Problem accessing Blue Iris over OpenVPN using ASUS router

[NVR990]

For a couple of years or so, I've been able to access Blue Iris over VPN, using the built-in OpenVPN server in my ASUS router. Suddenly, I cannot connect. I changed nothing on my router, nor the VPN client on my phone. Any ideas?

Log file on my phone shows:

18:20:38.336 -- ----- OpenVPN Start -----

18:20:38.336 -- EVENT: CORE_THREAD_ACTIVE

18:20:38.340 -- Frame=512/2048/512 mssfix-ctrl=1250

18:20:38.341 -- UNUSED OPTIONS
2 [nobind]
5 [sndbuf] [0]
6 [rcvbuf] [0]


18:20:38.342 -- EVENT: RESOLVE

18:20:38.346 -- Contacting [IP ADDRESS]:[PORT] via UDP

18:20:38.346 -- EVENT: WAIT

18:20:38.348 -- Connecting to[IP ADDRESS]:[PORT] via UDPv4

18:20:48.324 -- Server poll timeout, trying next remote entry...

18:20:48.339 -- EVENT: RECONNECTING

18:20:48.342 -- EVENT: RESOLVE

..and then OpenVPN unsuccessfully keeps trying to reconnect

 

[crw030]

Have you checked if your external IP has changed? It can happen, for example I think my IP changed 4-6 times over the span of 20 odd years. Sometimes your provider will warn you, sometimes they won’t.

Another thing to check, maybe check if your configured OVPN certificate has expired. Since the router generates it, I think you just have to retrace your steps to setup the OVPN connection...don’t know for sure, I think I went with 10 years :/

 

[NVR990]

Have you checked if your external IP has changed? It can happen, for example I think my IP changed 4-6 times over the span of 20 odd years. Sometimes your provider will warn you, sometimes they won’t.

Another thing to check, maybe check if your configured OVPN certificate has expired. Since the router generates it, I think you just have to retrace your steps to setup the OVPN connection...don’t know for sure, I think I went with 10 years :/

Thanks for the thoughts. It's possible that my external IP has changed, but I use ASUS' dynamic DNS service, so I think that IP address changes would be updated automatically.

Good question on the OVPN cert...how would I check for expiration?

 

[NVR990]

In case anyone is wondering, the issue turned out to be the following:

My OVPN config file referenced a specific IP address (you can see this in the log file above). The OVPN config file should have referenced the URL created by the Dynamic DNS service. Apparently, my IP address changed recently, and, although the Dynamic DNS updated correctly, the OVPN config file was still trying to connect at the old IP address.