# Device showing as VPN online but unable to ssh in

**URL:** <https://forums.balena.io/t/device-showing-as-vpn-online-but-unable-to-ssh-in/310400>\
**Category:** Product support\
**Tags:** raspberrypi3\
**Created:** [May 7, 2021, 10:48am UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/device-showing-as-vpn-online-but-unable-to-ssh-in/310400 "2021-05-07T10:48:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![pjb304](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/balena/user_avatar/forums.balena.io/pjb304/32/1093_2.png) [@pjb304](https://forums.balena.io/u/pjb304)\
**Post date:** [May 7, 2021, 10:48am UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/device-showing-as-vpn-online-but-unable-to-ssh-in/310400/1 "2021-05-07T10:48:13Z")

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Hi, I have a device [c30129d13da3fe0c5d5ec8c870052bab] (in a remote location) that has recently come back online after a prolonged disconnected period.

It is showing as “Online (VPN only)”, I have tried to connect to it from the CLI (which I believe doesn’t need the API connection to be working) and get the following error:

```auto
[Debug] Trying to fetch device by UUID c30129d (string)
BalenaRequestError: Request error: tunneling socket could not be established, statusCode=500

BalenaRequestError: Request error: tunneling socket could not be established, statusCode=500
at Object.<anonymous> (/snapshot/versioned-source/node_modules/balena-request/build/request.js:190:27)
at Generator.next (<anonymous>)
at fulfilled (/snapshot/versioned-source/node_modules/tslib/tslib.js)
at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:97:5)

```

For further help or support, visit:

> **[balena CLI Documentation - Balena Documentation](https://www.balena.io/docs/reference/balena-cli/#support-faq-and-troubleshooting)**

My attempt to use the webbased diagnostics just gives the following error  
`An error occurred while querying checks data: Could not connect to device c30129d13da3fe0c5d5ec8c870052bab: HTTP/1.0 500 Internal Server Error`

Are there any other steps that I can take to try to conect to the device and figure out what’s going on. (Support access is enabled if you need to have a look).

Many thanks.

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**Author:** ![rcooke-warwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba9def/32.png) [@rcooke-warwick](https://forums.balena.io/u/rcooke-warwick)\
**Post date:** [May 7, 2021, 11:24am UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/device-showing-as-vpn-online-but-unable-to-ssh-in/310400/5 "2021-05-07T11:24:09Z")

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Hi there, do you have any other balena devices connected to the same network as this device? And I know you said it is remote, but are you in contact with anyone that does have physical access?

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**Author:** ![pjb304](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/balena/user_avatar/forums.balena.io/pjb304/32/1093_2.png) [@pjb304](https://forums.balena.io/u/pjb304)\
**Post date:** [May 7, 2021, 12:42pm UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/device-showing-as-vpn-online-but-unable-to-ssh-in/310400/6 "2021-05-07T12:42:01Z")

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Hi Ryan, thanks for the response. Unfortunately no it’s the only balena device on the network, as physical access is awkward. A physical site visit will be needed at some point anyway but as yet the timescale for that is unknown. If a fully remote solution is not possible (which I suspect will be the case) then it will just have to wait until then.

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**Author:** ![mtoman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/balena/user_avatar/forums.balena.io/mtoman/32/3599_2.png) [@mtoman](https://forums.balena.io/u/mtoman)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2021, 3:26pm UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/device-showing-as-vpn-online-but-unable-to-ssh-in/310400/8 "2021-05-13T15:26:48Z")

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Hi, our engineers have tried connecting to the device but were only able to confirm the behavior you described earlier - the SSH tunnel did not work even though the device was connected to the VPN - there was unfortunately no way to do any form of remote-only debugging. I can see the device went completely offline shortly after that, I assume that means we have to wait until it is physically collected. Is there anything else we can do for you in the meantime?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![pjb304](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/balena/user_avatar/forums.balena.io/pjb304/32/1093_2.png) [@pjb304](https://forums.balena.io/u/pjb304)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 8:12am UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/device-showing-as-vpn-online-but-unable-to-ssh-in/310400/10 "2021-05-18T08:12:01Z")

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Thank you for looking, no that’s it thanks.