I seem to be having this issue after updating Surfshark. Followed this page but with no luck. Restarted the PC, reinstalled the application, disabled Windows Defender temporarily but still getting the error and cannot connect to any server.
EDIT: following advice by u/T-V-O-B that he received from Surfshark’s support fixed it for me: https://www.reddit.com/r/surfshark/comments/19ern63/cannot_connect_on_the_windows_10_desktop_app/kjjjxrs/
Hi, our developers are always interested in the performance of our latest releases and if you and other commenters are having issues with this version of our Windows app, I’d suggest sending us a diagnostics report from this specific version of our app:
Open up the Surfshark application on your Windows device.
Go to Settings and scroll down to the bottom.
Select Help and click on “Troubleshooting Tools”.
Click “Collect diagnostics” and add a comment if you wish.
Press on “Collect diagnostics” again.
(It’s also very important that you are not connected to the VPN when collecting diagnostics).
Once you do, I’d recommend reaching out to our support team at [email protected] or via live chat for troubleshooting - we’ll see what we can do for you and ask for more information if needed.
Same issue. Completely borked for me, multiple restarts not helping.
Same issue here. Any luck or solution? Greatly appreciated
I had the same problem, and got in touch with Surfshark support where initially they couldn’t fix it, but after sending the diagnostics in, they sent me a reply with instructions that fixed the issue:
Perhaps you could try installing .Net x86 from this link: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/thank-you/runtime-desktop-7.0.14-windows-x86-installer
Once completed, I’d recommend reinstalling Surfshark on your Windows device by following the steps below:
To uninstall the Surfshark application please follow this guide - https://support.surfshark.com/hc/en-us/articles/360020576499-How-to-reinstall-the-Surfshark-application-on-Windows-
When finished, download and install the Surfshark Windows app from the following link:
https://downloads.surfshark.com/windows/latest/SurfsharkSetup.exe
After that, please reboot your Windows device.
If you use portable Ccleaner to adjust “Windows services” - be shure the Surfshark-lines are enabled. 
I contacted surfshark and the service itself is removed and can’t be restarted. They are looking into my case but more reports would probably speed it up.
If you need access fast, the legacy version worked for me.
same this update broke the client completly and no ammount of reinstalls, restarts or anything works now.
i have this problem aswell . i noticed that “surfshark service” in services.msc was missing.
downloaded a legacy version (4.5.0) and it can connect again with “surfshark service” appears again in services.msc
now the fun part is when i updated the app to 5.5.0 immediately “surfshark service” disappears again.
add one to the app is borked pile, endless “please restart background service”
Thank you for sharing these steps! We definitely recommend everyone who has run into this issue trying these steps. We’ve also looking for additional diagnostics, more info here.
Can confirm, fixed it for me, thx for posting the solution.
That worked. Thanks!
To add: i repeatedly get the “Restart windows background service” even when its not connected, - after reinstall/restarts/resets anything - this update 5.5.1 is broken and even when its a fresh install its broken.
can verify this after installing a (4.5.0) - works perfectly - but 5.5.0 or any of the 5.4+ will break after install
Sure, we’d be happy to help, could you refer to my comment above regarding the recent issues with our Windows app?
i did all that above already