Need help getting ExpressVPN to work on an Asus router.

[cooloutac]

yes sorry I hadn't read your post properly. One thing I have noticed though about a year ago prime has made it harder to watch via a vpn . I think they are more active in blocking people using a Vpn

from my personal experience. prime more actively blocks then netflix. but hulu blocks the most out of all three. It doesn't matter if you are using the same area server, they blacklist the vpn ip's and it could still look like you are coming from another country due to the routing.

i have yet to get hulu to work with a vpn on my smart tv. when using an app on a mobile device for example it will only work very briefly when I get lucky with a server before it is quickly blocked. I never had issues with netflix, only once or twice I had an issue with prime. but again if you use Colins post to use policy routing with the merlin firmware then you can choose which devices use vpn and which don't. also use the settings I've mentioned above on merlin and you will have a better chance with vpn on prime.

 

[royarcher]

from my personal experience. prime more actively blocks then netflix. but hulu blocks the most out of all three. It doesn't matter if you are using the same area server, they blacklist the vpn ip's and it could still look like you are coming from another country due to the routing.

i have yet to get hulu to work with a vpn on my smart tv. when using an app on a mobile device for example it will only work very briefly when I get lucky with a server before it is quickly blocked. I never had issues with netflix, only once or twice I had an issue with prime. but again if you use Colins post to use policy routing with the merlin firmware then you can choose which devices use vpn and which don't. also use the settings I've mentioned above on merlin and you will have a better chance with vpn on prime.

Hmmmm ok,I don't have a problem from here (down under) with Hulu, Netflix (US) or Amazon prime US . I Use an RT AC 88 U and I used to be able to get all three consistently whether or not I use express VPN,s VPN server or their DNS server via Two different Roku devices. I use Merlin's magic of course, but on mobile devices I can never get Hulu whether I run the express VPN app or not. With US Netflix or prime I can .
The only thing I haven't been able to crack in the last year or so is getting prime consistently via a VPN. Very annoying as obviously I love my movies

 

[cooloutac]

Hmmmm ok,I don't have a problem from here (down under) with Hulu, Netflix (US) or Amazon prime US . I Use an RT AC 88 U and I used to be able to get all three consistently whether or not I use express VPN,s VPN server or their DNS server via Two different Roku devices. I use Merlin's magic of course, but on mobile devices I can never get Hulu whether I run the express VPN app or not. With US Netflix or prime I can .
The only thing I haven't been able to crack in the last year or so is getting prime consistently via a VPN. Very annoying as obviously I love my movies

I don't have problems with netflix or prime but have problems with hulu. someone else has posted, maybe you, also from Australia telling me the same thing on these forums...lol I guess it all depends on your account and where you live, not just what vpn server, protocol, port or operating system or dns servers you are using... Maybe the ip's of the servers in your route also matter not just the gateway server in your area. Starting to think the land down under is the best place in the world to connect to hulu with a vpn lmao.


When i have had issues with prime on lg webos, what would happen sometimes is it would ask me to log in and re-register the device and then it would work. but again it seems to all depend. these streaming services seem to have differnt levels of blocking lol. sometimes prime won't even load. or sometimes you get the message when trying to click on a video. Or get a proxy message on the prime home page. or sometimes they just make you register the device online before logging in. no idea what factors into any of that. i've only had a problem once connecting to prime on merlin and i changed servers and first one i picked has been working since. and have since gone back to previous server and that works too, so who knows if there was another issue.

I've never had an issue connecting to netflix, ever on any device. I think the reason for that is the VPN services work extra hard to make sure netflix works since it is way more popular. no idea...

When it comes to amazon.com on a web browser. I have to constantly change servers. there is a couple i go to I know always work. I use PIA. Speaking of amazon, today aws probably got hacked lol.

 

[royarcher]

I don't have problems with netflix or prime but have problems with hulu. someone else has posted, maybe you, also from Australia telling me the same thing on these forums...lol I guess it all depends on your account and where you live, not just what vpn server, protocol, port or operating system or dns servers you are using... Maybe the ip's of the servers in your route also matter not just the gateway server in your area. Starting to think the land down under is the best place in the world to connect to hulu with a vpn lmao.


