Question Windows 10 shared internet connection stops working

[Pulsar]

I am currently using this setup to provide my house with an internet connection:

Wireless Router -> Wired to Computer Ethernet Adapter-> Computer running VPN -> Wirelessly connected to Cell Phone Hotspot

I get my internet from an android hotspot. A computer connects to that hotspot wirelessly, then uses ICS to share it through a wired ethernet adapter. I think my problem lies somewhere in the Windows ICS and the ethernet adapter that is doing the internet sharing. I can set this up and it works wonderfully, for a time. Then at some random time, computers connecting to the wireless router stop getting internet. Unsharing then resharing the wired ethernet adapter on the computer makes it all start working again. I'm running windows 10. So far, I've tried different versions of windows 10, different computers, different ethernet adapters. I still have the same problem.

A cell phone is the only option I have for broadband at this location, so don't suggest changing that. I did look into programs that will replace Windows 10's built in internet sharing, but it's a pretty small market and there doesn't seem to be any simple-set simple-use options that don't cost $$$$. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

I need the computer in that location in the chain to set the ttl and run the VPN software (express VPN).

 

[mxnerd]

Hotspot is a router, Windows 10 with ICS is a router, and of course your wireless router is a router. You are cascading 3 levels of network and that's really bad.

Spend some money and buy a router that supports (Express) VPN.

BTW, wireless Windows ICS is very unstable for my past experience, it always breaks down, very fast, and very hard to make it work again, just like your own experience.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah. I once read a commentary, that somewhere between XP and Windows 7, Microsoft "broke" ICS, or at least, when they added the NDIS 6.0 driver stack, and multi-threaded networking, that somehow, with ICS, packets start flowing out-of-order and stuff, and really screws stuff up. I don't know how true that is, but it sounded plausable at the time.

I would recommend a different arrangement. Like a decent Wifi router for the LAN, that supports your VPN service, and also supports Client Mode, on one of the radios. Or else, connect the LAN router's WAN port to the LAN port of a travel router or additional router, configured in Client Mode, that will access the phone Hotspot.

I did something very similar, to connect my LAN to a MiFi device. It worked, mostly, sort of.