BlackVue app thinks there's a VPN on my Android phone when there's not

[Neo-X]

I'm unable to connect my BlackVue dashcam to the app on my Android phone using the dashcam local Wi-Fi connection as the app thinks there's a VPN when there is not. I reinstalled the app and turned off the Intelligent Wi-Fi settings, but to no avail. There's an iPhone solution here, but I can't find any solution for Android.

Does anyone have any ideas? I've attached a video (zipped) of a narrated screen recording demonstrating the problem.

 

[danlat1415]

You may not realise it, but you DO have VPN turned on, on your device.

The VPN icon is the 'key' icon in the top right of your device (far left icon on the right hand side of your top taskbar) - as shown in your screen recording.

You'll need to figure out how to turn it off for the app to work.

 

[Tricolor]

It can also be caused by ad blocking apps that use a vpn trick to redirect the DNS queries to their app.

 

[Neo-X]

You may not realise it, but you DO have VPN turned on, on your device.

The VPN icon is the 'key' icon in the top right of your device (far left icon on the right hand side of your top taskbar) - as shown in your screen recording.

You'll need to figure out how to turn it off for the app to work.

Thanks. It seems there was a glitch in my phone and/or with NordVPN as you can see from 47 seconds into my screen recording, the key icon was showing but NordVPN showed as disconnected. By deleting the VPN profile from my Android settings, it solved the problem. I'm not sure how to reproduce this - it seems intermittent. For example, I deleted the VPN profile about a week ago, then NordVPN readded it when I opened the app. All seemed fine. But then today, I checked, and the same glitch happened. I resolved it in the same way as a week ago, and I'm not able to reproduce the problem. So, I'll monitor and see if the VPN reactivates despite the app saying disconnected. If that happens, then it's a problem with Android or the NordVPN app itself, and I'll report it there. It's clearly not a BlackVue app problem.

In any case, after resolving the VPN issue, I was still unable to connect to my dashcam with the app due to another glitch. It just showed the progress indicator indefinitely and never connected. See the screen recording attached ending "BlackVue" in the file name. This was on my fold phone in the unfolded state. It also happened in the folded state. It's done this numerous times.

However, when I put the app in a split screen together with the settings app (see the screen recording attached ending "BlackVue_Settings" in the file name), it worked fine. Again, no idea why - maybe the BlackVue app has a problem with certain screen dimensions (too narrow or too wide).

Anyway, it's all resolved for me now, but posting all this here for posterity in case anyone else has similar issues.

 

[danlat1415]

When initially pairing the camera to the app, because it's an X series, you can do it without connecting to the camera WiFi.
You just sit in the car near the camera, and choose seamless pairing.
The app then searches for any cameras nearby and detects one.
It then asks you to hold your hand on the side of the camera (opposite side to the cables connected).
It then 'beeps' and pairs the camera to the app, and you don't need to go through all the initial set up again each time you connect.

Glad you got it all sorted though

 

[Neo-X]

It's actually the DR750S model, not an X series. The animation you can see in the screen recording is just a demo video the app plays to show you how to connect to the dashcam via Wi-Fi.