When i have had issues with prime on lg webos, what would happen sometimes is it would ask me to log in and re-register the device and then it would work. but again it seems to all depend. these streaming services seem to have differnt levels of blocking lol. sometimes prime won't even load. or sometimes you get the message when trying to click on a video. Or get a proxy message on the prime home page. or sometimes they just make you register the device online before logging in. no idea what factors into any of that. i've only had a problem once connecting to prime on merlin and i changed servers and first one i picked has been working since. and have since gone back to previous server and that works too, so who knows if there was another issue.

I've never had an issue connecting to netflix, ever on any device. I think the reason for that is the VPN services work extra hard to make sure netflix works since it is way more popular. no idea...

When it comes to amazon.com on a web browser. I have to constantly change servers. there is a couple i go to I know always work. I use PIA. Speaking of amazon, today aws probably got hacked lol.

I know exactly what you mean by having to reregister your device but only lately. I have noticed that maybe the Last
6 months, especially for prime, it asks to reregister online again UNO the code you need to punch in. I'm not entirely sure if it's an Amazon thing or a Roku thing thought as I get it on Netflix now and again to .

I only really use the DNS servers from express VPN now though so not sure about the other. I seem to get any US content much easier that way.

 

[mac_angel]

yes sorry I hadn't read your post properly. One thing I have noticed though about a year ago prime has made it harder to watch via a vpn . I think they are more active in blocking people using a Vpn

I followed the directions on how to add devices to be able to bypass the VPN and go straight to the Internet. It was embarrassingly easy.
I think someone mentioned about setting up a static DNS name for media servers to help with Netflix and Prime Video. I got half way through that before getting the devices to bypass the VPN, so I didn't try it. I'll give that a try at some point and try some other servers, including ones in the US, to see if I can access other content. But for right now, my fiance is watching a bunch of anime on Prime that is region locked to Canada.

 

[royarcher]

I followed the directions on how to add devices to be able to bypass the VPN and go straight to the Internet. It was embarrassingly easy.
I think someone mentioned about setting up a static DNS name for media servers to help with Netflix and Prime Video. I got half way through that before getting the devices to bypass the VPN, so I didn't try it. I'll give that a try at some point and try some other servers, including ones in the US, to see if I can access other content. But for right now, my fiance is watching a bunch of anime on Prime that is region locked to Canada.

yeah it is pretty easy. I knew next to nothing when I first bought an rt ac 88 u probably 3 years ago or so for streaming purposes',had had enough of paying $140 aud a month for crap and still don't know much about routers but it only took a google search to work out how to set up the old router to pass through it for local content. We get a crap version of Netflix and Amazon Prime in Australia and we don't get hulu at all so I needed a dedicated router for US content. I am glad I found this forum back then though. I still don't know much about routers but enough to get me into trouble from time to time and someone here always bails me out . Feel the love ❤ from down under guys

 

[mac_angel]

You have to make it accept dns exclusive to avoid the leaks. and I do policy routing to strict.

okay, not sure if I missed something, I'm going back over everything again. Maybe I didn't test it properly afterwards. I set it to strict and added my media devices at home to go to WAN instead of VPN and I got Netflix and Prime Video to work no problem. I don't remember if I tested for DNS leaks afterwards then, but I just did now and the computer I am on (Gaming computer) says it's connected through VPN, but there are DNS leaks. Another computer, my Plex server, one of the ones I want most behind a VPN, says Not connected with VPN, and obviously DNS requests exposed.
I went back into the VPN settings. It still shows as connected, and set to strict. I then added a bunch of computers, including my Plex server, to go through VPN and not WAN, clicked apply, but nothing changed. Still shows not connected, DNS exposed.

Not sure if this part matters, but I thought I'd add it anyway. The Plex server is connected in the basement to an Asus RT-AC68U that is set as an Air Mesh Node. The Asus RT-AC68U is hardwired to the RT-AX86U, and the Plex server is connected through ethernet to the AC68U.

Another odd thing. There are still these two web sites that still will not open while the VPN is active, even with the DNS leaks.

