openVPN only works after reinstall

kiona

Hi,

When I start up my mac and want to open openVPN i'm Getting a connection timeout with a "Error calling protect() method on socket: 30 times"
When I reinstall the openVPN, then it works great, no time out. I can quit and open again, no problem. But as soon as I shut down my mac and start up, the openVPN app will not run anymore, I need toe reinstall it.

I also tried to completely uninstall openVPN and install again. Same problem as above. I used other versions, did not work, keep having the problem.
I work with OSX 13.2.1
Installed version of openVPN connect 3.4.2.4547
Tried version: 3.4.1.4522
and version: 3.3.6.4368

Does anyone know what the problem is?

thanks already

JosephS

Sounds like the openVPN connect launch daemon is not working.
Can you run the following command in the terminal and see if you get an output:

sudo launchctl list | grep org.openvpn.client

If there are no outputs then you can try loading it manually via the command:

sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.openvpn.client.plist

But, in case if it will stop working again you may want to check if there is any other 3rd party application that is preventing the ovpn client agent from starting.

retry

Thank you for the solution. It works!

I've been facing this for 3-6 months, constantly reinstalling the OpenVPN client on Mac(macbook m1, Ventura 13.4). I couldn't find this solution when I was looking for this exact bug in GitHub issues. Apparently, no one had created it.

I personally didn't understand what exactly breaks the client. Do you have any suggestions on what I should investigate?

thiagopac

I've had exactly the same problem for 6 months or a little longer. The solution above also worked for me, however I would like to know if this extra step could be taken by the application itself in the future.

JosephS

Hi thiagopac,

What I'm guessing is that OpenVPN Connect may not be allowed to run in the background on your macOS machine.
Go to Setting > General > Login items > Allow In Background > Make sure that OpenVPN Client is toggled ON.
After that reboot the machine.

Hope this helps.
Regards,
JosephS

adam_aptech

OpenVPN was already and still is in "Allow In Background". This was certainly a bug, that seemed to be fixed after an in place update to version 3.4.7 (4745), installed on 2024-02-11. But after MacOS update to 14.3.1 (23D60) it is broken again. A fresh install of Version 3.4.8 (4792) has fixed the issue and lasted through a few reboots.