For some reason openvpn-connect doesn't work for me either, and as I now recall, it actually never did 🙁. So, if you wanna save a lot of time, don't even waste your time on openvpn-connect, let developers unwrap that.
What works is
openvpn GUI app.
First difference I observe is that the GUI app installs Windows TAP driver while openvpn-connect does not. Anyway, it works without questions.
