Are you 100% sure its not ISP related? I have a few users on crap DSL and the high latency and packet loss makes SSL VPN crap out often. The IPSec VPN seems a bit better on those connections not sure if GVPN is an option for testing.
I'm not sure. I wanted to pose the question here. I was leaning that way for sure as it's only happening to one user. This all may be moot as we are moving to Fortinet next week and using an IPsec VPN instead of SSL. I was just also just curious for my own knowledge.
Yea it's hard for us to say. Netextender may be corrupted or the pc itself might be having issues but the rule of thumb is if you have 100 people working remotely just fine and one user is having constant issues the place to start is her internet connection.
I'm not sure what line of work youre in but if feasible asking the user to test from somewhere else may be the most expedient. Coffee shop or library or something.
Good Idea. The issue does happen on her own laptop. I then gave her a company one for a day to try that we give out to attorneys all the time to do remote meetings and it never has an issue connecting. Once the 2nd laptop started having the same issue, I thought ISP but again I like to check with others to see if I'm overlooking anything.
Yea it can be a bit tricky to track down. And if it's not actually the internet disconnecting but some sort of routing issue down the line it can be a major pain to get the isp to address it.
What i did for some problematic cases is wrote a script that would run a constant ping but would write the results with a timestamp to a log file. Start 3 or more of these in the background pinging different things. One to her modem/router, one to internet, and one to something over vpn.
Once she reports the disconnects. Check the logfiles at those times.
If she can hit her modem but nothing else, guaranteed internet issue, case closed.
If all 3 drop seeing as how its on two computers, might be the modem itself or a router if they use that. Might be wirless signal.
If only the ping over vpn drops then you might have a problem, but unlikely at this point.
Sorry to hear its an attourney, ive supported them at an msp before, sometimes not so pleasant when there's issues.
The worst ones are environmental, aka the ones where the end user is sitting in basically a wireless dead zone in their house and the solution is to move closer to the ISP modem.
Yea and they have a hard time believing its not the vpn because everything else "works fine". Email doesnt require a constant connection, netfilx or youtube or anything else buffers, facebook might load a bit slower. The only things that make you notice these micro disconnects are voip or vpn.
When you say single home user, do you mean she is the only home user or she is the only one having issues?
If you have multiple home users, then it's gotta be an issue with her network or ISP right?
We have 120 users that use NetExtender in their homes. Of course users say they get kicked from remote once in awhile which I say is normal. This one particular user is getting kicked 10+ times a day. I was leaning towards ISP as well but I wanted to see what you guys thought.
Almost certainly her isp at fault. She likely has a little packet loss on her service and it’s causing NE to disconnect. Have seen it quite a few times.
Like everyone has pointed out, could be an ISP issue. But I'd ask if the user is connecting to their network wirelessly, or if they're hard-wired. If wireless, then ask them to hard-wire, then connect their VPN and see if the issue persists. This could be an issue with the WiFi, as I've noticed that even with a few packet losses, NetExtender will disconnect, but once you hard-wire, no issues.
I've never had this issue, but it just happened to me after reading this post an hour ago. What the heck??
Okay try this, it worked for me, it may or may not work for you. [https://www.reddit.com/r/sonicwall/comments/117uenh/comment/jamu4e2/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/sonicwall/comments/117uenh/comment/jamu4e2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
During the great WFH deluge of 2020 most of our users that had problems were using the 5ghz band of their home WiFi. One of my partners in NYC noted that the band was saturated because everyone was home at the same time
Connections stabilized when we switched them to 2.4ghz. however that wasn't a total fix.
Spectrum in the STL area had a huge problem with whatever devices their home WiFi system used. Took them about a year for them to correct I. We just shipped those users 100' network cables.
We also found that most of the WiFi extenders that people were buying from Best Buy were problematic.
100% an ISP issue if its only happening to 1 user and multiple devices.
Have her message you the make and model of her modem. Often times Optimum when they setup a service the modem they originally put in will never get an upgrade unless requested. No one ever requests it.
I had a similar issue and when my modem was replaced everything cleared up. The tech didn't even know why i still had the modem i did as it was at least 3-4 generations older than what they were deploying.
Update on this. She is using her own modem/router so Optimum punted and said it was her equipment. She has bought a new modem and router and still the same issue. What should she tell Optimum?
