Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- A number of VPN suppliers are reporting that Android 16 has a months-old bug that may silently break VPN connections with out warning.
- The problem seems to have an effect on a number of VPNs like Proton, Mullvad, WireGuard, TunnelBear, and presumably different, with customers additionally reporting the bug.
- Google has acknowledged the experiences however hasn’t offered a repair or clear timeline but.
A number of main VPN suppliers are reporting that Android 16 has a bug that’s quietly breaking their VPN apps and probably leaving customers uncovered.
The bug reportedly impacts Android 16’s community stack and might set off after a VPN app is up to date, inflicting the app to cease working correctly within the background with none warning to the consumer.
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Proton VPN highlighted the problem in a collection of posts on X, saying it first reported the bug in September 2025, whereas different suppliers like Mullvad VPN and WireGuard had flagged comparable conduct even earlier. The issue can be not restricted to just some providers. VPN supplier TunnelBear experiences it’s additionally affected, and feedback on Google’s Challenge Tracker recommend that customers have been encountering the bug as nicely.
“In Android 16, after updating a VPN app, the system could find yourself in a state the place the VPN app is not in a position to attain the web. On this misguided state, the VPN app is blocked from accessing the web in any means. This finally ends up being very complicated for the customers as they will’t join utilizing the VPN after which are unable to succeed in the web since it’s caught in a connecting state/fail to attach,” reads the grievance on Challenge Tracker.
This often occurs when customers obtain updates to their VPN apps through Google Play whereas the VPN is lively.
Proton and different VPN suppliers say restarting the VPN app doesn’t resolve the issue, leaving customers caught until they reboot their machine or reinstall the VPN solely, steps many individuals are unlikely to attempt when there’s no clear error message.
What complicates issues additional is how inconsistent the bug appears to be. It reportedly happens solely a small share of the time, making it tougher to pin down, however nonetheless frequent sufficient to influence actual customers throughout gadgets.
Regardless of the variety of experiences, Proton says Google has but to correctly acknowledge or deal with the problem. The newest response on the problem tracker is from September 2025. stating that the issue has been shared with the related groups and shall be up to date when extra data turns into accessible.
For now, there’s no official repair or timeline from Google. Till that modifications, customers on Android 16 could need to preserve a more in-depth eye on how their VPN behaves, notably after app updates.
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