? Perhaps a registry clean up would help as well though I'm not sure Windows adds any Eddie items to the registry. I would also suggest a reboot after the uninstall. There is also consideration of doing a Network reset in Windows before doing a clean Eddie install. Though this may be inconvenient, it may also be the "fix".

OP, try temporarily disabling the Windows Defender Firewall (and any other firewall program you might have installed).  Then, try to connect with Eddie.  If it works without issue, then you need to add Eddie-ui to the list of "Allow Apps Through Windows Defender Firewall".  If somehow that doesn't work, try the uninstall / reinstall suggestion by Fly AirVPN.

[967819f75c 0]

23 hours ago, monstrocity said:

On 6/1/2021 at 11:52 AM, Fly AirVPN said:

...

OP, try temporarily disabling the Windows Defender Firewall (and any other firewall program you might have installed).  Then, try to connect with Eddie.  If it works without issue, then you need to add Eddie-ui to the list of "Allow Apps Through Windows Defender Firewall".  If somehow that doesn't work, try the uninstall / reinstall suggestion by Fly AirVPN.

Thanks. I don't use Defender, but ESET. I've been using ESET all the time I've used Eddie and have created rules for it. I did the 'disable firewall'-test anyway the other day, but it didn't help.
 

On 6/1/2021 at 11:52 AM, Fly AirVPN said:

Eddie works well with both my MS Windows 10 Home and Pro edition on two separate PCs. Have you considered doing a complete uninstall including removing any remaining AirVPN and Eddie leftover folders? Perhaps a registry clean up would help as well though I'm not sure Windows adds any Eddie items to the registry. I would also suggest a reboot after the uninstall. There is also consideration of doing a Network reset in Windows before doing a clean Eddie install. Though this may be inconvenient, it may also be the "fix".

Thanks! I just did:
- Uninstalling Eddie the regular Windows way via the Eddie uninstaller
- Removed the Program Files/AirVPN folder
- Removed C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local\Eddie
- Restarted PC
- Install Eddie 2.20.0 64x
- Started Eddie and tried to login

Than I had an issue logging in; wrong login/password. With the login I stored in Keepass for the VPN. So tried several times, looked in my account etc.
Just to find out that with changing the password weeks ago about three days ago for the forum also the password for the VPN obviously changed with that. To me that's confusing, as there is a completely different username for the VPN compared to the one used for the website and forum.

[edit] The initial issue couldn't be caused by changing the password, as I've only changed the password AFTER having the issue, as I couldn't log unto the forum and so renewed the password to log this issue here.

When entering the special username for the VPN together with the new password for the website/forum it works; I can log in AND connect to a server now.

So this leaves me with the following questions;
- Why do we have a different username for the VPN and the forum/website, but does the password of the VPN change with the changed password of the forum/website?
- If using the old password was the reason that Eddie couldn't connect anymore (not sure if that was the only thing though); why wasn't Eddie showing the wrong login/password error message? If that was the case I would know what was wrong, but instead Eddie only kept restarting on the server. The log wasn't helpful either to know what's going on as it only stated 'restarting' too. While if it would say; cannot login, or wrong login/password, that would make much more sense IMO and than it wouldn't be this mysterious to debug.
  Edited ... by 967819f75c

[Staff 10014]

1 hour ago, 967819f75c said:

- Why do we have a different username for the VPN and the forum/website, but does the password of the VPN change with the changed password of the forum/website?

 

Hello!

You don't have different usernames and/or passwords. Credentials for web site and VPN infrastructure access are exactly the same. What you report is indeed unexpected because the very same base table is queried when an account logs in to the web site or via Eddie or Bluetit. Anything else simply does not exist. To log successfully you can enter either username or linked e-mail address (if any). EDIT: if you had some special character outside UTF-8 in your password, that might have been the reason. Eddie and the bootstrap server expect UTF-8. If in doubt about UTF-8 and ISO-xxxx-x encoding tables, rely on ASCII only.
 

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- If using the old password was the reason that Eddie couldn't connect anymore (not sure if that was the only thing though); why wasn't Eddie showing the wrong login/password error message? If that was the case I would know what was wrong, but instead Eddie only kept restarting on the server. The log wasn't helpful either to know what's going on as it only stated 'restarting' too. While if it would say; cannot login, or wrong login/password, that would make much more sense IMO and than it wouldn't be this mysterious to debug.

