Tencent Video or iQIYI Says “Not Available in Your Region” Even on a VPN? Fix It in 5 Steps

Tencent Video, iQIYI, Youku and Bilibili license their catalogues for mainland China only, so they check where you are before playback. They ignore where your account was registered and look at the source IP of the request when it reaches their servers.

The catch is that there is more than one source IP. Modern devices have both IPv4 and IPv6, and browsers prefer IPv6. DNS lookups may take yet another route. If any of those bypasses the tunnel, the site sees your real location. A VPN client saying “connected” means a tunnel exists, not that everything goes through it.

1. With the China route connected, open a page that shows both your IPv4 and IPv6 address (search for “test ipv6”). If the IPv6 line shows an address in your current country, that is the problem — go to step 2. If both lines say mainland China, or IPv6 is reported as unavailable, skip to step 3.
2. Disable IPv6 on the device, or use a client that blocks IPv6 inside the tunnel. On Windows, untick “Internet Protocol Version 6” in the adapter properties; on macOS, set IPv6 to “Link-local only” under TCP/IP in the network settings; on a phone, the quickest test is to turn off Wi‑Fi and use mobile data — many home connections have IPv6 while mobile carriers often do not.
3. Check whether DNS bypasses the tunnel. The browser’s “Secure DNS” setting (Chrome → Privacy and security → Use secure DNS) connects to an overseas resolver on its own — turn it off. Also stop any other networking tool that is running: a second VPN, mesh software such as Tailscale, proxy extensions. They take over DNS before the tunnel does.
4. Fully quit and reopen the video app; on the web, clear the site’s data. These platforms cache their last region decision for a while, so even a correct fix keeps showing the error until you restart.
5. If it still fails, switch to another server on the same route. Providers usually have several mainland exits, and a single exit may have just been flagged. Changing exit helps more than reconnecting to the same one.

In September 2026 we reproduced this ourselves: connected to our mainland route, Tencent Video still showed the copyright notice. The cause was exactly those two paths — IPv6 and DNS — escaping the tunnel. Since the fix, every RoyalShield connection method does the same thing: IPv6 is rejected inside the tunnel so sites only ever see IPv4, and DNS is pushed by the route and resolved inside the tunnel, so the device’s own resolver is never used.

That means the sing-box client (import by QR code), Cisco AnyConnect and OpenVPN all reach the mainland route without you touching IPv6 settings. If you imported a sing-box configuration before September, import it again to pick up the new rules.

The router option is the least effort: the whole home network leaves through the router, nothing changes on individual devices, and TVs or streaming boxes that cannot run a client are covered too.

• The exit IP is not actually mainland China. Some “China” services use Hong Kong or Taiwan addresses, which Tencent Video and iQIYI treat as overseas; they only work for a few HK/TW-specific sections.
• A split-routing rule excludes the video domains. Users with custom Clash or sing-box rules often mark Chinese domains as “direct”. From abroad, “direct” means outside the tunnel — change those to go through the mainland node.
• You are using a browser proxy extension or a web proxy. Those only carry the browser’s HTTP traffic; video players often use a separate connection. Use a full VPN tunnel for streaming; a web proxy is for browsing and logging into sites.
• Carrier-grade NAT or a campus network. Rarely a platform flags a whole address block; the only fix then is a different exit.