surfshark and fedora request timed out error and only one location works

[LinuxNoob1]

[You can read this but the fix is like a half fix]I am writing this so other people won't have the headache that I did(figure of speech) trying to make surfshark vpn work on fedora 43 kde plasma, I knew it wouldn't have been long before getting my first linux problem, but the pro's of linux make it worth it.

I am on a restricted wi-fi network so the only surfshark protocol that works for me is openvpn udp, it works on windows 11 for me and when I first installed surfshark in discovery from flathub it worked up until yesterday, but today for some cosmic unknown reason it decided to tell Error occured request timed out Cause:unset, when connecting to fastest server when connecting to a specific city it said the same thing but slightly different, timeout Cause:unset.

after 2 hours of youtube, gemini, (all of this on a restricted network without my phone so hotspot wasn't an option which means most websites were blocked) i looked again and tried duck ai and it gave me 10 things to try, one of the was to stop the firewall and see if it worked, it did.

To stop your firewall and see if this is your issue as well on the konsole(terminal): sudo systemctl stop firewalld, test your vpn using all protocols and if it works congrats, now disconnect from vpn(don't know why but it feels right to first disconnect with firewall off and then reconnect with it on, kinda gave me a sense of accomplishment), now restart your firewall (having it off is bad, chat gpt would say it's like leaving your front door open), to do this type on the konsole(terminal): sudo systemctl start firewalld, now you have to allow whatever protocol you used permission to override the firewall: sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=openvpn, or for wireguard: sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=wireguard, after you have done this do: sudo firewall-cmd --reload, to apply this stuff.

This fixed it for me, I hope it will for you too. [edit] I am now using it and found that the only connection that works is the one I connected to while the firewall was down, so if I try now to connect to any other city is gives me the same problem as before but I have 1 city that works, I'll keep trying and update the thread if I find a fix, in the meantime this should give you one working vpn connection.

 

[KGIII]

kinda gave me a sense of accomplishment

As you get more familiar with Linux and solve more Linux issues, you'll get to experience that feeling more frequently.

As for a firewall, it's nice to have, but you probably don't really need it as a regular desktop user. You shouldn't have ports open to connections from the outside world. If you're sticking to software from reputable sources, you probably don't have to worry about them doing anything bad over the network. Besides, if they did and you didn't know it, you probably would have just allowed it through the firewall in the first place. It's not like we fire up Wireshark to examine outbound packets when a new application tries to go online.

For some, it's a nice to have thing. By all means, use it and be comfortable. I haven't used a software firewall in a long time -- and I install all sorts of things from all sorts of places.

Anyhow, good job on finding the problem and solving the problem on your own. Yeah, you had a search engine and AI, but it was you who did the searching, came up with the search terms, and knew where to look. Even the world's smartest physicists use reference materials to do their job.

 

[LinuxNoob1]

As you get more familiar with Linux and solve more Linux issues, you'll get to experience that feeling more frequently.

As for a firewall, it's nice to have, but you probably don't really need it as a regular desktop user. You shouldn't have ports open to connections from the outside world. If you're sticking to software from reputable sources, you probably don't have to worry about them doing anything bad over the network. Besides, if they did and you didn't know it, you probably would have just allowed it through the firewall in the first place. It's not like we fire up Wireshark to examine outbound packets when a new application tries to go online.

For some, it's a nice to have thing. By all means, use it and be comfortable. I haven't used a software firewall in a long time -- and I install all sorts of things from all sorts of places.

Anyhow, good job on finding the problem and solving the problem on your own. Yeah, you had a search engine and AI, but it was you who did the searching, came up with the search terms, and knew where to look. Even the world's smartest physicists use reference materials to do their job.

Yeah i like it, but tbh it's getting tiring now, my restricted wi-fi conncets to the vpn to just one city which is the one I connected to yesterday with my hotspot, so naturally I tried it again today with a different country, with my phone's hotspot it connected then I disconnected and connected to the wi-fi and now that country works too, I even tried disabling the firewall and that doesn't let me connect to other countries without first using my hotspot and then wi-fi.

Wherever I look ai just tells me to give the vpn services(openvpn, surfshark ipv6, surfshark2) access across my firewall or to disable ipv6 or to lower the mtu size but none of that works, I guess I could connect to every single country with my hotspot and then unse my wi-fi to have access to the all but I'd rather go to the root of the problem, when I'm connected on the wi-fi I can only connect to a certain country(in the surfshark app) if I connected to it first using my hotspot, which is really weird consedering on windows 11 it works fine, I even tried setting a manual vpn by downloading the .ovpn file of the same city that works on the app but that doesn't work either.

It seems like linux blocks ip's it doesn't recognize but then why would it let me connect at all even with my hotspot?, I even let the surfshark app have access to my bus and system session. Could you help me?

 

[KGIII]

It seems like linux blocks ip's it doesn't recognize but then why would it let me connect at all even with my hotspot?,

It doesn't. Well, it shouldn't block any IPs unless you've told it to.

 

[LinuxNoob1]

It doesn't. Well, it shouldn't block any IPs unless you've told it to.

I am on a restricted wi-fi though, but what is weird is that it works fine when connected to my hotspot and works normal on windows with the wi-fi but here unless i connected to it earlier with my hotspot it doesn't work, actually every once in a while throught today I've had to connect to my hotspot and then vpn to make that 'fix' work again, maybe after every time I've put my laptop to sleep, what do you think it could be?