By VPN do you mean your company’s VPN? If so it sounds like they have FR as a blocked site.
I am using Witopia VPN and I am not having any issues.
The VPN I use is to establish a secure channel into my work domain. I can bypass it and still do purely Internet stuff 9like right now). What happens if you bypass yours?
I had the same problem. I’m using PIA.
One other thing, if you are connecting through a server in another country, it get’s much more complicated. Sometimes I connect through of Germany, or some other country to watch some videos. That causes issues when connecting to web sites.
I’ve accessed FR via VPN a few times with no problems.
If your VPN provider was being used by the source of a DDOS against Free Republic, yes, you could be formally blocked on that same IP address.
Using PIA. Same thing.
IPVanish works just fine w/FR.
Express VPN here and no problems to date.
Why are you using a VPN to access FR? That seems totally unnecessary, why not access it directly?
Nope. No problems. Been using a VPN forever and never had an issue.
Last night I was having the same problem for a half hour or so and I don’t use VPN.
I’m on Opera 47.0 ,it has it’s own built-in VPN and changed to all the countries provided and no problems
FWIW, I use Private Internet Access (PIA) as a virtual private network (VPN).
I usually turn it on only to access those sites that give me a hard time without it (separate long boring story). However, I have accessed FR with PIA turned on in the past with no problem.
When I saw this post, I turned PIA on and tried to reload the page. No luck, says the site can’t be reached. With PIA turned off, no problem reaching FR. This is a new problem for me and, possibly, FR. Maybe this is related to the DDOS problems FR has had recently?
No probs using PIA VPN...
I cannot access Freerepublic when using Private Internet Access (PIA) VPN, from any server I’ve tried. I use PIA always, from computer & phone, always. Can’t access FR at all, for about 5 days.
Which sux bc to get to FR, I have to kill PIA, so it forces me to expose my actual IP to any website I visit. If anyone knows a good workaround, please let me know.
I was having the problem with Private Internet Access VPN. Couldnt get on at all for two days, couldn’t even ping the IP address. Everything seems good now.
I know FR is having DDOS problems lately, but figured I’d mention that I get constant 503 errors when accessing via Private Internet Access (PIA) VPN. Not always, but around 60% of page clicks get the unavailable 503 error. Also, cannot login at all via PIA. I killed it for this message (obviously).
They rotate their gateway IP addresses, so it’s hard to configure my connection to originate from the same IP when using it. There might be a way, if need be, I’ll look it up.
But having a bunch of FR connections coming in from the same block of IP addresses does not mean it is a DOS attack (I’m sure you know this lol). Might be a bunch of us using PIA or other VPN’s...
Have you guys looked into going to cloud servers instead of your own hardware? Not a fan of bezos, but Amazon hosting is not that expensive and unlimited bandwidth has its advantages...plus you can set up permanent virtual machines, etc. If you migrated the site to their servers you could create your own custom virtual machine with the same OS you use, etc., and although not an insignificant undertaking, it would be permanent worry free hardware. Plus they have built in anti-DOS stuff, etc.
Then it’s your cool proprietary wonderful FR software alone you need to upkeep, no hardware worries again...just sayin!
BTW, this is (now sober 6+ years) freeper #32. MonroeDNA (sorry if that brings up bad memories). You might already know that as you are pretty aware and have your methods lol. In recovery, giving back now. I owe you amends for being such an asshat back when I was drinking and using. I was a jerk and I apologize. You let me stay long past my expiration date back then! Your loyalty went above and beyond some of the crap I stirred up. I am sorry.
Am posting this publicly here instead of PM as it’s the right thing to do, and good for my humility.