Question on Updating Tunnelblick and all the City/Country Configurations

[Kris Mosser]

Thanks to whoever can guide me. I do not know how to FIND this question on this group.

I've used tunnelblick for 5 years, no problems until 2020. One by One the various configurations [example Dallas Texas], stopped working. At first all of them did. Now it's down to two of them. One warns that it's not really connected, and the other must be tried 50 times in an hour to finally connect.

I tried upgrading the latest Tunnelblick version that would work on my computer. Do I need to find a new updated Configurations folder? Should I delete all of it, secure empty trash, then install again?

When it suggests in Tunnelblick help to Disconnect the configurations. Does that mean click on each in the "List on the left edge of the Main Panel", and hit the MINUS button "-" for each, then Install the updated version, then hit the + Button for each City/Country????

I'd appreciate any ideas.....

Kris

[Tunnelblick developer]

First, Do not use the "-" button -- it does not disconnect your configurations, it deletes them. (A configuration is a file or files that contain instructions that Tunnelblick uses to connect a VPN, that is, to turn the VPN on.)

"Disconnect" does not mean "delete" or "remove", it means "turn off the VPN". In Tunnelblick, there is a "Disconnect" button, and there are "Disconnect…" menu items. They turn off the VPN.

 

Second, Tunnelblick is just the software that you are using to connect to a VPN. The VPN itself is run by a "VPN service provider". They are the ones that supply configurations. We only supply the software. (It's sort of like how Safari is the software that you can use to access google.com: Apple provides you with Safari, but Google provides the google.com website. In this analogy, we provide software like Apple and your VPN service provider provides a service (VPN) like Google. Not that Google provides VPN, as far as I know they don't.)

You need to contact your VPN service provider. That is the organization which gave you your configuration files, and perhaps a username and password, and to which you are probably paying a fee for VPN service. For more information, please see Getting VPN Service.

Tunnelblick is just the free software that many VPN service providers recommend or supply to their customers. We do not provide VPN service, just software.

If you can't figure out who your VPN service provider is, please post the diagnostic info obtained by following the instructions at Read Before You Post. When it says in step 3 to select a configuration, please select one that is still working if that's possible.

[Me Vee]

Greetings, I'm in a similar situation and while I understand you're an intermediary, basically, between the user and the VPN, there are limits using tunnelblick that are not being communicated by either party. For instance, I loaded all the configurations that the free version of Proton VPN provides - about 19 of them representing 3 countries - only to find there's no way for the user to switch out configurations in tunnelblick -all emails are coming only from the first server on the list. I can only delete (yes, delete) the 18 that are useless to me. I'm having problems deleting them all, to the point of trying to uninstall tunnelbrick and reinstalling to get all those deleted.  I have already contacted by VPN service provider - they pointed out the limits lie with tunnelblick as you have no software that allows switching out countries or servers within countries, at least not that I can find. Please advise if I'm missing anything and also any advice on how I can further get rid of these configurations. Uninstall and reinstall didn't completely work. Thank you

[Tunnelblick developer]

I'm confused:

• What are the "emails" that you are talking about coming from "the first server on the list"?
  
  
• What do you mean by "no way for the user to switch out configurations in tunnelblick"? That is, what do you mean by "switch out"? If you have multiple configurations, they are always listed in Tunnelblick.
  
  
• What problem are you having deleting the configurations?

Each time you connect, you need to tell Tunnelblick which configuration you want to connect. If you do not select one, the first one is already selected for you, and if you just click "Connect", it will connect that configuration.

Perhaps the following will help you:

To use Tunnelblick, you first must install the program itself, then install one or more configurations.

To connect a VPN using a specific one of those configurations (for example, configuration "Tokyo, Japan"), you do one of two things. Either:

• You click on the Tunnelblick icon in the menu bar, and then click on "Connect Tokyo, Japan;

or

• You click on the Tunnelblick icon in the menu bar and click on "VPN Details". In the window that appears, click on the large "Configurations" button at the top of the window, click to select the "Tokyo, Japan" configuration in the list on the left. Then click the "Connect" button in the lower right corner.

If you want to permanently delete a the "Tokyo, Japan" configuration (of course you can install it again later if you want):

• You click on the Tunnelblick icon in the menu bar and click on "VPN Details". In the window that appears, click on the large "Configurations" button at the top of the window, click to select the "Tokyo, Japan" configuration in the list on the left, then click the little minus sign ("-") button at the bottom of the list. (The minus sign button is a standard macOS thing that macOS itself and many applications use.)
  
  
• If you want to delete multiple configurations at one time, you must select multiple configurations in the list first, then click the minus sign button. Use standard macOS keys to select multiple configurations.

[Me Vee]

Thank you. The information was greatly helpful. I appreciate the feedback.