I am running latest Byzantium on my desktop. Proton VPN stopped working after the second to last update. When I click on the icon it expands and disappears, and Proton VPN never opens. Any ideas ? Thanks, Tom
Are you using the GUI or hand plugging the credentials etc?
Sorry, you are clearly using GUI, I used to hand plug the credentials back when it was new, do they have a CLI helper/selector for linux?
I think it is built with electron… Any errors when you launch the gui from cli?
(edit)
I am getting gnome keyring prompt, and then it starts for me. Librem pureos 6.12.0-1-librem5 and Proton VPN Linux client, 4.15.3
I attempted to use CLI from the terminal. When I tried to log in to ProtonVPN in the terminal with “protonvpn signin nick-tom123” it said I was missing a parameter. I am confused.
The reason I am seeking help from the Purism community is PVPN stopped working after a PureOS update. It was working fine before that.
Thanks, Tom
So I am running Crimson as you saw so my testing is of little use, If I remember correctly it is not user/pass but you need to go to the protonVPN page and get a pass key for each VPN exit, I only did this when PVPN was new and maybe last year had trouble adding PVPN fallbacks to my primary VPN on my openwrt router and just never solved the issue.
here is what you need for direct credentials and no GUI or CLI apps
I’m using it right now, fully working (Crimson - manual configuration)
Thank you. I will attempt to set up WireGuard so I have a working VPN.
However, the main issue is what changed in PureOS that it will not allow me to open the ProtonVPN app? PVPN was working fine, I installed the next update to Byzantium, and now PVPN will not open. Can someone help me with that?
Thanks, Tom
I had already tried the instructions on how to use PrononVPN CLI. I installed CLI using “sudo apt install proton-vpn-cli” but when I tried to sign in I got a long list of errors in the terminal:
tom@Lucy-the-cat:~$ protonvpn signin nick-tom123
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/bin/protonvpn”, line 33, in
sys.exit(load_entry_point(‘proton-vpn-cli==1.0.1’, ‘console_scripts’, ‘protonvpn’)())
File “/usr/bin/protonvpn”, line 25, in importlib_load_entry_point
return next(matches).load()
File “/usr/lib/python3.9/importlib/metadata.py”, line 77, in load
module = import_module(match.group(‘module’))
File “/usr/lib/python3.9/importlib/init.py”, line 127, in import_module
return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
File “”, line 1030, in _gcd_import
File “”, line 1007, in _find_and_load
File “”, line 986, in _find_and_load_unlocked
File “”, line 680, in _load_unlocked
File “”, line 790, in exec_module
File “”, line 228, in _call_with_frames_removed
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/proton/vpn/cli/init.py”, line 38, in
from proton.vpn.cli.commands.settings import config, SETTINGS_LIST_COMMAND
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/proton/vpn/cli/commands/settings.py”, line 247, in
async def custom_dns_command(ctx: click.Context, state: str, dns_csv: str | None) → None:
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for |: ‘type’ and ‘NoneType’
Can you try running the GUI app from the command line?
Try:
proton-vpn-gnome-desktop
and share the output here. I don’t know if that’s the exact name of the app to run it so adjust accordingly.
Depending on the error(s), you may need to install the qtwayland5 package with sudo apt install qtwayland5. It’s also possible that the system libraries in Byzantium are too old and you will need to upgrade to Crimson.
Here are several tries. “protonvpn-app” responded with errors.
