In this article, I will explain how to fix ExpressVPN not working with Crunchyroll.
If you’ve been watching Crunchyroll outside of the US with ExpressVPN and suddenly you cannot play any content, ExpressVPN isn’t currently able to provide any IP addresses that work with Crunchyroll.
This is happening because Crunchyroll constantly monitors for and tries to prevent VPNs from accessing its service.
To fix ExpressVPN not working with Crunchyroll, follow these simple steps. You can also read to the end of the article to find out why this is happening and how you can prevent it from happening again in the future.
See also:
- Crunchyroll not working with VPN? Try these EASY fixes! (December 2021)
- How to watch Crunchyroll outside the US? It’s EASY and only takes 2-minutes! (December 2021)
ExpressVPN not working with Crunchyroll: Quick Fixes
Below are the steps you should try to fix ExpressVPN not working with Crunchyroll. If one method doesn’t fix the problem, move on to the next until you can watch Crunchyroll with a VPN again.
Delete Cookies
Deleting your Cookies is a great place to start when trying to fix ExpressVPN not working with Crunchyroll.
Cookies are used to make your online experience better. They’re small files that your browser stores. You may have noticed some websites asking you to accept them.
Crunchyroll uses Cookies a lot. Even if you don’t remember accepting Cookies, they may still be stored on your browser. While they aren’t malicious files, the problem with these Cookies is they sometimes contain information about your location.
If the location stored on your Cookies (your actual location) is different from the location selected on your VPN, Crunchyroll can see the discrepancy, and it knows you’re using a VPN to access its service. When this happens, it will block your connection.
Change to a different server on ExpressVPN
Crunchyroll may have stopped working because the IP address ExpressVPN has given you has been identified and blocked by Crunchyroll.
Crunchyroll can’t block ExpressVPN entirely; however, it can block the IP addresses it provides. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s been able to block all of ExpressVPN’s IP addresses.
Changing to a different server will provide you with a new IP address, and if that IP hasn’t been blocked, Crunchyroll will work with ExpressVPN again.
Upgrade to a more reliable VPN
If deleting your cookies and changing to a different server doesn’t fix ExpressVPN not working with Crunchyroll, then all of ExpressVPN’s current IP addresses have been blocked.
You can either wait for ExpressVPN to release new IP addresses that haven’t been blocked; however, there’s no telling how long this will take and seeing as you’ve already run into this issue, it’s clear that ExpressVPN measures to stay ahead of Crunchyroll’s VPN blocking techniques are not working. That means there’s a lot more they need to do to fix the issue than simply releasing new IP addresses. In its current state, if ExpressVPN releases new IP addresses, inevitably, these will get blocked by Crunchyroll as well.
The quickest and most effective way to fix this is to use a VPN that is still compatible with Crunchyroll. We recommend Private Internet Access ($2.03/month). This VPN has measures in place to get around Crunchyroll’s blocks that will ensure you’ll never run into the errors you have come across with ExpressVPN
Why isn’t ExpressVPN working with Crunchyroll?
The reason ExpressVPN is no longer working with Crunchyroll is because all of its current IP addresses have been blocked by the streaming service.
Crunchyroll does not have the rights to broadcast all of its content internationally. For this reason, Crunchyroll tries to prevent users from watching content in areas where it does not have the rights to broadcast it.
If it didn’t do this, it could potentially run into content and licensing issues, and these are often met with severe fines.
Because ExpressVPN is a well-known way to watch Crunchyroll anywhere in the world, it could result in Crunchyroll being served these fines. To prevent this from happening, Crunchyroll tries to identify and block ExpressVPN connections.
How does Crunchyroll block ExpressVPN?
Crunchyroll cannot block ExpressVPN entirely, but it can block the IP addresses it provides.
It does this using three main techniques:
- The most common technique is to do with the IP addresses that your VPN can provide. VPN providers have more customers than IP addresses; this means that customers are forced to share the same IP addresses. Usually, only a household with a few devices uses the same IP address. When Crunchyroll sees hundreds or even thousands of connections coming through on the same IP address, it knows that it is a VPN, and it blocks it.
- Crunchyroll monitors for IP, DNS and WebRTC leaks that can tip the service off you are using a VPN.
- Crunchyroll teams up with GeoIP databases like Maxmind to identify IP addresses. If the IP address your VPN provides is on one of these databases, Crunchyroll will be able to find out where in the world you are connecting to the internet from, and it will block you.
Does Crunchyroll still work with VPNs?
Although ExpressVPN has stopped working with Prime, the best VPNs won’t run into these sorts of problems.
Private Internet Access ($2.03/month) has measures in place to get around Crunchyroll’s VPN blocking techniques. Not only does it have a large amount of IP addresses, meaning you will have less chance of sharing an IP address with other customers, it’s also capable of staying ahead of Crunchyroll’s blocks.
When Crunchyroll blocks a Private Internet Access VPN, the VPN’s in-house team will respond by closing that IP address and opening a new one. This will allow you to watch Crunchyroll anywhere in the world reliably.
