Random connection drops with NordVPN

[intrepid2007]

Hi there,

For some time I am testing OpnSense, which is installed on a ZOTAC ZBOX CI323 Nano (2 Realtek NIC's onboard). Currently I have 3 VPN providers: IPVanish, NordVPN and ExpressVPN.

Both providers have been configured, based upon the client's IP address in the LAN, traffic is passed to one of the 3 VPN providers... This works fine, even no DNS leaks!

Since 2 weeks my configuration is 'stable', it hasn't changed much anymore :-)

However I noticed something strange with the NordVPN connection and I can't explain why it happens.
Every few minutes (random) the traffic via that connection stops suddenly...  Then the VPN's timeout mechanism appeares to trigger (180 seconds) and a re-connect is forced (according to the logs).
Changing to another NordVPN VPN server doesn't help, the same thing is happening....

Both OpnSense version 16.7.x and version 17.1.3 have this issue...

I have had contact with NordVPN about this; According to them, my configuration seemed OK...

The other 2 VPN providers do not have this problem under OpnSense, no connection 'drops'.... You would then think that it is 'NordVPN' related and not OpnSense, but....

I also installed pfSense 2.3.2 and I configured it (also) the same way as in OpnSense...
With pfsense it works flawless, no connection drops...

When I grab some networktraffic in OpnSense and save it to a .pcap file, Wireshark can't import it because the .pcap appears to be corrupted... Is this something that sounds familiar to you?

When I 'repair' the .pcap file and imports it to WireShark, I see packets that does not appear to be IP packets (unknown)...

Any suggestions?

Best regards!