Exception for 'Microsoft Account' / Office 365 Apps

[MysticRyuujin]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. Microsoft services do not work while connected to PIA. Things like Office 365 apps fail to connect / authenticate. Windows Store itself fails to log you in, etc.

Describe the solution you'd like Allow an exception for Microsoft services.

Describe alternatives you've considered A nice alternative may be to allow users to reverse the application exceptions list into an application target list. Where nothing is tunneled unless part of that list of applications. Generally, I only care about specific apps going over the VPN anyway.

Additional context

[JonathonH-PIA]

Hi @MysticRyuujin, apologies for the delayed response!

In the current beta (1.8.0-beta.1), you can now opt-in only specific apps to the VPN. On the Network page, enable Split Tunnel, and set "All Other Apps" to "Bypass VPN" (at the bottom of the list). You can add individual apps that you want to use the VPN, and set them to "Only VPN".

For Microsoft services specifically, there might be a service process that does the authentication for these apps - if so, you may be able to exclude it by browsing to that executable manually. We'll look into this as we continue to work on improving compatibility with more apps.

Thanks for the feedback!

[MysticRyuujin]

Apologies for taking so long to reply, it took me a while to switch over to Bypass VPN mode by default and I forgot to report back.

Using Bypass VPN by default does work and does allow Microsoft services to authenticate correctly. I still wish there was an easy way to bypass this when "Use VPN' was the selected option, but I appreciate the tip.

I would be fine with closing this, but I'll leave that up to you.

[reduckted]

I had this same problem a while back (maybe about a year ago, or maybe longer) and I think I solved it by following the advice in this blog post:

https://www.macwheeler.com/windows-10-office-365-cannot-connect-over-openvpn-fixed/

I think this was back when PIA was using a TAP adapter though. I've just checked my network settings and the TAP adapter is disabled, none of the other adapters have a manually configured default gateway and all of my Office 365 apps have no problem verifying my subscription. Hope it helps though. 😄