Cisco VPN client loses hostname, group in connection entry 1

[professorguy]

I've been getting many corporate laptops into the help desk with damaged VPN client entries. Every one I've seen still has a line for the connection entry (it was not deleted). However, the Host address (or IP), the group name, and the group password (and confirmation) are all gone. The connection entry name, description and transport type all survive. So the user sees the connection entry, clicks on it and gets an "Error 5: no hostname exists for this connection entry."

These are vanilla winXP boxes using various versions of Cisco VPN client (4.6, 4.8 and 5.0).

I know you can modify the connection parameters, but these users did not even try to do that. How did these critical settings get lost? What causes Cisco VPN client to lose SOME of its connection configuration? It must be done automatically in some situations. But what situations?

 

[JR30]

Hello all,
I've also met this Error 5 on some clients due to profile corruption.
This bug is supposed to be fixed in VPN Client version 5.03.0560 (Current version as of today is 5.04.0300)

IMO The Read-only attribute on pcf file is good trick, but it prevents the IPSec backup servers list to be updated at each new conenction; which may be very useful.

 

[jneiberger]

I just had a user report this problem and ran across this thread. I think they're using an older version of the client, but I'm not sure. I'm going to copy over the PCF again and set it to read only. That should work just fine for us.

 

[lixperry]

JR30

you stated that [highlight]This bug is supposed to be fixed in VPN Client version 5.03.0560...[/highlight]

Do you have the release notes that state this. I believe that this is the case beacause I manually upgraded to this version but I can't find the release notes to prove that this will fix the problem so tuys who push out the software won't update the version used in SMS.

 

[BradL30]

Hello, I work for a company supporting about 200 laptops, and I too have been having this issue on a number of them. I had been convinced that the user was doing something to corrupt the .PCF file, but then it happened to me. I turned the laptop on, open the VPN client and tried to connect, and recieved the error we are talking about. I noticed the hostname was missing. STRANGE. I usually just send them an email that has the .pcf file attached and host to install the new configuration file by accessing the email through OWA. Just to give you some info on my situation:

2 Cisco ASA 5510 firewalls
All machines are running the 5.0.01.0600 client.
They are all Windows XP imaged, with the client included in the image.

We have 200 machines, and I would say this has happened to about 15 of them, over the past year.

I have not opened a ticket with Cisco yet, thought I would post here first.

 

[JR30]

Hi lixperry
Sorry for late answer I did not check this thread since a while.
There is more than one bug about this profile issue.
One of them is CSCSo94244 that is mentioned in 5.0.04.0300 as stated in the Readme file :

Resolved Issues:
5.0.04.0300:
CSCso94244 Profile file (pcf) is getting corrupted.

 

[jtubbs]

This has been an issue since......as long as I can remember (includes Cisco's latest release).

I've found that several factors may have an effect.
1. Shutdown or logoff while connected
2. Proxy settings attempted during connection
3. Misconfiguration (most commonly split tunneling)
4. Loss of connectivity

WIN geared but applicable to all OS:
Save good profiles to 'C:\Tools\Profiles'. If the user gets an error, have them run your script, which copies the good profile to 'C:\PF\....Profiles'. Eliminates issues while pulling the profile from remote locations.

 

[willschillin]

I ran into an issue with this as well. The issue was that the pcf connections I have were all working fine, but the information in those files could not be viewed. If I clicked
modify - the connection details were all the same and unreadable.

I had to set the vpngui.exe to be the default program for PCF files the problem was related to Windows PowerShell took over as default somewhere along the line. After resetting the default app to run these files to cisco - problem fixed.

Hope this helps someone else!

 

[burtsbees]

Anyone who has a problem with this:

What are you connecting to, i.e. ASA, router, etc.?

/

tim@tim-laptop ~ $ sudo apt-get install windows
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package windows...Thank Goodness!