How to fix unable to connect issues on macOS – Surfshark Customer Support

In this tutorial, you will learn how to troubleshoot connection issues on your macOS device.

Usually, this particular problem can be resolved in a few easy steps. However, since all of our home, work, or even school networks are very different from each other, some of them may have specific restrictions that may block the VPN connection.

We will go through these solutions:

Change the installation method

There are two ways to install Surfshark on your macOS device. The first one is through the App Store, and the second one is by installing it directly with a .DMG installation file which can be found here.

If you installed Surfshark with the .DMG file from our website, try the App Store version and vice versa.

Change the server

If changing the installation method did not help, double-check to see if you cannot connect to various locations. For example, if you tried connecting to our United States - Detroit server, try our Germany - Berlin server and other servers as well.

You might be unable to connect to one particular server as it could be experiencing some issues. If so, please let our Customer Success team know about the location you are struggling to connect to, and our team will take immediate action.

Change the connection protocol

Different VPN protocols use different network ports to connect. That being said, you might have a specific port blocked on your home, work, or any other network. Make sure to test all of the available protocols in the Surfshark application, as this has a high chance of resolving the issue.

Open the Surfshark application and go to the Settings tab.
Click on VPN Settings.
Click on the Protocol tab and try connecting with all available protocols.

Set custom DNS

Setting custom DNS on any device can change the overall connection, increase the speed, resolve unstable connection issues, or help you connect to the VPN. Check out this article to set custom DNS on your macOS device.

Disable IPv6

At the moment, Surfshark does not support the IPv6 protocol. However, having IPv6 enabled on your network might make it complicated to connect to our servers in some situations. That's why we always recommend disabling it for all of our customers to improve the overall connectivity experience. Check out this article to learn how to disable IPv6 on a macOS device.

Disable potentially interfering applications

Your antivirus program or a different VPN application is another thing that can interfere with the VPN connection and typically refuses to let it through. Make sure that your antivirus is disabled and any other VPN application that you have installed is removed.

Since our application modifies your connection settings by a tiny bit, it can be considered a threat to your device by most antivirus software, therefore blocking the attempt to connect to the VPN server. Various VPN applications also use different connection configurations, fighting with each other and canceling out the connection.