I give up... Amazon thinks I have a VPN on this one computer but I do NOT

I get this message:

Your device is connected to the Internet using a VPN or proxy service. Please disable it and try again. For more help, go to Prime Video freezes, stops responding, or buffers while playing. - Amazon Customer Service.

It ONLY appears on this particular PC. All other devices in the house work fine. Other computers, TV’s, our phones. no problem. I’ve been on the phone with both my provider (AT&T) and Amazon and neither can figure it out.

  • I have NEVER installed a VPN on this computer.
  • I checked the VPN settings in Windows, there is no VPN.
  • I flushed my dns.
  • I renew’d my IP although I have no idea why that would have worked considering my AT&T IP is what Amazon would see and that doesn’t change.
  • I’ve tried different browsers.
  • I’ve cleared my cache and cookies, twice.
  • I’ve turned off every non essential service and start-up program and restarted.
  • I’ve turned off the only browser extension I have (ublock).
  • I’ve also even installed the Amazon Prime app and I get the same error with it.

For whatever reason Amazon thinks this SPECIFIC computer has a VPN installed.

ANY IDEAS? I’m out of ideas.

I use a vpn 24/7/365. I’ve never gotten that message.

Tether the PC to a mobile hotspot and see what happens

Work computer? My work computer gets routed even when no VPN on.

I have this issue. Started yesterday and its thesame message for all of my devices. I’ve done everything possible. I just cancelled my amazon prime coz I’m so frustrated.

I’ve found a workaround.

You connect to your hotspot, and the video should play without problems. Now, once the video starts playing, you switch to your Wi-Fi or whatever network you were using before if you don’t want to be streaming with mobile data, and the video continues playing.

However, you must repeat this after every episode/video, so it’s inconvenient.

Hi, if you haven’t solved this yet, what I did was turn off my router’s IPv6 switch and it worked for me.

Yep. Prime Streaming is garbage, their app sucks and all I want to do is watch the final episode of the only show worth watching on the damn service. Ugh.

Lol, actually connecting to a vpn was what finally worked for me.

This issue just started for me. Also using chrome, have not tested much stuff yet but no solutions so far.

Some browsers have built-in VPN now.

Are you by chance using the “use random hardware addresses” feature in Windows 11? If so, try turning it off. If you are not, try turning it on.

How is this PC connected to the net, wired or wifi?

I assume you have tried resetting your network setting in Windows, have you tried a few dns providers?

Have you checked the properties of your network adapter? Some of the options have given me trouble in the past.

And lastly have you configured your dns-suffix to a certain configuration that may be interfering?

Just some ideas that might help sorry if they don’t

Best of Luck

Dang, that did it.

To me that would be IP related but why would other devices work fine? We are all on the same network…

I assume this ISP related then and they should release my lease and give me a new one?

That just worked for me too. Now I’m just confused as to why Amazon Video has been working just fine with my internet up until a few days ago.

No this is a machine I built. I’ve been building all of my computers for the last 20 years.

I tried MS Edge and Chrome. Both give the same error. And I’m not aware of any built-in VPN with either of those.

Took me a google search to figure out how to do this. But once I found it there was no change whether it was on or off. Thanks for replying tho.

Go to a web site that reveals what IP address the web site considers your web browser to be coming from.

For example, if you can forgive the abundance of advertisements, https://iplocation.net/.

Note I’m saying do this while not tethered. While this one computer is “using the same Internet connection as all the other computers that work fine”, see whether there is a difference in the IP address reported when you visit https://iplocation.net/ from the problem computer, versus when you visit https://iplocation.net/ from the non-problem computers.

Seeing a different IP on the problem computer versus the non-problem computers would still mean either there is a VPN or proxy configuration on this one computer which we just haven’t detected or identified yet. Or that somehow your router is implicated in forwarding the traffic from this one computer differently. Software on the computer itself makes more sense / seems much more likely.

Unless you’re on some kind of business ISP connection, all the traffic from all the computers will go out though the same single IP address. So forcing a release/renew of the IP address your ISP currently has for you doesn’t by definition help or change anything, because “if that was the problem” all your computers would be affected, not just the one computer.

MS Edge has built-in VPN, although I never used it:

https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/how-to-increase-privacy-using-built-in-vpn-on-microsoft-edge