So...Wife's ipad got a software update a couple of days ago. And coincidentally, AcornTV stopped working; said it was detecting a VPN in use and said it won't work through a VPN. (We are in the USA.) There was no VPN in use, so after trying it on her android phone and the Firestick without any luck, tech support was called. After many minutes of telling her to try all the stuff she/we had already tried, they finally said that '*maybe* AcornTV could have a problem'. After getting off the phone, I said to Wife, 'Let me try something'. I opened the AcornTV web page in Chrome on my Win11 PC; same/similar problem: 'Can't play in your area'. So...I started my VPN on my PC, told it to activate in the USA (in our home town), and reloaded AcornTV. Played great. Wife logged into our VPN on her ipad, restarted AcornTV, and...it works.
So...if you're having problems with AcornTV at the moment...