Run through these in order. We've sorted them by likelihood — most "not connecting" reports turn out to be step 1 or 2.
Turn the VPN off. Open a browser. Try to load any website. If nothing loads, the issue is your phone's connection (WiFi or cellular), not ClownVPN. Reconnect to your network, then try the VPN again.
Tap your current server in the app → pick a different one (e.g., switch from Ohio to Florida Man's Garage). Sometimes one server is overloaded or has a routing issue. This forces a fresh handshake and resolves ~40% of "stuck" connections.
Pull down → toggle Airplane mode ON, wait 5 seconds, toggle OFF. This forces your phone to re-acquire the cellular tower / WiFi DHCP lease and clears stuck network state. Surprisingly effective.
Settings → Protocol → switch from Auto to OpenVPN (TCP). Some networks (school WiFi, certain corporate, some hotels) block WireGuard's UDP port. OpenVPN over TCP/443 looks like normal HTTPS and almost always gets through.
See our protocols explainer for context.
Yes, really. Android's networking stack can get into a bad state after long uptime. A reboot clears it. Takes 30 seconds, fixes more than it should.
Play Store → search ClownVPN → if you see "Update" instead of "Open", install it. Some connection issues are fixed in newer app versions, especially around new Android OS changes.
Settings → Apps → ClownVPN → Battery → Unrestricted. Android's aggressive battery saver can kill background VPN connections. "Unrestricted" prevents that.
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We respond within ~48h on weekdays. Most reports get resolved in one round-trip.