Outline-client: Please STOP requiring UDP!

[LBYPatrick]

We all know UDP is an important protocol on the internet other than TCP, and this software is designed for unblocking websites in internet-restricted countries.

Here is the fun part: These countries usually have restrictions on UDP.

This means that in some cases you would be able to use UDP because they made it not working (i.e. Under China Mobile Shadowsocks' UDP works 40% of the time), and most users who were using Shadowsocks before were using TCP the whole time just for accessing Google or Instagram.

The main reason why most people switched back to the original Shadowsocks clients (i.e. shadowsocks-qt5 for windows or ShadowsocksX-NG for macOS ) is this UDP thing.

Please put this into consideration, thank you.

[sailosha]

Well, you said 40% would you mind to give a better data output?
You shouldn't quote others information, they are not right.
First, China has different location block rule, for example:
Tianjin, Beijing theese "important" city they will force to require GCP, AZUREA AWS, ALI yun HK to forward data into some secret server to check data.

You should give more detail and including some testing data.........

Maybe you also need give a good statistic report to show siginificant different.

I build up my own server to let my friends to use it for free. I never experience they complained about UDP forward issue. ( i only share this private server to about 5 people)

[LBYPatrick]

@sailosha 中国移动屏蔽UDP是真的，我在广东，十次只有四次能正常使用UDP，而只依靠TCP也能满足基本需求，所以我希望Outline取消强制UDP。

另外我建议你检查一下你的英语语法

[sailosha]

@LBYPatrick can u use hotspot to give a data usage output and tracert?
Is it block all the udp traffic including: CN2 and normal flow. Cuz I had one female friend use my server a lot. She is in GuangDong.

For example, CN2 GIA is owned by China Telecom; when you use this one it is okay. I was using my GCP HK servers to test GuangDong traffic, it works so well and has the lowest delay. It works for me very well.

I did test for both CN2 and non-CN2 internet traffic in 3 areas.
So again, you need to provide your result.

另外我建议你检查一下你的英语语法

>

By the way, thanks for the suggestion, my grammar sucks <3. I only care it when I talk to the prof and write the report.

[LBYPatrick]

@sailosha Sorry but there isn't any proper software providing convincing data (to me it should be as detailed as WinMTR data), but...

Both my servers are not going through CN2 network (which are jpn1.lbynet.com(Linode JPN) and jpn2.lbynet.com(Vultr JPN)) and my cellular network and cable network, as implied in my first post, is China Mobile. (And I use opened about 50 ports for shadowsocks with my program)

So here's what I observed:

1. This problem appears mostly under China Mobile

2. For cable network (which is "家用宽带" or "光纤"):

   • 0900 AM -- 1100 AM: Completely unusable (UDP fails but TCP passes (Tested on both SSTap and Outline with the two servers mentioned above))
   • Other times: fine for 90% of the time but with unstable UDP connection

3. For cellular network (which is "蜂窝数据" or "流量"):

   • Pretty much the same as cable, but more unstable (So probably another two or three down hours in afternoon)

[sailosha]

@LBYPatrick Oh! Right, China Moblie! My buddy is using this one and he switched because the vpn speed is slow and unstable........
Only China telcom has internet fiber. Do you want to test my servers(cn2-gia host by bangwagon, i can also build Google cloud non-cn2 servers) to see what is going on.
My bad, I forgot China moile has terrible internet data transfer.
Yea, you are right... I totally forgot about China moblie block UDP for w/e reason, it may also caused by servers location. ( HK is a major port to pass data)

[sailosha]

Leave me w/e email address, qq, telegram. I will send to you, if you need GCP(google cloud, host in HK,TW,JP) for testing, please let me know

[trevj]

@LBYPatrick We are beta testing a new version of the client which will work on networks and servers that do not support UDP:
https://www.reddit.com/r/outlinevpn/comments/a68s0j/release_outline_beta_for_ios_and_android/

[pavelborisofff]

China Unicom (中国联通) sometimes block UDP.
I used China's SIM about a week without problems, today I have received UDP errors on phone. My friends also use China Unicom SIM cards, and they could not used Outline without UDP.

Also, today I have UDP error on OS X Mojave for a few minutes, connected to wired network (I don't know what the provider).

Outline server raised in Netherland, nothing special, no any other features or services.

Reddit blocked in China.

@LBYPatrick We are beta testing a new version of the client which will work on networks and servers that do not support UDP:
https://www.reddit.com/r/outlinevpn/comments/a68s0j/release_outline_beta_for_ios_and_android/

I put info from Reddit here

We just released an updated version of Outline for iOS and Android with DNS fallback to TCP when the proxy server or network does not support UDP. Help us test Outline v.1.2.8 for Android (opt-in for beta access) and Outline v.1.2.4 for iOS (through TestFlight). Let us know what you think by submitting feedback through the app.
This is our last update of 2018. Thanks for all your feedback and input this year!

How to opt-out of beta: Uninstall the app (instructions for Android and iOS). You can download and re-install the latest stable version of Outline at getoutline.org.

[trevj]

Folks,

All our clients now support servers and networks without UDP:

• https://github.com/Jigsaw-Code/outline-client/releases/tag/windows-v1.2.24
• https://github.com/Jigsaw-Code/outline-client/releases/tag/android-v1.2.9
• https://github.com/Jigsaw-Code/outline-client/releases/tag/ios-v1.2.5
• https://github.com/Jigsaw-Code/outline-client/releases/tag/macos-v1.2.5

[LBYPatrick]

¡Muchos gracias! This would be helpful when traveling back to China!