MS Server Problems and VPNs: IMPORTANT

[Jimrh1993]

@hobanagerik

Your inference may also be incorrect. I don’t think you state where you VPN connected to, but I assume somewhere outside your geographic region. What it may have done is connect you to the MSFS content servers in the region where you pop back out on the public Internet i.e. you are not connecting to the same servers as you were without the VPN.

It could be content throttling, but they would have to do this on an IP per IP basis as I assume the connections are over HTTPS, so unless they are doing HTTPS packet inspection

Many internet providers absolutely do what is called “deep packet inspection”.

Some providers deliberately throttle connections they detect are VPN connections.  Many throttle connections to specific places or content providers.

• I have seen connections to certain download mirror sites, (or especially MSFS), start rapidly with impressive speeds - and then rapidly throttle down to 56 bis modem speeds from the 80’s, or less than 1 mbit speed.
• This happens often enough that it is necessary to carefully monitor download speeds and change download methods or use a VPN to get downloads that take less than two or three days.

Note that these are all my personal observations using providers in either Worcester Ma. (Spectrum/Charter), or Moscow Russia, (Centroset).  Your mileage will absolutely vary depending on both provider and/or time of day.

• Mornings and afternoons in Worcester are considerably faster than evenings when everyone is home playing MMO’s and watching Netflix.

My own experience in Russia shows the following:

1. Downloading updates to things like Raspbian or a Linux distro from a mirror in Russia like Yandex is (usually) very fast.

2. Downloading the exact same things from a mirror site outside the Russian Federation, (AKA “The Great Firewall Of Russia”), the speeds drop by several orders of magnitude.

3. The exact same downloads via a VPN to an endpoint in the same country as the mirror site produces download speeds that are nearly as rapid as the local mirror.

Re:  MSFS downloads.

1. Many downloads within Russia are abysmally slow.

2. However, that is not universally true.  Sometimes I get download speeds that, though not blazingly fast, are not bone-jarringly slow.

3. When downloads ARE slow:

• Sometimes it doesn’t matter where I VPN to, things vacuum hugely no matter what I do and download speeds are borked no matter where I go.  (Server saturation?)
• Other times the selection of endpoint matters.  An endpoint in NYC may be terrible, but one in Chicago will be wonderful - or everything in North America stinks, but an endpoint in the UK will be acceptably fast.

4. Sometimes it depends on the tunneling protocol.

• VyprVPN offers a special, proprietary protocol called “Chameleon” which (supposedly) hides the fact that you’re using a VPN.  Since VPNs are technically illegal in Russia, sometimes it helps.
• Other times using protocols like Wireguard or Open VPN produce better speeds or a more stable connection.

5. The VPN provider may matter.

• Sometimes VyprVPN is slow, or can’t maintain a connection but another VPN provider, (ExpressVPN), provides a faster, more stable connection.
• The next time I download VyprVPN may be awesome and ExpressVPN might stink.

It’s really an individual experience kind of thing.

One thing may work wonders for you, but it may not help the next guy at all.  What helps the other guy may be useless for you.

It’s really a “Your mileage may vary” situation.