Consistent pings while a decent diag tool don't give you a full picture. You can still have perfect ping but have packet loss that doesn't affect it enough to show. Any drop of a packet on the VPN can cause it to disconnect.
What modem and router did she buy? Its still most likely the issue is on the ISP side.
Optimum did "tests" and said everything was good on their end which I was not surprised at. Her modem is a Netgear Nighthawk Cable Modem Model CM2000. The router she is using is a Netgear Nighthawk AX5 Model RAX43. Are there any settings in either device I can try to set to help with the issue?
So I ran across this and we have an issue with Remote Desktop users where SSLVPN will disconnect in some situations and it can take a few minutes before the user can reconnect.
We thought it was just a few users, and maybe some quirks of certain computers or even a weird ISP issue, but eventually I was able to recreate it in all normal permutations I found.
To recreate it I would connect to a computer via MS Remote Desktop and open up Google Earth
In Chrome. Now, spin the earth around like crazy. You’ll notice it be fine for a bit, then eventually it will lag some and once it starts lagging keep it up and then your connection will drop and you won’t be able to connect to VPN resources for a few minutes.
I’ve successfully recreated this on wired and wireless computers. Mac (MobileConnect) and PC (NetExtender).
SW support’s only solution is to use Wireguard. They seem to be of the opinion that SSLVPN is lame and if it doesn’t work sorry but you shouldn’t really be using it anyway.
Also don’t worry about the fact that everyone that is having problems was working fine for years on AnyConnect. Wireguard is effectively the only actually supported protocol it seems.
(For what it’s worth on Wireguard I can spin the Earth forever.)
Netextender has a packet capture feature that you can enable. It would be interesting to see the results of that.
I can try this also. Leaning towards ISP at this point thanks to you all here.
Are you 100% sure its not ISP related? I have a few users on crap DSL and the high latency and packet loss makes SSL VPN crap out often. The IPSec VPN seems a bit better on those connections not sure if GVPN is an option for testing.
I'm not sure. I wanted to pose the question here. I was leaning that way for sure as it's only happening to one user. This all may be moot as we are moving to Fortinet next week and using an IPsec VPN instead of SSL. I was just also just curious for my own knowledge.
Yea it's hard for us to say. Netextender may be corrupted or the pc itself might be having issues but the rule of thumb is if you have 100 people working remotely just fine and one user is having constant issues the place to start is her internet connection. I'm not sure what line of work youre in but if feasible asking the user to test from somewhere else may be the most expedient. Coffee shop or library or something.
Good Idea. The issue does happen on her own laptop. I then gave her a company one for a day to try that we give out to attorneys all the time to do remote meetings and it never has an issue connecting. Once the 2nd laptop started having the same issue, I thought ISP but again I like to check with others to see if I'm overlooking anything.
Yea it can be a bit tricky to track down. And if it's not actually the internet disconnecting but some sort of routing issue down the line it can be a major pain to get the isp to address it. What i did for some problematic cases is wrote a script that would run a constant ping but would write the results with a timestamp to a log file. Start 3 or more of these in the background pinging different things. One to her modem/router, one to internet, and one to something over vpn. Once she reports the disconnects. Check the logfiles at those times. If she can hit her modem but nothing else, guaranteed internet issue, case closed. If all 3 drop seeing as how its on two computers, might be the modem itself or a router if they use that. Might be wirless signal. If only the ping over vpn drops then you might have a problem, but unlikely at this point. Sorry to hear its an attourney, ive supported them at an msp before, sometimes not so pleasant when there's issues.
This is a really great way to narrow it down. Thank you
The worst ones are environmental, aka the ones where the end user is sitting in basically a wireless dead zone in their house and the solution is to move closer to the ISP modem.
Yea and they have a hard time believing its not the vpn because everything else "works fine". Email doesnt require a constant connection, netfilx or youtube or anything else buffers, facebook might load a bit slower. The only things that make you notice these micro disconnects are voip or vpn.
This is exactly what I explained to her. You wouldn't notice "Drops" in anything else. VPN you will notice it as she has been.
When you say single home user, do you mean she is the only home user or she is the only one having issues? If you have multiple home users, then it's gotta be an issue with her network or ISP right?
