About a week ago, my voip softphone would no longer register any connections. I have more than one voip vendor, and I use just one softphone - Zoiper Biz. Suddenly none of them would register, i.e. connect to the server. I tried some diagnostics, and found that when Viscosity, my VPN client, is running, the voip does not work. With Viscosity turned off, and no VPN connected, the voip works again. So, I thought I had at least a lead to solving the problem. Then yesterday, I was able to use the voip when Viscosity is running, at least for some of my voip vendors. One of them still would not work. So now I'm back to square one . . . it's an intermittent problem. Does anybody have any ideas on why this is happening and how to fix it?
When the VPN is connected, your VoIP app tries to connect through the tunnel. That may or may not be what you want. If it's not what you want, the simplest solution is just to not use VoIP while the VPN is connected. Tweaking VPNs so some apps use it and others don't is non-trivial. It's also dangerous, given the likelihood of leaks. If you do want VoIP via VPN, you'll need to find combinations of VoIP vendors and VPN exits that work together. I suspect that at least some VoIP vendors block IP addresses of known proxies.
Thanks for the reply. I want the voip to go through the vpn. If the voip vendors are blocking IP's, why does it work sometimes and sometimes not? Earlier today, I had Skype working and was running it through the vpn. Or at least it was set up that way. The difference may be that I run Skype through the Skype proprietary softphone, and the other vendors are using Zoiper. But a couple days ago, I had most of the voip vendors working through the vpn using Zoiper. Now tonight they don't work. So there's an inconsistency there. Why is is working in a given configuration sometimes and not others?
I don't know Maybe the geolocation status of the VPN exit is changing, and affecting how the VoIP providers treat it. Users sometimes correct "errors" in geolocation status to get the results that they want. I suggest using http://whatismyipaddress.com to get geolocation information for the VPN exit. Do that when VoIP is working, and when it's not. Maybe a pattern will appear.