Unable to connect to VPN (Global Protect) via mobile hotspot - it used to work

[Joeclegg]

Hello,

I need to connect to a VPN (Global Protect) on my laptop to connect to my work documents. A few months ago, I used to be able to use mobile hotspot on my phone and it would work fine. However, the VPN no longer connects - the internet continues to works fine on the laptop when connected to my mobile.

I understand EE have never supported VPN connections but they are now apparently actively blocking more. This is unacceptable and unfair. If I am unable to resolve the issue, I will need to change mobile networks.

Has anyone been able to resolve this issue?

[Altheian]

Incredibly frustrating case.

I have just switched from my previous network to EE, for such a great faff in relation to 5G and all that.
I was about to be travelling and working on the mobile hotspot.

Now I am stuck and cannot travel due to the issue.

Well played EE. AGAIN! In just 2 months since I joined...

[edoardoc]

@Altheian my workaround so far is to use an old iphone 7 as a modem when I need VPN access while tethering.

It's not practical but I hope EE and Apple will work together on the issue. 
See this thread too

https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/Mobile-Broadband/IPV4-fallback-doesn-t-work/m-p/1360774

[edoardoc]

and make noise here too please

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255466044?cid=em-com-apple_watches_email_thread_owner-view_the_...

[edoardoc · Accepted solution]

After the latest updates, my iPhone shows

iOS 17.4.1 / EE 58.0

now, when using the iphone as hotspot for the mac,

if I edit the wifi connection on the mac to Configure IPv6 for link-local only 

and force a DHCP refresh

then I get an IPv4 address at last

which allows me to connect to the VPN.

I usually revert the macbook wifi tcp configuration after connecting back to a normal wifi access point

[BenGo]

I've been looking for a solution for this too, and can confirm this works.

Currently on my EE personal hotspot and connecting to Global Protect on my Mac - many thanks!

[TheHobbit30]

Also wanted to report that the instructions from @edoardoc worked for me too. Thank you!

[edoardoc]

I'm glad that my post has helped people, as I keep getting notifications ... so I thought of posting an update.

with

iOS 18.1.1 / EE 60.0.1  
macOS 15.1.1

I no longer need to change the IPv6 settings of the mac wifi connection. Leaving the auto default, my VPN works when tethering even though I don't get a routable IPv4 address (I get 192.0.0.2) 

So I suspect that the newer GPVPN client I'm using is able to cope with that.