Blew a whole afternoon trying to fix my VPN in a cafe in Medellin and it turned out to be the wifi port blocking it

Took me 4 hours to figure out they had the wrong ports locked down and I had already tried switching cities, reinstalling the app, and even bought a new router profile for $15 before I just asked the barista if they blocked stuff - has anyone else burned a full workday on a dumb connection issue abroad?

3 comments

3 Comments

brookerobinson2mo ago

Oh man, that's brutal! It's crazy how often the obvious answer is hidden behind all our tech-savvy troubleshooting (like how I once reset my router three times before realizing the power strip was switched off).

taraw162mo ago

Disagree completely. If you actually read the manual and pay attention to hardware basics, you would notice the power strip issue right away. People jump straight to software fixes because they don't want to admit they overlooked something simple. My dad never resets his router without checking every cable and switch first, and he never has these embarrassing moments.

the_fiona1mo ago

Tara's dad sounds like a patient person. Three times on the router before checking a power strip is pretty funny though. Most people just assume the tech itself is broken.