 

[mac_angel]

okay, something is really messed up somewhere now.
As I mentioned, DNS leaks. I tried making sure the streaming devices were able to connect directly to the internet. But still DNS leaks, and ran speed tests and got horrible speeds again. I go into the router settings and turn the VPN to off, and now half the web sites will work, and the other half time out. Facebook, Google, etc, I can reach. ExpressVPN, SpeedTest.net, and others, time out. And that's with it off. And I can't reach ExpressVPN to get help because they are one of the sites that won't load.

 

[cooloutac]

okay, not sure if I missed something, I'm going back over everything again. Maybe I didn't test it properly afterwards. I set it to strict and added my media devices at home to go to WAN instead of VPN and I got Netflix and Prime Video to work no problem. I don't remember if I tested for DNS leaks afterwards then, but I just did now and the computer I am on (Gaming computer) says it's connected through VPN, but there are DNS leaks. Another computer, my Plex server, one of the ones I want most behind a VPN, says Not connected with VPN, and obviously DNS requests exposed.
I went back into the VPN settings. It still shows as connected, and set to strict. I then added a bunch of computers, including my Plex server, to go through VPN and not WAN, clicked apply, but nothing changed. Still shows not connected, DNS exposed.

Not sure if this part matters, but I thought I'd add it anyway. The Plex server is connected in the basement to an Asus RT-AC68U that is set as an Air Mesh Node. The Asus RT-AC68U is hardwired to the RT-AX86U, and the Plex server is connected through ethernet to the AC68U.

Another odd thing. There are still these two web sites that still will not open while the VPN is active, even with the DNS leaks.

as Colin also suggested, try accept dns to exclusive, not strict. Thats what I use. the policy routing is what I set to strict.

 

[mac_angel]

I finally got around to trying to play around with it again. It's been off all this time. I had to clear all the settings for all client instances and restart the router twice just to get it to connect to the Internet again. Been having a bad week health wise, so I haven't been able to do much. I seriously prefer to be in bed right now, and probably going to say f it and head there after this post.
Under VPN/Network Settings, Accept DNS Configuration was and is set to Exclusive (ExpressVPN instructions for this say that it's suppose to be under Advanced Settings)
Under VPN/Advanced Settings (I'm assuming Merlin is pretty much the same across all the routers?) there is Force Internet traffic through tunnel. Options are No, Yes, Policy Rules, and Policy Rules (Strict). Before, I had left it to On. But my streaming devices couldn't pick up Prime Video. Then I had set it as Policy Rules (Strict), and added the streaming devices, leaving the Destination IP black, and Interface to WAN. That let the streaming devices to work. But then I noticed I was getting DNS leaks again on my computers. I then went in and added the computers I was most concerned about to that list, and setting Interface to VPN. That didn't change anything, I was still getting DNS leaks.
Leaving the Force Internet traffic through tunnel to yes, and looking up DNS leaks, I'm getting back mixed results. Without making any changes or even clicking apply or anything else, just hitting refresh on the ExpressVPN DNS leak test page, sometimes it passes, sometimes it fails.

added: While talking to tech support at the same time, not making any changes on the router, but clicking refresh on the DNS leak page, it switched back and forth 4 times from safe to DNS leak shown.

 

[cooloutac]

I finally got around to trying to play around with it again. It's been off all this time. I had to clear all the settings for all client instances and restart the router twice just to get it to connect to the Internet again. Been having a bad week health wise, so I haven't been able to do much. I seriously prefer to be in bed right now, and probably going to say f it and head there after this post.
Under VPN/Network Settings, Accept DNS Configuration was and is set to Exclusive (ExpressVPN instructions for this say that it's suppose to be under Advanced Settings)
Under VPN/Advanced Settings (I'm assuming Merlin is pretty much the same across all the routers?) there is Force Internet traffic through tunnel. Options are No, Yes, Policy Rules, and Policy Rules (Strict). Before, I had left it to On. But my streaming devices couldn't pick up Prime Video. Then I had set it as Policy Rules (Strict), and added the streaming devices, leaving the Destination IP black, and Interface to WAN. That let the streaming devices to work. But then I noticed I was getting DNS leaks again on my computers. I then went in and added the computers I was most concerned about to that list, and setting Interface to VPN. That didn't change anything, I was still getting DNS leaks.
Leaving the Force Internet traffic through tunnel to yes, and looking up DNS leaks, I'm getting back mixed results. Without making any changes or even clicking apply or anything else, just hitting refresh on the ExpressVPN DNS leak test page, sometimes it passes, sometimes it fails.

