# Intermittent Heartbeat Only

**URL:** <https://forums.balena.io/t/intermittent-heartbeat-only/354032>\
**Category:** Product support\
**Created:** [March 7, 2022, 4:26pm UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/intermittent-heartbeat-only/354032 "2022-03-07T16:26:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![SMoore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SMoore](https://forums.balena.io/u/SMoore)\
**Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 4:26pm UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/intermittent-heartbeat-only/354032/1 "2022-03-07T16:26:27Z")

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I’ve noticed an increase in “Heartbeat Only” status (VPN down) in a couple of our Intel NUC’s at our field site. We connect via cell modem.

Normally it is rare for us to see Heartbeat only (noticeable once every few weeks, max). However, in the last two weeks, that has changed. In today’s case, it’s been going on for approx 8 hours (started 1am MT).

We are planning to demo our system next week, including a web page based on the “Public Device URL” provided by Balena, which doesn’t work when our VPN connection is down. How can we ensure a more reliable VPN connection with Balena?

Thanks,  
Sandy

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**Author:** ![Lizzieepton](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/balena/user_avatar/forums.balena.io/lizzieepton/32/5393_2.png) [@Lizzieepton](https://forums.balena.io/u/Lizzieepton)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2022, 2:56pm UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/intermittent-heartbeat-only/354032/3 "2022-03-10T14:56:52Z")

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Hi @smoore thank you for getting in touch, we had experiences a few issues with the VPN which look like they might have correlated with what you have been experiencing, these issues have now been resolved but I just wanted to check if you are you still experiencing issues? You can find the details of our uptime and all outages are on our status page: [https://status.balena.io/](https://status.balena.io/)

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**Author:** ![SMoore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SMoore](https://forums.balena.io/u/SMoore)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2022, 4:18pm UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/intermittent-heartbeat-only/354032/5 "2022-03-10T16:18:30Z")

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Lizzie,  
Thanks for the info.

The VPN connection was down for our field site starting 1am Monday, March 7- sometime late-March 8/March 9, 2022. I am relieved to learn that Balena was actually experiencing VPN issues at that time.

The Balena status window shows the VPN has been functioning perfectly for the last 90 days (today is March 10 2022), so that made me consider if we were suddenly doing something wrong at our field site. The only issue reflected on the Balena status page was with Support Chat.

 ![image.png](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/balena/original/2X/6/699ef6b625c96747462a8d5c81e34171ef8aa7df.png)

 ![image.png](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/balena/original/2X/1/19414b1414fd62c141e02b39120ba821d1d2c0d4.png)

Being able to post my issue to the Forum and get your feedback has been helpful.

Thanks,  
Sandy