Hi, I had a MIFI working great on my Win 7 notebook, but while the upgrade to the LG modem went smoothly, the VPN only sporadically works now. By sporadically, I mean that sometimes it will connect after many minutes. Also, when it is connected, the throughput to the VPN resource (my company's corporate network) seems very slow.
We pretty much use the standard Micorosft VPN out of the box so there is no third-party VPN involved.
I've tried all sorts of VPN settings and none of them work.
I'm wondering if there is a Verizon issue or if anyone knows of any testing programs, etc. The modem is pretty much useless without the VPN for me.
I updated my VZAccess software today and I am able to connect to my VPNs through my Verizon VL600 4G Broadband Device.
This makes me happy as I have been battling Verizon about this issue for months with no luck.
UPDATE:
I tried the other 4G device and still have the same issues.
Verizon points the finger at the "VPN software", not their device and/or new 4G connection. However, they will not tell me how to fix the issue.
I have opened up a ticket with their support team. They are supposed to contact met withing 5-7 business days.
I'm sorry for your troubles, but I'm glad to see this issue cropping up for other devices and other people. I've been running into the same problem with the USB760. If you switch your VPN type in its properties to the specific VPN you're using (PPTP or LPTP), you'll get a more specific error than 800. I imagine you'd get the same thing as I am, error 678. It really is infuriating since people rely on these connections, and there's not much I can do to help them here at the company.
Yesterday I tested with someone that handles our internal network support. He set up a Windows VPN server, withoug a firewell, directly connected to the Internet. At his location, he had he choice of two Internet providers, Cox Cable and Verizon FIOS. We tested with each provider in turn while tracing the packets received and sent by the VPN server using WireShark.
With both providers, I could reliably connect from my laptop when it was connected to our internal network going out through our wired interface to Cox Cable.
With both providers, I got the same behavior using the 3G Verizon wireless connection that I reported earlier. When we examined the WireShark log, we did not see any connection attempt being rejected by the VPN server. With both target networks when making a wireless connection, the first packet received was the request to port 1723 to establish the VPN connection. It appears that no packets were received by the VPN server when the connection failed.
I have reported this information back to the Verizon tech with whom I have been working. And I suggested to him that Verizon needs to monitor the connection attempt at the boundary between the Verizon wireless network and the wider Internet. I have to believe that when the VPN connection cannot be established the packet is never leaving the Verizon wireless network or that is somehow invalid such that it is dropped by a node between that point and the VPN server.
Thanks for doing further testing, Jonnie. Hopefully there will be some sort of response soon.
My IT guy came in a tried various things and finally concluded that the LG LTE was configured to point at L2TP thru port 1701. Most routers come preset to accept VPN via PPTP thru port 1723. Once we reconfigured the router to accept L2TP thru port 1701, the LG LTE worked fine. So far so good anyway.
Would this have any application to using PPTP?
A little more info.
I can get it to work occasionally, but only after many, many retries. It might take 10 minutes to connect it. It seems to work okay once it's connected. When I first got it working a bit, the connection to the resources over the VPN were very slow. Saving a 100K file attachment in Outlook 2010 to a mapped drive over the VPN would take 10 minutes (or time out.) On the other hand, Outlook itself seems to work okay.
It seems the VPN error is #800 - which is a general error and the same error that comes up if the IP address is wrong. So the comment that it could be the initial "packet" that is getting corrupted sounds plausible.
I'll be testing more over a the next few days and I'll report back.
The service is fast but the VPN access problems are a major pain. It worked good using the MiFi, I hope this gets solved soon!
The Verizon tech I was working with sucked. All he would keep telling me was the internet is working.. and that VPN is not really their problem. Well without VPN to me.. internet is not working. That's like saying we blocked port 25 so you can't email... but the internet is working.. sorry there is more to the internet than port 80.
ANYWAYS.. I found a reliable work around. You basically need to vpn in to a proxy server.. and then you can VPN to a PPTP server no problem. I tried Hotspot Shield which is free.. but their ads annoyed me.. there are a bunch of free ones.. but most have some catch either total bandwidtth limited, is throttled, or they have ads. AceVPN is 5 bucks a month and offers 50GB a month bandwidth which is plenty for me and no throttling and most importantly to me no ads on connection.. but takes a bit more to setup.. Hotspot Shield is stupid easy to setup.. but watch out for the Ask toolbar they try to install.
That's interesting, but I don't want to have to setup an office worth of people to have to use proxy servers. Last I heard from our Verizon rep is that it was still being worked on. Thanks for the possible work-around, though!
Well, I'm in a restaurant and I’ve been trying on and off for an hour to connect the VPN. It usually takes 2 to 10 minutes. So now I have to drive.
I don’t understand why this isn’t a bigger priority for Verizon. They should offer credits for some of the usage.
HAs anyone noticed a geographic aspect to this? At home, it doesn't seem to want to work at all, but in a few other places, I have more success. It still takes 2 to 10 minutes to connect (but not at home).
I'm having the same problem with the new Pantech 4G. I received the 4G on Wednesday and ever since the "upgrade" my PPTP VPN won't authenticate (errors on validating user name and password). I agree, GRE packets are being dropped. I never had a problem with the UM175. I'm in Northern Ca, anyone else having this problem?
Matthew
After I was told the UML290 is supported on Mac and found out it actaully isn't...I finally had enough. After several packet traces I could clearly see GRE packets are being dropped on the 4G network. I called support and tried to provide them the details, it was like a deer in headlights. I knew it wasn't going to get resolved so I had him re-enable the UM175. After that, PPTP connected no problem. Guess I will stick with 3G until Verizon irons out the finer details of 4G.
Without getting into engineering babble that you won't understand the problem has to do with their NAT implementation on 4G and VPN requires a public IP in the tunnel in their terminating eHRPD gateway to the internet.
I recommend:
1. Get a public IP (make sure it's not NATed 10.x.x.x) on the LTE service.
2. Try again.
3. If still failing with a PUBLIC IP then something is wrong with their NAT implementation.
From what I could tell, VzW had been blocking GRE (IP Protocol 47), which was preventing the PPTP handshake from completing.
However, today, it's working much better.
Microsoft PPTP VPN over VzW 3G is now working for me in central New Jersey using an LG VL600 modem.
Haven't tried 4G yet, but I expect the same (positive) results.
keno
I talked to Verizon on 1/25/11 regarding the 4G VPN not working. Eventually they escalated this problem to 2nd level support. On 1/29/11 I received a message that changes were made and my VPN should now be working. I tested it out and I was able to start a Remote Desktop Connection. I immediately called Verizon back to find out what they did. They said they would leave a message for the tech that handled the ticket. 2/1/11 I received a call from the tech. They made changes to the Verizon Firewall was all they told me.
I updated my VZAccess software today and I am able to connect to my VPNs through my Verizon VL600 4G Broadband Device.
This makes me happy as I have been battling Verizon about this issue for months with no luck.
Yep what I thought, they changed the firewall at the tunnel gateway to allow VPN traffic.
Still unable to access local network resources? I am using a Cisco VPN client using IPSEC. I am able to connect but unable to ping or access any local network resources. It works over my Verizon 3G dongle though?
I have the same issue. I can see the 10.x.x.x as my IP in the Nat-ed VZW and I can see and ping my internal work IP--but cannot go beyond that--thus making it useless. I hope this is fixed soon or we will have to go back to 3G cards.
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