OpenVPN not auto-connecting "Could not parse --management"

[robathome]

Hello all,

I have an OpenVPN GUI version v11.31 (on Windows 11) from my pfsense firewall. There is a .ovpn file which connects and all works OK.

I moved the .ovpn (and all other related files) from config to the config-auto folder and when I open the GUI or connect manually I get:

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OpenVPN GUI
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Could not parse --management option in <C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config-auto\pfSensetet.ovpn>.
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OK
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Even if I delete all entries from the config file so it's blank I get the same error. User has full permissions on this folder.

(The pfsense is quite old and doesn't work with the newest versions of openvpn client so I'm stuck with this one, and I'm trying to get it to connect on windows startup)

[robathome]

As no responses - is it worth me updating to a newer GUI version and try to get it working with my pfsense? Would the newer client act on the config-auto folder contents properly?

[robathome]

Further playing with this and hopefully this will help someone in future. This "auto" folder won't start from the GUI so I just put the files from config into config-auto, then disabled the GUI and enabled the OpenVPNService - start that and it connected OK. Also changed the encoding of the password.txt file to ANSI following another thread on here, but don't think that was the crucial part.

It's a shame that I have no way of seeing the VPN with the nice green/orange/black icon in the systray but it's working automatically now.

[holgi]

Hello,
same problem.

config-auto not works with GUI
and no pre-logon on loginscreen with Windows 11.

Have anybody a fix or workaround?

Holger

[robathome]

My VPN is stable now I've made it the service, but annoying I couldn't get it working the documented way, and no icon so I (actually non-technical users of my PC) can't just stop/start the VPN easily.

[larsen]

Had the same problem and for me the problem was my text editor not complaining on saving, but lacking admin privileges, the config file would be saved to "C:\Users\me\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\OpenVPN\config-auto" as a second file. So while everything looked fine in the text editor, OpenVPN would still use the unaltered original file without the management option needed.

See https://github.com/OpenVPN/openvpn-gui/issues/661