OpenVPN Support Forum

My vpn works fine for the first few days. Suddenly it stoped working and the log shows

Tue Jun 29 10:26:43 2021 WARNING: Compression for receiving enabled. Compression has been used in the past to break encryption. Sent packets are not compressed unless "allow-compression yes" is also set.
Tue Jun 29 10:26:43 2021 DEPRECATED OPTION: --cipher set to 'AES-128-CBC' but missing in --data-ciphers (AES-256-GCM:AES-128-GCM). Future OpenVPN version will ignore --cipher for cipher negotiations. Add 'AES-128-CBC' to --data-ciphers or change --cipher 'AES-128-CBC' to --data-ciphers-fallback 'AES-128-CBC' to silence this warning.
Tue Jun 29 10:26:43 2021 OpenVPN 2.5_beta1 x86_64-w64-mingw32 [SSL (OpenSSL)] [LZO] [LZ4] [PKCS11] [AEAD] built on Aug 14 2020
Tue Jun 29 10:26:43 2021 Windows version 10.0 (Windows 10 or greater) 64bit
Tue Jun 29 10:26:43 2021 library versions: OpenSSL 1.1.1g 21 Apr 2020, LZO 2.10
Tue Jun 29 10:26:45 2021 TCP/UDP: Preserving recently used remote address: [AF_INET]75.83.18.232:1194
Tue Jun 29 10:26:45 2021 UDP link local: (not bound)
Tue Jun 29 10:26:45 2021 UDP link remote: [AF_INET]75.83.18.232:1194
Tue Jun 29 10:27:16 2021 [UNDEF] Inactivity timeout (--ping-restart), restarting
Tue Jun 29 10:27:16 2021 SIGUSR1[soft,ping-restart] received, process restarting
Tue Jun 29 10:27:21 2021 TCP/UDP: Preserving recently used remote address: [AF_INET]75.83.18.232:1194
Tue Jun 29 10:27:21 2021 UDP link local: (not bound)
Tue Jun 29 10:27:21 2021 UDP link remote: [AF_INET]75.83.18.232:1194
Tue Jun 29 10:27:52 2021 [UNDEF] Inactivity timeout (--ping-restart), restarting
Tue Jun 29 10:27:52 2021 SIGUSR1[soft,ping-restart] received, process restarting
Tue Jun 29 10:27:57 2021 TCP/UDP: Preserving recently used remote address: [AF_INET]75.83.18.232:1194
Tue Jun 29 10:27:57 2021 UDP link local: (not bound)
Tue Jun 29 10:27:57 2021 UDP link remote: [AF_INET]75.83.18.232:1194
Tue Jun 29 10:28:27 2021 [UNDEF] Inactivity timeout (--ping-restart), restarting
Tue Jun 29 10:28:27 2021 SIGUSR1[soft,ping-restart] received, process restarting
Tue Jun 29 10:28:33 2021 TCP/UDP: Preserving recently used remote address: [AF_INET]75.83.18.232:1194
Tue Jun 29 10:28:33 2021 UDP link local: (not bound)
Tue Jun 29 10:28:33 2021 UDP link remote: [AF_INET]75.83.18.232:1194
Tue Jun 29 10:29:03 2021 [UNDEF] Inactivity timeout (--ping-restart), restarting
Tue Jun 29 10:29:03 2021 SIGUSR1[soft,ping-restart] received, process restarting
Tue Jun 29 10:29:08 2021 TCP/UDP: Preserving recently used remote address: [AF_INET]75.83.18.232:1194
Tue Jun 29 10:29:08 2021 UDP link local: (not bound)
Tue Jun 29 10:29:08 2021 UDP link remote: [AF_INET]75.83.18.232:1194
Tue Jun 29 10:29:38 2021 [UNDEF] Inactivity timeout (--ping-restart), restarting
Tue Jun 29 10:29:38 2021 SIGUSR1[soft,ping-restart] received, process restarting
Tue Jun 29 10:29:48 2021 TCP/UDP: Preserving recently used remote address: [AF_INET]75.83.18.232:1194
Tue Jun 29 10:29:48 2021 UDP link local: (not bound)
Tue Jun 29 10:29:48 2021 UDP link remote: [AF_INET]75.83.18.232:1194
Tue Jun 29 10:30:18 2021 [UNDEF] Inactivity timeout (--ping-restart), restarting

