I have been isolating the issue attempting to determine if the problem was Comcast or my PC.
The problem started about two weeks prior.
If Secureline VPN is connected, all internet activity on the browsers stops. (Chrome and Firefox).

  1. Turned off all protection on Norton and Avast (yes they grudgingly play together)
  2. Connected Secureline VPN and all tabs in the browsers could not be refreshed with various messages about not being able to reach the web pages.
  3. Loaded hide.me VPN and it accessed the web with no problems with Norton and Avast running protection.
  4. Reset Avast to default setting (no change)
  5. Uninstalled avast. Deleted folders in Program Files. Reinstalled a new version of Avast 2016.
    – Same problem persists!

Prior to two weeks ago, everything worked as expected.
I’m not sure what has changed but I can not utilize Secureline VPN and reach any website.
Do I need to have a proxy server address?
Does there need to be special treatment in my router (Netgear WNR1000v3) for the UDP protocol and port 1194?

With Secureline VPN connected, I can ping the loopback 127.0.0.1, and the router 10.0.0.1

Ping statistics for 10.0.0.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 5ms, Maximum = 10ms, Average = 7ms

But I can not ping anything past the router; ie: google.com
The DNS does not resolve the name with the ip and the request times out.
FAILED ATTEMPT
Pinging google.com [74.125.206.102] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 74.125.206.102:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

Disconnected Secureline VPN
SUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT
Pinging google.com [216.58.219.206] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 216.58.219.206: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=54
Reply from 216.58.219.206: bytes=32 time=27ms TTL=54
Reply from 216.58.219.206: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=54
Reply from 216.58.219.206: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=54

Ping statistics for 216.58.219.206:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 18ms, Maximum = 27ms, Average = 22ms

Any suggestions on a possible solution or additional test?
I’m optioning WireShark to see if it will capture any messages that will help the isolation.

NOTE:
it is possible that I have both the Avast embedded version and the standalone version installed.
I’m not sure how to determine that except to uninstall everything and reinstall just one.
** I attempted to run openvpn.exe and it said it could not start. Maybe that points to part of the problem.