Although it’s pretty easy to get Android 12’s beta up and running on any recent Pixel device, it’s not something every user should do. Each update brings about a new round of improvements to system stability, but things can get broken along the way. If you rushed out to install Beta 4 this week, only to find your trusty VPN was no longer functioning, just know you aren’t alone.
According to a lengthy Reddit thread on r/Android_Beta, VPNs are completely busted in the most recent version of Android 12. This bug is backed up by a thread on Google’s Issue Tracker, which has nearly every VPN service under the sun listed as no longer functioning. Commenters note that, although the apps act as though your phone is connected, no traffic is ever rerouted through the VPN. It doesn’t seem to matter which specific client you subscribe to — at the moment, none of them are working correctly.
After initially marking the bug as obsolete, Google responded on Issue Tracker with the following statement:
We were able to reproduce the issue on the public Android Developer Preview build. However, the issue is not reproducible on our internal development build (which is ahead of the public release). Please test it on the next public release and let us know if you are still having issues.
In other words, because this bug has already been fixed in the next build of Android 12 — likely a release candidate — there’s nothing to be done. If Google sticks to this schedule, anyone running Beta 4 will either need to downgrade to a previous version of Android or wait for a patch in a future update that could be as much as a month away.
Since this post, Google has since updated and assigned the issue, rather than marking it as obsolete, though there are no further statements from the company. Considering the scope of an bug like this, we may see an incremental update sometime soon. After all, VPNs aren’t just made for navigating through region-blocked content and hiding your activity online. Plenty of workplaces use VPN clients for remote workers, making this an even more critical fix than it already was.
For more about Android 12, check out our ongoing series coverage here, or bookmark our regularly updated changelog and check back in later. If you want to install the developer preview on your own device, find out how in our Android 12 download guide.