That could have been a different reason. For example, access to the infrastructure does not imply access to VPN servers if the client certificate and key pair has expired (maybe you revoked or renewed)? Check here:
https://airvpn.org/forums/topic/26209-how-to-manage-client-certificatekey-pairs/

Complete system report by Eddie might help us clarify the issue.

Kind regards
 

[967819f75c 0]

2 hours ago, Staff said:

You don't have different usernames and/or passwords. Credentials for web site and VPN infrastructure access are exactly the same. 

Alright. Nice to have this confirmation.
 

2 hours ago, Staff said:

if you had some special character outside UTF-8 in your password, that might have been the reason. Eddie and the bootstrap server expect UTF-8. If in doubt about UTF-8 and ISO-xxxx-x encoding tables, rely on ASCII only.

Both in the new password as well as in the older password I'm only using ASCII characters at the moment. So that's not the issue. Also the old password was working for over a year and the new password is working now. 
 

2 hours ago, Staff said:

That could have been a different reason. For example, access to the infrastructure does not imply access to VPN servers if the client certificate and key pair has expired (maybe you revoked or renewed)? Check here:
https://airvpn.org/forums/topic/26209-how-to-manage-client-certificatekey-pairs/

This is the first time I'm reading about key-value pairs in combination with AirVPN/Eddie. Do you mean we need to update key-value pairs once and a while because they expire? And are these key-value pairs device-dependent? And are these key-value pairs comparable like the keys used with SFTP and SSH, or is this a completely different technique?

Next to this I just found out that it could not have been the changed password (alone) causing this, because the only reason I changed the password was because I couldn't enter the forum and so renewed the password. I did that AFTER having the issue to report this issue. So that obviously couldn't be the reason causing the initial issue.
 

2 hours ago, Staff said:

Complete system report by Eddie might help us clarify the issue.

I'm not that keen of sending logs and reports on a public forum and also the initial log didn't tell much other than 'restarting' really. I also just found out there's also a ticketing system apart from this forum, so perhaps that's what I will be using when the issue returns (but let's hope not).

The issue seem to be solved now by uninstalling completely and re-installing the latest version again. So hopefully it's staying steady now.
Thanks for your reactions! Edited ... by 967819f75c

[Staff 10014]

@967819f75c

Hello!
 

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Do you mean we need to update key-value pairs once and a while because they expire?

No, they expire only when you revoke (or "renew") them.
 

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And are these key-value pairs device-dependent?

As you prefer. Anyway, it's not "key-value", it's a client certificate and a client key
 

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And are these key-value pairs comparable like the keys used with SFTP and SSH, or is this a completely different technique?

It's a unique client certificate and a unique client key (in the sense that they are unique to each client). They are a fundamental part of the authentication phase between a client and our servers. Each account can have multiple client certificates and keys for comfort and to connect multiple devices to the same OpenVPN process at the same time.
 

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I'm not that keen of sending logs and reports on a public forum and also the initial log didn't tell much other than 'restarting' really. I also just found out there's also a ticketing system apart from this forum, so perhaps that's what I will be using when the issue returns (but let's hope not).

As you prefer. The ticketing system is essential to receive support from our support team In the forum you get answers from the community and occasionally from some staff member (the "community" forums are by the community for the community, and staff members interfere only occasionally). The support team can be more effective and potentially more competent than a single staff member and sometimes it can find solutions that the community or some staff member missed.

In 11 years AirVPN never outsourced customer care, so you can rely on personnel that works directly for AirVPN (someone since 2010!) and you can be sure that you're not sending information to third party generic support teams / call centers etc.
 

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The issue seem to be solved now by uninstalling completely and re-installing the latest version again. So hopefully it's staying steady now.
Thanks for your reactions!

Glad to know it. Thank you, enjoy AirVPN!

Kind regards


 

[967819f75c 0]

@Staff I've just stumbled upon this post again and am surprised I never reacted on it or gave a like. I have read it back then and it was very helpful at the time you wrote it, but obviously forgot to react. Sorry for that.

It's all clear now. Thanks for the extensive reaction and good to know about the ticketing system.