OpenVPN Support Forum

Hi,

In a brand new iMac M1 (one week of use, very few other software installed) I was running openVPN Connect without issues. After a O.S. update to Big Sur 11.5.2, openVPN connect stopped working (unfortunately, I didn't record which O.S. version of Big Sur was running before this update).

No icon is seen in the launchpad after starting the app, and the connection window is not shown on the desktop, although Activity Monitor does show a couple of openVPN process running, but one of them with an error (sorry, my system is in Spanish).: in red: "OpenVPN Connect (Not Responding)" (I cannot attach a screen capture to show this).

Previous to this O.S. update I was working OK with openVPN. I even permanently mounted a couple of volumes of remote server of my office, that now are trying to reconnect and obviously failing, since the server is not found. An annoying message comes every minute saying "there was a problem connecting to server "(IP address)"; a connection that I don't know how to tell the Mac to forget.

Thank you for any advice. I'm quite troubled with this because I urgently need to be connected to my office in these lockdown times. I am even thinking in downgrading O.S. to a previous version as this openVPN was the only VPN client that successfully connected to our ClearOS VPN server, but this downgrade it is not an easy thing to do, and quite risky, I think.

Btw: I tried to report this error to Apple, but support says It cannot cover my computer: a brand new one, Apple!


Pablo
Santiago, Chile

Hi,

An update on the status of this: The second process in Activity Monitor happens once the "there was a problem connecting to server XXX" notification window appears (the volume that failed to mount because no connection was established). After some minutes on of these processes turn red, showing that is "not responding".

When a kill those processes in Activity Monitor, the "problem connecting ..." window doesn't appear anymore. If I then re-start the openVPN Connect app, one process appears in activity Monitor, then after a couple of minutes this "problem connecting..." window appears again, as well as a second process in Activity Monitor. After some seconds one of those processes turns red for "not responding". If I click in the OK button of that window, it closes (both processes keep open, one of them with an additional sub-process count:about 27 right now in the red one, 10 in the other), but then the notification window appears again after a couple of minutes. Several OK-and-close windows later, those processes are self- terminated.

Perhaps the OpenVPN IS working, but can't find the certificate. Although I didn't have a chance to declare where that certificate is located (it is in a local folder in my IMac), since no connection or configuration window, -or any kind of interface- is available.

Thank you in advance again to whom may provide some help in this issue that is driving me nuts.

Pablo

Simply uninstall openvpn ..

Unfortunately it was the only VPN client I've tried with the M1 iMac able to link with my office, that has a openVPN server in ClearOS. In Intel Macs at least PrimoVPN is able to do it. Don't know the exact reason of this. One of the reasons I need VPN in this iMac is that it is much more powerful for a demanding software I use, that now I can't because the network license, shared files and libraries are located in a server of our LAN.

Btw, I uninstalled, rebooted and reinstalled 3 or 4 times and the same problem happens.

At this point, I'm certain the problem is due to a bug in O.S. 11.5.2 and not openVPN. Now a second software (Microsoft Teams, that is also running under rosetta2) is failing. It was also working OK previous to the O.S. update, but now after the O.S. update is having the same problem of openVPN Connect (no windows displayed, process not responding in Activity Monitor).
For some reason (probably my location) I am not allowed to report this problem directly to Apple. It would be useful that someone let them know of this.
I'm a bit surprised that nobody else has encountered this problem, although this O.S. update was release just a week ago. Also is to be seen if this is specifically a problem with M1-Macs (thus of rosetta2), or it happens also in Intel Macs with Big Sur 11.5.2 installed.
If the problem is, as I think, due to rosetta2, I guess it would be a good reason to have a native M1 version of openVPN Connect ASAP, instead of be pendant on the goodwill of Apple development team to fix these issues.

OK. Problem partially solved (lost count how many hours it took me to solve it). In 'system preferences' -> 'users and groups' -> start up ("Arranque" in Spanish), I deleted openVPN Connect and the mounted volumes that were automatically declared there. Now both openVPN and Teams are working again. It kept failing after I uninstalled openVPN, probably because still the failed mounted volumes associated with it remained as start items.

I think the problem may happen when a non-native app requiring rosetta2 is declared as a start item, and thus initiated before rosetta2 is loaded, failing to work. If so, the bug in Big Sur 11.5.2 (and not in previous versions) would be that it is loading rosetta2 AFTER the startup items, and so, those items running in Intel mode would freeze. For some reason, this malfunction of intel-based start items was spread to a non-start ite like it happened to Teams in my case.