Cisco AnyConnect Sec.Mob.Client gets global focus on reconnect

[David L.]

Hi there, I use Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client V4.9.00086 on Windows 10. My Connection to the company vpn is somehow unstable and AnyConnect has to initiate a reconnect multiple times a day. Normally it is no problem to reconnect automatically in background.

But there is one thing that is verry annoying. During reconnection AnyConnect steals the focus of the current focused window and that without any reason. Reconnection is normally done without problem in background, no need to get the focus. Problem is that I get interrupted in writing and have to take the mouse to refocus my input window. That is highly annoying.

Is there an option or a possibility to tell AnyConnect to avoid trying to get the focus? If not, can you plz investigate that problem and try to solve it in one of the next verstions of AnyConnect?

[UdupiKrishna]

I remember someone else had the same problem few weeks ago, I was not able to pull any open bugs surrounding this behaviour.

If you have an active support contract with Cisco, highly recommend contacting TAC and have them reproduce/file a bug so that it may be eventually fixed unless its proven to be a behaviour due to the way Windows works .

[David L.]

My company has no support contract with Cisco

[Aref Alsouqi]

Triggering the reconnection for AnyConnect could be cause by too many different things, but mainly it could be triggered by some connectivity issues to the local network. There is an option on AnyConnect profile called "Minimize On Connect", but not sure if this will help when the client tries to reconnect, worth check. To leverage that you would need to configure AnyConnect profile and then push it to the clients.

[David L.]

The AniConnect Client is minimized as soon as it is connected and it remains minimized also during reconnection. Only if the reconnect fails, a message pops up (sometimes) but that happens only very seldom. So i guess this option you mentioned, is already active...

Nevertheless the AniConnect Client defocuses any active window during reconnection (even while it is minimized).

[david.balazic]

I get this too.

Using version 4.9

There is a bug reported for this: CSCvf46705

Full link: https://quickview.cloudapps.cisco.com/quickview/bug/CSCvf46705

It is marked as fixed though, maybe version 4.10 has this fixed (the release notes don't mention it though, unless I missed it).

My company plans to update to 4.10 soon, so I'll wait until then.

Additional information: this does not happen always. Sometimes AnyConnect shows notification (usually about reconnecting) but does not steal focus.

[david.balazic]

The mentioned bug says:

Workaround: To work around this issue the user can disable these "Connection Notices". To accomplish this the user can click on the AnyConnect Taskbar icon and toggle off the "Show Connection Notices".

But for me that does not help. When the VPN is reconnects, the focus is stolen. Does not seem to happen every time, but often.

[david.balazic]

I updated to v4.10.04071 and the issue still happens.

It just stole focus a minute after connecting, when it displayed notifications about reconnecting.

I'll try with "Show Connection Notices" turned off.

[david.balazic]

> I'll try with "Show Connection Notices" turned off.

No, that does not help either.

It still happens (not each time but often) that in the minutes after connecting, the focus is stolen. At the same time the Cisco icon in systray is showing activity.

[david.blazic]

I updated to v4.10.07073 and the issue still happens.

[david.balazic]

> I updated to v4.10.07073 and the issue still happens.

This was me. Apparently there is some user account mixup. It seems I have two accounts (one with my business email and one with my personal email).
Sorry for the confusion.