Why My NAS Disappeared When the VPN Turned On: The Tunnel Took the Wrong Route

The video project opened with half its files marked offline. I clicked one of the missing clips and saw the path I had used all week: \\STUDIO-NAS\Projects\Launch. File Explorer showed the mapped drive with a red cross, although the NAS lights were blinking beside my desk. I restarted the NAS, reopened the editing software, and tried the folder again. Nothing. Then I disconnected the VPN. Every clip reappeared at once.

I was editing a product video from my apartment in Pune. The original footage lived on a NAS connected to the same home router as my desktop. A client in Singapore was waiting for a corrected export before the start of their workday, which gave me roughly forty minutes to replace one shot, render the video, and upload it to their review portal.

The NAS worked whenever the VPN was off.

The client portal worked properly only when the VPN was on.

That left me switching between two versions of the same computer: one that could reach the files and another that could deliver them.

At first, I blamed the storage box because it was the device that had vanished. But the lights were on, the drives were healthy, and the folders returned the moment I disconnected.

The NAS had not failed. The route to it had changed.

The VPN sent a local request into the tunnel

The VPN came from a large provider I had used for years. It had a mature Windows application, a long public history, and enough server locations to make changing countries feel like the standard answer to every connection problem.

I switched from Singapore to Germany.

The client portal still opened. The NAS remained missing.

I chose the United Kingdom, restarted File Explorer, and refreshed the Network page.

Nothing appeared.

The server choices were irrelevant because the NAS was not in Singapore, Germany, or Britain. It was three metres away, using a private address on my home network.

Windows network discovery helps a computer find shared folders and devices on the same local network. When the VPN connected, it replaced the computer’s usual route with its own protected path. Local traffic that should have stayed inside the apartment was being caught by the tunnel instead.

That was the entire problem.

The provider was protecting my internet connection so broadly that it had also interrupted the short, direct route between my desktop and the NAS.

I disconnected again.

The mapped drive returned, the red crosses disappeared, and the editing software relinked the footage. I replaced the shot and started the export.

Then I reopened the client portal without the VPN.

The sign-in page loaded slowly. The upload panel failed to appear.

Now I understood the conflict, but I still did not have a computer that could perform both parts of the job at once.

The hidden local-network setting was not enough

I reopened the VPN application and searched its network settings.

The option I needed was not labelled “Keep my NAS visible.” It sat beneath the kill-switch controls as permission to access devices on the local network.

That explained why I had missed it. The visible problem was a missing project folder, not a warning from the VPN.

I enabled local-network access and reconnected.

The mapped drive still showed a red cross.

This time, entering the NAS address directly worked. I typed \\192.168.1.24\Projects into File Explorer, and the folder opened.

That narrowed the problem further. The computer could now reach the NAS, but it was not finding it through the familiar name and mapped path. Synology recommends using the NAS address directly when Windows discovery cannot find the device.

For a new folder, that workaround might have been enough.

For an editing project containing hundreds of references to \\STUDIO-NAS\Projects, it created a second problem. The numbered address looked like a different storage location to the editing software. I would have to relink clips or rebuild the mapped drive while the deadline continued moving.

Other users have run into the same practical trap: the NAS disappears when the VPN connects, while direct addressing or a buried local-network option restores only part of the workflow.

That was enough evidence for me. The issue was not the health of the NAS. It was how the VPN was separating internet traffic from local traffic.

I could probably repair the larger provider’s configuration with enough time. I could rebuild the mapping, adjust the local route, and check which security option was still interfering.

The export clock showed twenty-three minutes.

I did not need another network project. I needed the existing NAS path and the client portal to work together.

The next connection kept the NAS where it belonged

I disconnected the larger provider and opened OnlydogVPN.

Instead of beginning with a server map, the smaller app organized the choice around the situation. I selected the preset for working on a trusted home network with local devices.

Then I reopened File Explorer.

STUDIO-NAS appeared beneath Network.

I clicked the mapped project folder. It opened through the same path the editing software already knew. The red crosses disappeared without relinking a single clip.

That was the first result that mattered.

I opened the client review portal next.

It loaded normally.

The NAS traffic stayed inside the apartment, while the browser used the protected internet connection. I did not have to write a subnet rule, rebuild the mapped drive, or decide which individual application belonged inside the tunnel.

The computer could finally reach both destinations at once.

I returned to the editor and began the final render.

While the progress bar moved, I opened a source clip from the NAS and scrubbed through it. There was no pause, missing-media warning, or attempt to send the local file request through a distant server.

The export completed with eleven minutes remaining.

I dragged the finished file from the NAS folder into the client portal. The upload began, and the editing software continued reading its cache from the same mapped drive.

For the first time that evening, the VPN was not forcing me to choose between accessing the work and delivering it.

The upload reached 100 percent.

The client opened the review link and approved the replacement shot before I had finished closing the project.

Only then did the technical distinction need explaining. The larger provider treated the VPN as the default route and left me to repair the local exceptions. The smaller app began with the task and preserved the local connection the task already depended on.

I could not observe every internal routing and filtering decision made by the two applications. I could see the result: one connection broke the familiar NAS path or pushed me toward manual workarounds, while the other kept the mapped storage and protected client portal available together.

Local access did not mean exposing the NAS

The experience also corrected one of my assumptions about VPN security.

I had treated “everything through the tunnel” as automatically safer than allowing some traffic to remain local. That made sense as a slogan. It did not make sense for the file request moving between two devices on the same trusted router.

The NAS was not on the public internet. It was beside me.

Sending that request toward an external VPN route did not make the editing project safer. It simply removed the path the software expected.

The useful comparison was not maximum tunneling versus minimum tunneling. It was intelligent routing versus indiscriminate routing.

After the video was delivered, I added my tablet to the smaller service using a verification code. I opened the client’s final comment there while the desktop archived the project back to the NAS.

That was a smaller convenience, revealed only after the real problem was over. The reason I kept the app installed was simpler: the desktop could protect its internet connection without becoming a stranger to storage on its own network.

The service has fewer locations, fewer independent ratings, and a shorter public history than the large provider. Someone who needs a specific exit country may value the broader server network more.

My editing workflow had a different priority. The files were local, the delivery portal was remote, and both had to remain available at the same time.

The larger VPN protected the internet connection by disrupting the route my work already used. The smaller app protected the connection without losing sight of the NAS three metres from my desk.