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Autostart OpenVPN-GUI

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 9:36 pm
by appman999
I have been successfully using the Windows OpenVPN-GUI client to connect to my Raspberry VPN server for some years.

It automatically starts on booting Windows and connects to my server. I also have commercial servers imported to which I can then connect for different uses.

However I now no longer want to connect to the Raspberry but instead connect by default to one of the commercial servers but I don't seem to be able to get OpenVPN-GUI to forget my Raspberry server.

I uninstalled OpenVPN-GUI and made sure the two Openvpn folders (one in programs and one in user) were deleted. I then reinstalled it importing just the commercial.ovpn file but when rebooting it get the error message 'Cannot find requested config to autostart: Raspberry.ovpn. If I then restart OpenVPN-GUI I can connect to commercial.ovpn.

As it is a fresh install I don't know why it is looking for Raspberry.ovpn? I have searched through the registry looking for a broken link, looked in Task Scheduler in case I had set one up and forgotten, and used services.msc to make sure there wasn't something there, but all to no avail.

Can anyone help advise where a reference to a defunct OpenVPN server could be lurking and not removed by a fresh installation.

Re: OpenVPN-GUI

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 9:53 pm
by TinCanTech
Try sysinternals autoruns

Re: OpenVPN-GUI

Posted: Tue Mar 26, 2019 5:05 pm
by appman999
Thanks for that, it was a quicker way of searching than mine but unfortunately still didn't turn up any references to the old ovpn reference.

Re: OpenVPN-GUI

Posted: Tue Mar 26, 2019 5:23 pm
by TinCanTech

Re: OpenVPN-GUI

Posted: Tue Mar 26, 2019 9:26 pm
by appman999
Thanks again but I've no problem with the installation or usage, it just appears that the autostart ovpn that I have been using is stored somewhere else in Windows and despite reinstalling OpenVPN-GUI it still looks for it even though I don't use it anymore.

As I said originally I have searched through the registry and the default folders but there is nothing there.

Do you know anywhere else it stores settings?

Re: Autostart OpenVPN-GUI

Posted: Wed Mar 27, 2019 1:51 pm
by appman999
For any others who come across this problem (of a phantom ovpn file link) I have removed the error by running the following commands in terminal to flush out the dns caches (thanks to Matthew Adams on Windowsreport).

netsh interface ip delete arpcache
ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /renew

Now I just have to set up OpenVPN-GUI to autosatrt and autoconnect to my new commercial.ovpn

Re: Autostart OpenVPN-GUI

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 1:22 pm
by appman999
While setting my OpenVPN to autostart and autoconnect I found a link to the old Raspberry.ovpn in %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup. I thought I had looked here before but obviously not.

Re: Autostart OpenVPN-GUI

Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2024 7:39 am
by notAnElephant
The solution to my similar problem was replacing the config file's absolute path with a relative one:

So I went from this:

"C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\bin\openvpn-gui.exe" --connect "C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config\myconfig.ovpn"

to this:

"C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\bin\openvpn-gui.exe" --connect myconfig.ovpn --silent_connection 1

Also, make sure that (in my case) "C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config" is the configuration files folder (settings->advanced->configuration files folder)