cisco anyconnect failed to start. it is already running in another user's session

[sakuragaoka]

I'm using my company Win7/64 laptop at home. I usually let it up running overnight. The VPN has been configured to disconnect automatically after 12 hours. So, typically in the morning, I have to connect again. It then happens quite often that I get the error message quoted in the title. I checked and I am the only user logged in (on PowerShell "Get_wmiObject -Class Win32_LoggedOnUser"), so it cannot be "running in another user's session". This issue is pretty annoying as so far the only way to solve it is to reboot my machine, and with all the applications that I keep open and that I am working with simultaneously it is a big waste of time to get back to the same state. So, how can this problem be solved without rebooting the laptop?

[ETC-Daniel]

same issue here, using the Cisco secure client on a WIN server 2022 that works as a RDP for several users. everytime a user logs in it gets the same message "Cisco Secure client failed to start, it is already running in another users's session" what to do please?

[Marvin Rhoads]

Technically, Secure Client isn't supported on Windows Server (any version).

Reference: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/security/vpn_client/anyconnect/Cisco-Secure-Client-5/release/notes/release-notes-cisco-secure-client-5-1.html#os-support-5-0

[JohnW2]

I'm getting the same error on a Windows 10 machine. I'm just starting to roll CSC out across my enterprise, so I don't know if this is a new problem or one that I'm just now seeing. This happened on a conference room computer, so it's one that gets logins from a lot of different users. We're running CSC VPN and ISE Posture modules ver 5.1.2.42.

[ETC-Daniel]

OH Wow, I didn't expect that, in any case it seems to be working fine (Server --- Umbrella comm) but we wanted to check if is possible to disable this alert when an RDP user connects to the server, I did not see from the Umbrella portal or the app itself. Please help me confirm

[JohnW2]

We were able to resolve this issue at our site. What we found is that if an administrator connects to a machine through RDP (An RDP initiated from SCCM in our case) and then closes the session instead of logging out, their user sits in the machine in a "disconnected" status, which blocks anyone else from being able to open Secure Client on the machine. You then end up having to reboot to clear the disconnected user. 

The fix is easy. Just have your admins make sure to log off from RDP sessions instead of closing the window. This doesn't help the OP, but it should work in your scenario, ETC-Daniel. 

[aislam1]

Found this on another thread, seems to be the same issue: Anyconnect Umbrella module Error - Cisco Community

Here is the link to the bug described: CSCut55601 : Bug Search Tool (cisco.com)