Troubleshooting

Protection#

The protection notification disappeared#

Some manufacturers' battery optimisation kills background services aggressively.

1. Open Haven. It restarts protection by itself if it finds it stopped.
2. Exclude Haven from battery optimisation in your phone's settings (usually Settings → Apps → Haven → Battery → Unrestricted).

Haven also restarts protection after a reboot, provided you granted the VPN permission before.

Protection did not come back after restarting the phone#

Haven can only restart the tunnel if you had already approved the VPN permission. If it was revoked, Android requires a dialog that cannot be shown at boot time.

Open Haven and switch protection on again.

Another VPN app stopped working#

Android allows only one active VPN at a time. Whichever app was activated most recently wins.

Haven needs the VPN interface to see DNS lookups at all, so the two genuinely cannot run together. If you need a work VPN, you will have to choose which one is active.

Android Auto or my car screen stopped working#

Car projection is known to break under any active VPN. Haven already excludes the main car-projection app from its tunnel for exactly this reason, so this should not happen — if it still does, please report it, including your car and phone model.

Blocking#

A gambling site still loads#

Work through these in order:

1. Is protection on? Check the Guard screen and the ongoing notification.
2. Is the accessibility service still granted? Android switches it off silently on every app update. Guard will say if it is missing.
3. Sync the rules. Guard → sync now.
4. Add it yourself. Guard → Personal filters → add the domain. This is immediate and always works.
5. Is a different DNS or another VPN in play? A second VPN app, or a private-DNS setting configured in Android's own network settings, can move lookups outside Haven's filter.

New domains appear constantly. Adding it to your own filters is the fastest fix, and the detection engine also learns sites it recognises by their content.

A gambling app still opens#

That layer needs both protection and the accessibility service. App-check will tell you which one is missing rather than claiming the app is blocked.

If both are on and the app still opens, check whether you previously released it in App-check.

Haven blocks a site it should not#

See Managing blocks. Short version: Guard → Personal filters, find the entry, and remove or release it. A weakly-evidenced automatic catch is released immediately.

The browser shows a plain error page instead of Haven's calm screen#

That is the DNS block working — the calm redirect is a separate layer that needs the accessibility service, and it only runs in known browser apps.

Permissions#

Haven keeps asking for the accessibility permission#

Android silently revokes it on every app update. This is platform behaviour, not a bug in Haven, and Haven re-offers it rather than treating an old "not now" as permanent — a permanently skipped prompt would leave two protection layers off for good.

The "activate device admin" screen did nothing#

Some manufacturers' builds do not honour the direct request. Haven then offers the system's device-admin list instead, where the toggle always works.

I forgot my PIN#

There is no back door, by design — a recoverable lock is not a lock.

The honest routes: wait out the cooldown if a disable is already pending, or uninstall Haven (deactivating delete protection first, if it is on) and reinstall. Reinstalling loses your on-device history.

If biometric unlock is enabled, use that instead.

Account and subscription#

I bought Pro Plus but do not have it#

1. Make sure you are signed in with the same account you purchased on.
2. Settings → Subscription → restore purchases.
3. Give it a moment — the entitlement is confirmed server-side after a purchase, not read off the device.

If it still does not appear, contact support with your purchase date and the store account used.

I cancelled but still have Pro#

That is correct. You keep access through the end of the period you paid for. Access ends at expiry, not at cancellation.

I did not receive the confirmation or reset email#

Check spam. Both are sent from the accounts backend; a reset email is only sent if the address actually has an account, and the screen deliberately says the same thing either way.

Interface#

The app is in the wrong language#

Settings → Language. Haven uses its own language setting, independent of the phone's.

Dark mode does not follow my phone#

Settings → Appearance. Choose light, dark, or follow system.

Reporting a problem#

Please include: your Android version, phone model, whether protection was on, which permissions were granted, and what you expected to happen. For a wrongly blocked or missed site, include the domain.

Contact details: Support.