Rejected VPN/Proxy messaging

[jordank]

What type of bug are you reporting? Support

What is the bug?
This isn't strictly a bug, but a recommendation for the support message left when helping resolve VPN/Proxy issues.

Despite having my VPN logged out, it seems to have been active anyway, and I wasn't sure how to fix it. I think a less technical user would have been stuck here for quite a bit longer, without a clear option for where to seek further assistance

Long form explanation:
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I was briefly restricted on the basis of being on a VPN or Proxy, my support ticket was returned with:

[19:56] &Staff: Hello! Your report was resolved by DaWoblefet.
[19:56] &Staff: The result was "Multiple independent sites report your current connection as that of a proxy/VPN (e.g. https://www.iplocationtools.com/{my ip here}, https://ipqualityscore.com/free-ip-lookup-proxy-vpn-test/lookup/{my ip here}). Disable that to be able to chat."

In my ticket I basically replied with (retyped, not exact wording):

I genuinely cannot disable something that I'm not running. I have no incentive to be dishonest here, I just wanna be able to say gg when a game ends.

Is there maybe a recent update to Windows or Edge or something that's causing trouble? I do have NordVPN installed, but it is not logged in, it says my "session is expired", and I do not use it more than once every several months, strictly for work, as-is.

I'm on a fresh (this month) install of Windows 10, running Microsoft Edge (one or two updates out of sync), with uBlock Origin active, on google's 8.8.8.8/8.8.4.4 DNS, from my home address through a reputable ISP. There's nothing exotic about my setup, and thus nothing for me to disable aside from adblock I guess?

It turns out after a bit of further investigation, the system tray icon for NordVPN is where I had to check, and rather surprisingly, it opted me in to "Web Protection" as a logged out user, which seems strange, unless it's some kind of security fallback setting.

Are you able to replicate it? If so, how?
It seems that even if your VPN is not currently authenticated or manually enabled, it may still accidentally be on in the background, in a way that's not immediately obvious. I thought that my VPN was surely off, given that the applet clearly displayed a "session expired., please log in" message, which left me with no clear toggle on/off button.

I've now learned that it may be on despite appearing to be off, would it be possible to improve the messaging in the response script for this type of account restriction?

Thanks.

 

[DaWoblefet]

(This was originally posted in bug reports, moved to suggestions)

We can't help people directly disable their proxy/VPN tools. There's so many different options on the market out there that we would have to purchase just to even see how the tool is set up to be able to assist the person. Even if we were to have the tools, there's no guarantee we would be able to guide the user through how to turn it off. It's also quite common for us not to know which VPN provider is actually being used. About all we can say is that a person is using a known proxy/VPN, and to be able to chat on Showdown, you must disable it.

For what it's worth, this isn't even our default reply. Our default reply lets you know that you can battle, but not chat, and links to our proxy help page. Because of all the additional data you provided, I made the assumption that you were a reasonably technical user and just reported to you that in fact, your current connection was that of a proxy/VPN, and this was being reported on many independent sites, so something was up.

 

[jordank]

Understood, thanks for the reply, and apologies if I come off accusatory, as it's not my intention

My only suggestion would be to condense the above suggestion into a 2nd-indent bullet point about not only turning your VPN off, but quitting the application (not merely closing the window), if the problem persists.