Errors running "nordvpn connect" on Wake from Suspend

Question

I'm running Pop!_OS, a Ubuntu based OS, and I want to run nordvpn disconnect before suspend and nordvpn connect after suspend. I'm using code from this arch linux wiki and can't get the nordvpn connect/nordvpn disconnect commands to run on system wake. I added the file 99nordvpn-reload to /lib/systemd/system-sleep/ and made it executable with sudo chmod a+x 99nordvpn-reload. The code in that file is:

#!/bin/sh
case $1/$2 in
  pre/*)
    nordvpn disconnect
    ;;
  post/*)
    nordvpn connect
    ;;
esac

waking from sleep, running journalctl -u systemd-suspend.service shows:

Jun 13 22:08:38 pop-os [4520]: /usr/lib/systemd/system-sleep/99nordvpn-reload failed with exit status 1.

I have also tried running the command as a local user with:

#!/bin/sh
case $1/$2 in
  pre/*)
    sudo -u $USER nordvpn disconnect
    ;;
  post/*)
    sudo -u $USER nordvpn connect
    ;;
esac

but $USER is replaced with the output from echo $USER. However, I get the same error message as before. I'm assuming this error has something to do with the nordvpn package being installed locally or my $USER, hence the attempt at executing the command with sudo -u $USER.

Based on this thread, I also attempted creating the globally executable file /usr/local/bin/nordvpn-reload with contents:

#!/bin/bash

nordvpn disconnect;nordvpn connect

and changing the contents of /lib/systemd/system-sleep/99nordvpn-reload to:

#!/bin/sh
case $1/$2 in
  pre/*)
    exit 0
    ;;
  post/*)
    /usr/local/bin/nordvpn-reload
    ;;
esac

but once again, I get the same error as always. Any suggestions/advice/further reading would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

I tried something similar on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and for me it worked with the script at /lib/systemd/system-sleep/nordvpn-reload:

#!/bin/sh
case $1 in
  pre)
    nordvpn disconnect
    ;;

  post)
    nordvpn connect
    ;;
esac

Answer 2

In my case, I had to change the pre) line from @moritz-shroeder's response to make sure nordvpn is actually shut down:

#!/bin/sh
case $1 in
  pre)
    pkill -9 nordvpn
    ;;

  post)
    nordvpn connect
    ;;
esac

As you can see, I'm using pkill here, with the signal 9. This tells nordvpn to actually KILL its process. For some reason, a simple disconnect was not enough in my case.

You can learn more on pkill here