VPN and Skype keep disconnecting

[senser]

Working from home I have a vpn connection to our network. Quite often (irregular) the vpn connection times out or skype calls drop, or skype just disconnects. My internet connection is fine though, I can run streams without any issues. My it department said they don’t know about any issues and recommend to restart router etc...so they are not very helpful.

I tried to change state optimization to conservative, no dice. I tried to allow echo requests to my public ip. No luck. Any ideas?

[darkain]

Without any information whatsoever about your particular configuration, there is little we could possibly do to help.

For instance, is the VPN software running on OPNsense itself, or is it running on your desktop? What type of VPN is it in the first place? Is Skype traffic going over that VPN connection when it has issues? Is other traffic that is stable going over that same VPN connection? There are a lot of variables in play here, even beyond just this, that could effect your network performance and stability.

[senser]

Hey darkain, thank you for your answer.
The vpn (openvpn client) is running on my work desktop (a laptop connected to an „untrusted“ ssid (unifi ap) and a seperate „untrusted“ vlan). This vlan is nat to wan (pppoe dsl) using opnsense (running on an apu2d4), basically in parallel to my „trusted“ lan. Skype is connected via the vpn connection on that laptop (coorporate skype, has a different weird name that i can’t remember, but it’s basically skype).

The stable traffic is in my „trusted“, parallel lan (same wan connection). I can watch streams without interruptions (thats why I think the wan connection is stable). Also on wifi devices, so the unifi ap connection should be solid.

I hope this answers most of the questions and help to pinpoint the issue.

I have disabled the support for hardware vlan in opnsense now (it was on „default“ before, so it was a bit of a schrödingers cat factor before) and will need to test if it will change anything (i am not working today). Other than that...there is nothing special about this „untrusted“ network that I can see.

I have just switched from pfsense to opnsense and I have had the irregular vpn timeouts with pfsense too (which was actually the reason why I finally made the switch to opnsense. I refused to update pfsense to the newer netgear version). I am happy that I finally made the update...

While I was running pfsense, my setup was simpler. No seperation of my work computer via vlan. So the vlan setup is probably not the issue either. What’s left then? It seems to me it’s probably a configuration problem on my side, a wifi issue (I should try to use a ethernet cable instead, just to make sure) or actually a problem at the other end (work servers).

[darkain]

There is a huge difference in how skype, vpn, and streaming media all work. There is still a chance that your "trusted" LAN may also be experiencing issues. Streaming video services pre-download and buffer a certain amount of content before playing it (10s of seconds to a few minutes of content), and have the ability to quickly re-establish a connection to the same or different server to maintain smooth playback. Skype doesn't have this luxury due to the low-latency nature of bi-directional human communication. For the time, however, I'd suggest running a wired connection from your machine directly to the router to eliminate any stability concerns with the wifi access.

[senser]

So the problem is indeed the wifi connection. Using an ethernet cable there’s no issues at all. However, I would prefer to use wifi bacause it allows me to work at different locations.

Isn’t it weird that a wifi connection can be worse that a mobile phone connection? I mean, why is skype so much more demanding then a phone call? The audio quality isn’t that much better either, if at all.

Now I suspect my linux laptop software stack to be the prpblem. Maybe I need to tweak the linux wifi stack!? Because I find it hard to believe that the issue is with my unifi ap.