VPN Gate not working? Common causes and what to check
4 things to check, built from what VPN Gate publishes about its apps, protocols and support. We do not test connections ourselves.
What to check
Check the provider’s status page for an outage (no (server list shows live status)).
Switch protocol in the app: VPN Gate lists OpenVPN, L2TP/IPsec, SSTP, SoftEther.
Try a manual configuration (.ovpn files; L2TP/SSTP settings (vpn/vpn); CSV server list API).
If the website is blocked too, use the mirror or channel (mirror sites list; use IPs instead of .opengw.net hostnames).
Support when the VPN is blocked
- Live chat
- No
- Live chat 24/7
- No
- Telegram
- No
- Mirrors or channel
- Yes mirror sites list; use IPs instead of .opengw.net hostnames
- No abuse email only
- Status page
- No server list shows live status
Protocols
- WireGuard✕ No
- OpenVPN✓ Yes
- IKEv2✕ No
- L2TP/IPsecYes
- SSTPYes
- SoftEther✓ Yes
- Own protocol✕ No
- VLESS / Reality✕ No
- VMess✕ No
- Trojan✕ No
- Shadowsocks✕ No
- Hysteria2✕ No
- TUIC✕ No
- NaiveProxy✕ No
- obfs4✕ No
- AmneziaWG✕ No
- PPTP✓ No
VPN Gate has no servers of its own. It is an academic project of the University of Tsukuba, and traffic goes through volunteer computers: the list contains 3137 nodes, some of them on home connections. The service does not guarantee speed or uptime, and most failures are caused by exactly this.
The server has disappeared or become slow
There is no separate status page, and the server list itself serves this purpose: it shows which nodes are currently online. If the connection dropped, the node owner may have simply switched off the computer. Refresh the list and connect to another server. The apps have no kill switch, so after a disconnect your traffic will go directly, without the VPN, and you may not notice it in time.
Switch the protocol or set it up manually
VPN Gate works over four protocols: SoftEther (SSL-VPN), OpenVPN, L2TP/IPsec and MS-SSTP. If one fails, try another on the same node. There is no WireGuard or IKEv2. On macOS and iOS you can do without a separate app: use the built-in L2TP client or OpenVPN with a .ovpn file from the site. For L2TP and SSTP, the login and password are the same: vpn and vpn. A desktop mail client cannot send mail over SMTP port 25 through VPN Gate, because outgoing port 25 is blocked, and private address ranges are filtered too.
If VPN Gate is blocked
There is no obfuscation, so where VPNs are cut off by DPI, nothing hides the connection from the filter. When the site itself is unreachable, the list of mirrors helps. In the settings, it is better to enter the server's IP address instead of a name in the .opengw.net domain. If that does not help either, check out VPN with traffic obfuscation.
Where to ask for help if nothing works
There is no support chat or support email; the address on the site only accepts reports of abuse. What remains are the forum and the help section with an FAQ and instructions in English, Japanese and Chinese.