Unity freezes while using VPN?

Unity freezes when creating new 3D objects or importing 3D assets and only when I'm using VPN. The error message I occasionally got was the "socket connection failed" one and then, even if the object was finally created its texture would be missing.
As I already disabled Unity Analytics I have no idea why this happened to me. I live in China and pretty much have to rely on VPN to be productive, so fixing this problem is very important to me.
Does anyone know if there's a workaround? Is there a setting I can disable? Any advice would be great, thanks.

Unity version 2018.1.3

 

Same issue here. My best guess is that they block IP addresses from "suspicious" ranges. A lot of bad actors make attacks from VPNs to hide their origin, so I can't blame Unity for an abundance of caution.

What I'd like is some kind of clarifying statement of policy (ideally in an in-editor dialog box instead of the freezes we get now) or a workaround for Unity users who use VPNs for legitimate security purposes. E.g. I'm at a cafe right now with unsecured WiFi, and it would be great to run Unity without compromising.

Windows 10
Unity Hub 0.18.1
Unity 2018.1.6f1
NordVPN

Edit: there's an issue open with some people listing possible workarounds in the comments. https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/issues/editor-freezes-slash-crashes-when-connected-to-nordvpn

 

Same issue here while using NordVPN.

I don't get any errors and the version of Unity doesn't matter (at least not across the many versions I've tried).
I'll get the "Work Offline" prompt, then when I try to open a project Unity begins to load up but nothing ever shows except the taskbar icon, and the engine becomes frozen.

 

It seems they aren't blocking VPN's but OpenVPN connections, either that or the Unity programs are just unable to use them.

If you attach your computer to a VPN router you'll find it works normally, PPTP/L2TP VPN's seems to work fine as well.

 

Collab breaks down under some circumstances, if that's the case for you post there and they'll fix it.

 

Hi All

I am a Unity newbie and suffer this problem with NordVPN. I spoke to their help center yesterday and they guided me through a number of attemps using,
1. manual connection using OpenVPN GUI (which worked but very slow, thus unsatisfactory as a solution),
2. changing UDP to TCP in NordVPN settings, - No change
3. turning off cybersec - No change

They eventually advised me that Unity does not work with NordVPN. That's it!

Anyway, to my solution. I only have a problem when Unity is loading initially. So I disconnect NordVPN and load my Unity project, then I reconnect NordVPN and work away. I may encounter further issues down the road when I start making use of imports etc, but so far I can proceed with my learning course.

 

Unity will also break during shader and other misc run-time compiles. Sometimes it pulls through but takes 100x longer, usually fails. Given that Unity is literally the only application on any of my computers which fails when using a VPN I'm more likely to believe this is a Unity issue, not a VPN issue.

 

Unity does use network communication between the main application and worker application like the shader compiler.
If the VPN is redirecting all the traffic (even the one that should never leave the device) unity is unable to comunicate with its components.
A faster timeout or a better error message might be a good option.