tom@Lucy-the-cat:~$ proton-vpn-gnome-desktop
proton-vpn-gnome-desktop: command not found
tom@Lucy-the-cat:~$ protonVPN
protonVPN: command not found
tom@Lucy-the-cat:~$ protonvpn-app
2026-04-23T16:58:46.473475+00:00 | proton.vpn.app.gtk.utils.accessibility:18 | WARNING | Upgrade for better UI accessibility. Gtk.AccessibleList requires GTK >= 4.14.0
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/bin/protonvpn-app”, line 33, in
sys.exit(load_entry_point(‘proton-vpn-gtk-app==4.15.3’, ‘console_scripts’, ‘protonvpn-app’)())
File “/usr/bin/protonvpn-app”, line 25, in importlib_load_entry_point
return next(matches).load()
File “/usr/lib/python3.9/importlib/metadata.py”, line 77, in load
module = import_module(match.group(‘module’))
File “/usr/lib/python3.9/importlib/init.py”, line 127, in import_module
return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
File “”, line 1030, in _gcd_import
File “”, line 1007, in _find_and_load
File “”, line 986, in _find_and_load_unlocked
File “”, line 680, in _load_unlocked
File “”, line 790, in exec_module
File “”, line 228, in _call_with_frames_removed
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/proton/vpn/app/gtk/main.py”, line 25, in
from proton.vpn.app.gtk.app import App
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/proton/vpn/app/gtk/app.py”, line 29, in
from proton.vpn.app.gtk.widgets.main.main_window import MainWindow
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/proton/vpn/app/gtk/widgets/main/main_window.py”, line 34, in
from proton.vpn.app.gtk.widgets.main.pull_notifications.nps_survey_modal import
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/proton/vpn/app/gtk/widgets/main/pull_notifications/nps_survey_modal.py”, line 93, in
class NPSSurvey(Gtk.Window):
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/proton/vpn/app/gtk/widgets/main/pull_notifications/nps_survey_modal.py”, line 249, in NPSSurvey
def subtitle(self) → str | None:
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for |: ‘type’ and ‘NoneType’
I just realized the Python errors. I can’t remember what version of Python Byzantium has but upgrading to Crimson should fix this. It sounds like an update to the Proton app broke this, not an update to Byzantium itself.
The pipe operator was proposed in PEP 604 and added in Python 3.10. You can check the version of Python by typing python --version.
You could manually update Python yourself if you don’t want to upgrade to Crimson, but from my own experience, it’s a pain to do.
tom@Lucy-the-cat:~$ python --version
Command ‘python’ not found, did you mean:
command ‘python3’ from deb python3
command ‘python’ from deb python-is-python3
tom@Lucy-the-cat:~$ python3 --version
Python 3.9.2
OK, what is the easiest way to upgrade to Crimson ?
I want to preserve all my apps and data.
Install the pureos-upgrade app with sudo apt install pureos-upgrade. A new app will be available called “PureOS Upgrade”. Open that and follow its instructions.
1 Like
Thank You, Tom
I installed the upgrade app and tried to run it. Upgrade failed. Here is the error report:
PackageKit task failed
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/share/pureos-upgrade/pureos_upgrade/packagekit.py”, line 13, in _task_finished
finished_callback(client.generic_finish(result))
gi.repository.GLib.GError: pk-client-error-quark: W: An error occurred during the signature verification. The repository is not updated and the previous index files will be used. GPG error: Index of /debian/ unstable InRelease: The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY EDA3E22630349F1C
E: Index of /debian/ unstable InRelease is not (yet) available (The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY EDA3E22630349F1C)
(319)
I un-installed ProtonVPN and associated files, but I still have files related to proton-vpn-cli. Do I need to clean those out also ?
After cleaning out the ProtonVPN app, I rebooted and tried to upgrade to PureOS 11 again. Here is the error message:
PackageKit task failed
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/share/pureos-upgrade/pureos_upgrade/packagekit.py”, line 13, in _task_finished
finished_callback(client.generic_finish(result))
gi.repository.GLib.GError: pk-client-error-quark: W: An error occurred during the signature verification. The repository is not updated and the previous index files will be used. GPG error: Index of /debian/ unstable InRelease: The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY EDA3E22630349F1C
E: Index of /debian/ unstable InRelease is not (yet) available (The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY EDA3E22630349F1C)
(319)
Do you have any third-party repositories enabled? You can manage them from a GUI with the “Software” manager application. Click on the menu button (upper-right corner, three horizontal lines stacked vertically) and use the “Software Repositories” item.
It sounded like you were able to update your system recently so it’s odd why it’s not working now.
You could update your /etc/apt/sources.list manually as well. Just follow steps 4-8.
I do not have third party repositories that I know of. I will try the software manager.
I went to the Software Manager and software repositories, then to Index of /pureos/ and nothing was there except two dates.