I am using a client configuration to connect to office VPN. can anyone show to how to fix this? Thanks!！

jacqi wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 2:37 am

My vpn works fine for the first few days. Suddenly it stoped working and the log shows

Tue Jun 29 10:26:43 2021 WARNING: Compression for receiving enabled. Compression has been used in the past to break encryption. Sent packets are not compressed unless "allow-compression yes" is also set.
Tue Jun 29 10:26:43 2021 DEPRECATED OPTION: --cipher set to 'AES-128-CBC' but missing in --data-ciphers (AES-256-GCM:AES-128-GCM). Future OpenVPN version will ignore --cipher for cipher negotiations. Add 'AES-128-CBC' to --data-ciphers or change --cipher 'AES-128-CBC' to --data-ciphers-fallback 'AES-128-CBC' to silence this warning.

This is of course just a warning, as it says. It is not the cause of the inactivity timeouts.

jacqi wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 2:37 am

Tue Jun 29 10:29:38 2021 SIGUSR1[soft,ping-restart] received, process restarting
Tue Jun 29 10:29:48 2021 TCP/UDP: Preserving recently used remote address: [AF_INET]75.83.18.232:1194
Tue Jun 29 10:29:48 2021 UDP link local: (not bound)
Tue Jun 29 10:29:48 2021 UDP link remote: [AF_INET]75.83.18.232:1194
Tue Jun 29 10:30:18 2021 [UNDEF] Inactivity timeout (--ping-restart), restarting.
I am using a client configuration to connect to office VPN. can anyone show to how to fix this? Thanks!！

No, unfortunately we cannot. What's happening is that you're not getting any replies to your attempts to connect. There could be lots of reasons for that. Your best chance of getting help with this is to check with your server administrator. Make sure you're using all the correct settings (such as --remote) to connect. Maybe 75.83.18.232 is out of service for some reason? Just one of many possible guesses.

Good luck and best regards, rob0

openvpn_inc wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 3:25 am

No, unfortunately we cannot. What's happening is that you're not getting any replies to your attempts to connect. There could be lots of reasons for that. Your best chance of getting help with this is to check with your server administrator. Make sure you're using all the correct settings (such as --remote) to connect. Maybe 75.83.18.232 is out of service for some reason? Just one of many possible guesses.

Good luck and best regards, rob0

Thanks for your reply! can you clarify what is remote 75.83.18.232? I recently changed my WAN connection. does that mean my remote changed? how can I stop preserving recent used remote address?

jacqi wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 30, 2021 12:44 am

openvpn_inc wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 3:25 am

No, unfortunately we cannot. What's happening is that you're not getting any replies to your attempts to connect. There could be lots of reasons for that. Your best chance of getting help with this is to check with your server administrator. Make sure you're using all the correct settings (such as --remote) to connect. Maybe 75.83.18.232 is out of service for some reason? Just one of many possible guesses.

Good luck and best regards, rob0

Thanks for your reply! can you clarify what is remote 75.83.18.232? I recently changed my WAN connection. does that mean my remote changed? how can I stop preserving recent used remote address?

If your configuration file has a name for the "remote" line (or lines) then that name is resolved when OpenVPN Connect starts. If you exit/kill the program, the name will be resolved again when you start it again. But!! DNS is cached, both locally by Windows and upstream by one or more recursive nameservers.

I'm very rusty on Windows, but I recall that at a command prompt, this: would flush your own caching of DNS names. As for the upstream servers, you might not have a way to do that. "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" -- this would actually work for your computer and your router. But there could still be caching upstream from there!

Still, it seems your best bet is to ask your server admin for help. They can know what --remote lines you should have. One thing I must add, however: if the server is Access Server or OpenVPN Cloud, please open a ticket at https://openvpn.net/support/ for support. (You or your server administrator could do that.)

So sorry you're having issues. I do hope this is helpful.

Regards, rob0