Wireguard problems, transmits packets but only bytes

You may have a few different things happening:

  • Correct time is required for Wireguard to start. If WG attempts to start with incorrect time, it will not be able to handshake and then will have a chicken-or-egg situation with the fact that the internet is not reachable to correct the time via NTP.
  • When you start WG (specifically in the situation where you have allowed IPs of 0.0.0.0/0), it will overwrite the existing routing table (i.e. the default route via the wan). This means that disabling wg will cause the internet to stop working (or won't restore the functionality).

Make sure the time is correct before you attempt to start your WG tunnel, and set a metric on the wan to avoid the situation where the default route is lost.