Paradox Launcher always fails update unless I turn off VPN. Why?

[chaeunwoo]

I play Stellaris and every time I open it the Paradox Launcher opens for the game and tries to check for updates. It always fails if the VPN is turned on.
I've gotten around this by disabling the VPN once a month or so to get whatever update they've released and then turn it back on.

 

[jeanettewakel]

Hey there!
What I usually do is disable my VPN just for a brief moment to let the launcher check for updates and download them. It's a bit of a hassle to turn the VPN on and off, but at least I get to play with the latest updates.
Hope this helps, and happy gaming!

 

[AndrewT]

I've only seen other reports of this with Empire of Sin, weirdly

Launcher Update Issue

When I launch the game the launcher says "failed to update launcher" because it can't read metadata and says it's either their servers or my internet. My internet's working fine so is anyone else having this problem?

forum.paradoxplaza.com

My best guess would be a DNS issue.

@Deuterium Oxide do you have any ideas on this?

 

[jeanettewakel]

As I get, the launcher is saying "failed to update launcher" because it can't read metadata, and it's blaming either their servers or your internet.
However, if your internet is working fine, then it might be a DNS issue. Have you tried checking your DNS settings?*

 

[Deuterium Oxide]

Networking issues are notoriously hard to pin down over asynchronous text messages

So, all of the files we distribute (launcher, mods etc) are hosted on with a CDN provider. I'm guessing that what may have happend is some not-too-neighbourly user of your VPN providers have gotten the IP range banned from our CDN. Have you tried other VPN exit points or providers? Of course, a DNS issue might be at hand as well - maybe Wireshark the traffic?

 

[von Fulda]

I came to say that I have been struggling with this on all my PDX games this summer. Using ExpressVPN if that helps.