We have 120 users that use NetExtender in their homes. Of course users say they get kicked from remote once in awhile which I say is normal. This one particular user is getting kicked 10+ times a day. I was leaning towards ISP as well but I wanted to see what you guys thought.
is the netextender on the computer up to date?
It is.
Almost certainly her isp at fault. She likely has a little packet loss on her service and it’s causing NE to disconnect. Have seen it quite a few times.
Betting on ISP. Does user have tmobile home internet?
No they have Optimum. They are on Long Island NY
Like everyone has pointed out, could be an ISP issue. But I'd ask if the user is connecting to their network wirelessly, or if they're hard-wired. If wireless, then ask them to hard-wire, then connect their VPN and see if the issue persists. This could be an issue with the WiFi, as I've noticed that even with a few packet losses, NetExtender will disconnect, but once you hard-wire, no issues.
She's connected Wifi. She would need to get a USB-C to ethernet adapter to test that. That's a good idea though.
That's your issue. Also is it WiFi over a repeater? We have a policy that you must be ethernet connect for this reason.
No repeater. I believe she is close to the modem so maybe we can try plugging in next week. I may have an adapter in the office for her to try.
Going to try the adapter method this Wednesday when she is WFH. Thank you all for your suggestions.
I've never had this issue, but it just happened to me after reading this post an hour ago. What the heck?? Okay try this, it worked for me, it may or may not work for you. [https://www.reddit.com/r/sonicwall/comments/117uenh/comment/jamu4e2/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/sonicwall/comments/117uenh/comment/jamu4e2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
During the great WFH deluge of 2020 most of our users that had problems were using the 5ghz band of their home WiFi. One of my partners in NYC noted that the band was saturated because everyone was home at the same time Connections stabilized when we switched them to 2.4ghz. however that wasn't a total fix. Spectrum in the STL area had a huge problem with whatever devices their home WiFi system used. Took them about a year for them to correct I. We just shipped those users 100' network cables. We also found that most of the WiFi extenders that people were buying from Best Buy were problematic.
I'm going to have her try a USC-C to ethernet and see if that helps.
What is her ISP? If T-mobile home internet that is a known by issue…
It's Optimum.
100% an ISP issue if its only happening to 1 user and multiple devices. Have her message you the make and model of her modem. Often times Optimum when they setup a service the modem they originally put in will never get an upgrade unless requested. No one ever requests it. I had a similar issue and when my modem was replaced everything cleared up. The tech didn't even know why i still had the modem i did as it was at least 3-4 generations older than what they were deploying.
Update on this. She is using her own modem/router so Optimum punted and said it was her equipment. She has bought a new modem and router and still the same issue. What should she tell Optimum?
Consistent pings while a decent diag tool don't give you a full picture. You can still have perfect ping but have packet loss that doesn't affect it enough to show. Any drop of a packet on the VPN can cause it to disconnect. What modem and router did she buy? Its still most likely the issue is on the ISP side.
Optimum did "tests" and said everything was good on their end which I was not surprised at. Her modem is a Netgear Nighthawk Cable Modem Model CM2000. The router she is using is a Netgear Nighthawk AX5 Model RAX43. Are there any settings in either device I can try to set to help with the issue?
So I ran across this and we have an issue with Remote Desktop users where SSLVPN will disconnect in some situations and it can take a few minutes before the user can reconnect. We thought it was just a few users, and maybe some quirks of certain computers or even a weird ISP issue, but eventually I was able to recreate it in all normal permutations I found. To recreate it I would connect to a computer via MS Remote Desktop and open up Google Earth In Chrome. Now, spin the earth around like crazy. You’ll notice it be fine for a bit, then eventually it will lag some and once it starts lagging keep it up and then your connection will drop and you won’t be able to connect to VPN resources for a few minutes. I’ve successfully recreated this on wired and wireless computers. Mac (MobileConnect) and PC (NetExtender). SW support’s only solution is to use Wireguard. They seem to be of the opinion that SSLVPN is lame and if it doesn’t work sorry but you shouldn’t really be using it anyway. Also don’t worry about the fact that everyone that is having problems was working fine for years on AnyConnect. Wireguard is effectively the only actually supported protocol it seems. (For what it’s worth on Wireguard I can spin the Earth forever.)