added: While talking to tech support at the same time, not making any changes on the router, but clicking refresh on the DNS leak page, it switched back and forth 4 times from safe to DNS leak shown.

whats the other dns its showing if not the vpn one? you can try also putting static ips in dhcp settings and setting the vpn dns there too for each client or in dns filter settings and see what happens.

 

[mac_angel]

whats the other dns its showing if not the vpn one? you can try also putting static ips in dhcp settings and setting the vpn dns there too for each client or in dns filter settings and see what happens.

I'm not sure what you mean. Going to ExpressVPN leak test page, it shows as being safe since last night. But going to DNSLeakTest.com I get:


added: some butt-hat from ExpressVPN said that my getting ~100Mb/s connection is quite good while having a 1Gb/s Internet service with Rogers. Remember, I'm using their servers that are within Canada, where I live, and servers that are only an hour away.
Cancelling my account with them and getting my money back. Looking for another VPN service now.

199.66.92.143	None	Netminders	Canada
199.66.92.144	None	Netminders	Toronto, Canada
209.148.131.101	pub-cdns2-dupt-eth1.rpub.net.rogers.com.	Rogers Cable	Toronto, Canada
209.148.131.106	pub-cdns7-dupt-eth1.rpub.net.rogers.com.	Rogers Cable	Toronto, Canada
67.231.208.169	pub-cdns5-wlfdle-eth1.rpub.net.rogers.com.	Rogers Cable	Toronto, Canada

 

[cooloutac]

ok so its your isp's dns. have you set to not automatically get dns from the wan page settings and put a specific public dns entries there? When I don't do that with my network i get all sorts of problems. On stock it tells me I don't even have internet if I don't do that. You could also put the express dns there which most vpn providers recommend. but if you don't want some clients to use them just put any other public dns like cloudflare or google. I still think just specifying the clients dns in dns filter or with static ip's in dhcp settings should fix your issue.


The rep might not be lying. You probably wouldn't get more then 150MBs from the router with any other service. Depends on your area. You can get more using wireguard protocol from a vpn service's app or using ipsec, but with openvpn the max is usually capped at 200MBs no matter what and a little slower from the ac86u router for example. I think there is a beta program to use wireguard with merlin firmware? But I have no idea about that.

I've seen no difference in speeds using expressvpn, nord and pia. I settled on PIA cause it worked the best with the asus router. The others gave me issues in disconnecting all the time and erros in the syslog.. The customer service is terrible on all of them, and the app is flaky on all of them. Expressvpn is overpriced imo. There was also no difference in geo blocking. None of them worked with hulu for me. They all worked with amazon prime and netflix. But I think this depends on your account and your area and service and what servers you use. They all have the same features and promises, but PIA allows 10 connections and is much cheaper. I think only allowing 5 connections can causes issues, since none of these services log, they basically are paranoid and will auto disconnect you if they suspect going over the limit. You start getting timeout errors, with pia I never got one and I suspect its cause they allow double the amount of client connections so less a chance of that.

 

[mac_angel]

I'm not really sure what you mean about the specific public DNS entries. This stuff is new to me, and I only followed the directions that were given on the web pages, which were really simple. Download their .opvn file, upload it on the router, set up some settings, and that's it. None of the pages said anything about the WAN page. ExpressVPN does have something about registering my IP address and auto renew. I tried that.
~200Mb/s does sound really crappy. I'm not positive, but I thought I did test it with the VPN activated on the second Toronto server and got ~650Mb/s (down from >900Mb/s, but still a speed I can live with). ColinTaylor mentioned that the RT-AX86U has hardware encryption, so it shouldn't be a matter of CPU speed vs encryption speed.
The only other thing I can think of is that I really only need/want the VPN to run on a couple of computers at home. The problem being is that one of them is a Plex Server. When I tried the client based VPN app on the computer, I can't stream within the home.

