Unity Issue Tracker - Freeze or crash with various stack traces when opening a project while connected to a VPN service

Fixed in 2021.1.X

Fixed in 2019.4.X, 2020.2.X

Votes

48

Found in

2017.4.1f1

2018.4

2021.1

Issue ID

1025558

Regression

No

Freeze or crash with various stack traces when opening a project while connected to a VPN service

Shader System

Apr 12, 2018

How to reproduce:
1. Connect to a VPN service
2. Create or open a Unity project

Reproducible with: 2018.4.30f1, 2019.4.16f1, 2020.1.16f1, 2020.2.0b13, 2021.1.0a5
Not reproducible with: 2020.2.0b14, 2021.1.0a6

Workaround for NordVPN:
Use OpenVPN or IKEv2/IPSec to connect to NordVPN servers. Tutorials on how to do that, can be found here:
https://nordvpn.com/tutorials/windows-10/openvpn/
https://support.nordvpn.com/#/Connectivity/Windows/1047410092/IKEv2-IPSec-for-Windows-10.html

Resolution Note (fix version 2021.1):

NordVPN (and some other VPN services) seems to mess up with our network sockets based shader compiler IPC. We're moving to other IPC methods to avoid such issues.
Fixed in 2021.1.0a6
Resolution Note (fix version 2020.2):

Fixed in version 2020.2.2f1
Resolution Note (fix version 2019.4):

Fixed in version 2019.4.20f1

Comments (35)

Hertzole

Feb 18, 2021 09:20

Like others are saying, this issue is still not fixed, but it's being tracked here. https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/issues/crash-on-system-dot-net-dot-sockets-dot-socket-queueioselectorjob-when-using-a-vpn-and-opening-a-project-that-uses-visual-studio
meghraj1997

Feb 15, 2021 05:26

Using 2020.1.14f1, Issue still persists.
Archaoss

Jan 26, 2021 17:47

The problem is still present in version 2020.2.f1 on clean install, new 2D/3D project with NordVPN 6.33.10.0 active during late load of the project (EditorApplication.Update).
ChromazoneX

Dec 29, 2020 02:45

I see it is fixed in 2021.1, but will this be resolved when the 2020 version becomes LTS?
cecarlsen

Jun 30, 2020 15:23

This is still an issue with Unity 2020.1.0b13 and NordVPNapp 6.30.10.0. Now Unity no longer freezes/crashes when attempting to open. Instead it just stops progressing, and then continues to progress as soon as NordVPN is disconnected. I don't understand why Unity decided to throw the ball to NordVPN. Unity opens just fine when completely offline, so why shouldn't the launcher not just skip internet handshakes if sees that the connection continues to fail.
cecarlsen

May 25, 2020 14:04

This is still an issue. I just installed NordVPN and Unity now freezes on launch. So disappointing.
Totalschaden

Mar 21, 2020 21:41

2 years later and the problem ist still there. Sad and Disapointing.
ruben_vr

Dec 18, 2019 16:44

I was having the same issue as MHMDE3 - sometimes my Unity project did open, most of the time it got stuck while loading.
It took me quite a while, different Unity Versions and deleted Library folders to track it down to NordVPN being active.
After disabling NordVPN I can reliably open my projects again.
mhmde3

Oct 16, 2019 19:44

i got this error in unity 2018.4.10f, 2019.1.4f, 2019.2.9f
when i launch unity while nordVPN running sometimes unity launch correctly and sometimes it get not responding.
the worst thing happened to me is that when i save a script and back to unity it get not responding, and i lose every change i did to my project, please fix.
Scryphus

Oct 01, 2019 05:32

Still crashing the editor regardless of the version of Unity. My nordvpn client works nice with any other program (including other game engines), except unity 2019.x.x (haven't tried older versions, and I am not willing to downgrade a project).

If a connection to a VPN server is established through the nordvpn client and I then launch unity, the unity process is visible in task manager but idles at 0% CPU usage. The project will not open at all until nordvpn has been closed. If I launch the unity project first and then connect it will freeze the editor causing it to crash.

Looking forward to a fix...