Is this the page you were referring to?

 

[cooloutac]

I'm not really sure what you mean about the specific public DNS entries. This stuff is new to me, and I only followed the directions that were given on the web pages, which were really simple. Download their .opvn file, upload it on the router, set up some settings, and that's it. None of the pages said anything about the WAN page. ExpressVPN does have something about registering my IP address and auto renew. I tried that.
~200Mb/s does sound really crappy. I'm not positive, but I thought I did test it with the VPN activated on the second Toronto server and got ~650Mb/s (down from >900Mb/s, but still a speed I can live with). ColinTaylor mentioned that the RT-AX86U has hardware encryption, so it shouldn't be a matter of CPU speed vs encryption speed.
The only other thing I can think of is that I really only need/want the VPN to run on a couple of computers at home. The problem being is that one of them is a Plex Server. When I tried the client based VPN app on the computer, I can't stream within the home.

Is this the page you were referring to?View attachment 28233

Sorry about that think I got confused with another thread with a guy using PIA not expressvpn. But you mentioned earlier yoru dns leaks were fixed by using accept dns to exclusive setting. And I thought that you figured out how to route specific clients to bypass the vpn with the policy routing settings?

So is your problem now only with the speed? I really don't think you will get more then 200MBs openvpn speed. Thats the max I've ever gotten even with the app on my pc. wireguard has given me speeds close to my isp speed though.

 

[mac_angel]

Sorry about that think I got confused with another thread with a guy using PIA not expressvpn. But you mentioned earlier yoru dns leaks were fixed by using accept dns to exclusive setting. And I thought that you figured out how to route specific clients to bypass the vpn with the policy routing settings?

So is your problem now only with the speed? I really don't think you will get more then 200MBs openvpn speed. Thats the max I've ever gotten even with the app on my pc. wireguard has given me speeds close to my isp speed though.

I thought it was fixed, but then checking, it wasn't. It was strange because without changing anything, sometimes I would find DNS leaks, and others would test fine. And this was in a span of a few minutes between each testing.

I didn't think there would be that much of a performance hit with a VPN. I know one time I tested and was getting something like ~650Mb/s, but I don't remember if it was secure or not. Probably not by the sounds of it.
So, this leaves me with the basic problem of trying to get the fastest speed for only a couple of clients/computers at home, and then setting up the rest to bypass the VPN. Or buying another NIC card to put in the Plex server and run a virtual machine with a VPN running on that.
I'm looking into WireGuard now.

 

[cooloutac]

I thought it was fixed, but then checking, it wasn't. It was strange because without changing anything, sometimes I would find DNS leaks, and others would test fine. And this was in a span of a few minutes between each testing.

I didn't think there would be that much of a performance hit with a VPN. I know one time I tested and was getting something like ~650Mb/s, but I don't remember if it was secure or not. Probably not by the sounds of it.
So, this leaves me with the basic problem of trying to get the fastest speed for only a couple of clients/computers at home, and then setting up the rest to bypass the VPN. Or buying another NIC card to put in the Plex server and run a virtual machine with a VPN running on that.
I'm looking into WireGuard now.

for the fastest openvpn speed just use the pia app on your pc, don't even bother with setting anything on the router. you can select the wireguard option on there as well.

 

[mac_angel]

for the fastest openvpn speed just use the pia app on your pc, don't even bother with setting anything on the router. you can select the wireguard option on there as well.

as I've mentioned before, the VPN app on my computer does not work with Plex.

 

[cooloutac]

as I've mentioned before, the VPN app on my computer does not work with Plex.

i was referring to your other computers, but make sure you are allowing lan connections within the app it blocks them by default.

 

[mac_angel]

i was referring to your other computers, but make sure you are allowing lan connections within the app it blocks them by default.

I'm sorry if I may seem simple at times, you have to keep in mind that everything VPN is all new to me. I have tried a couple of client based apps on the computer and I found nothing in anything that allows LAN connections to remain the same. When I tried PIA a few years ago, I was running a Plex server then and I could not get it to work. I asked them for help and they had nothing they could offer.
I have never heard of WireGuard, and not finding very much on it that makes it easy to understand for a new user.