Mac OS X Maverick - AnyConnect

[jmorsbach1]

Hello - I just installed OS X 10.9 (Maverick), and my Cisco AnyConnect VPN Client has began acting strange.  Prior to the upgrade, the connection was always stable, however after the upgrade it disconnects and reconnectes about every 1-2 minutes continuously.  This is an unworkable situtation and wondering if there is something I can change with the configuration to alleviate this issue.

Thanks

[jrcamacho25]

I hope this helps, but I am on a 13" Mac Air and even plugged in I still experience the issue.  Unfortunately, I don't have the ethernet option since Mac Air's don't have a network port.

[billbackstrom1]

Yesterday I was seeing a reconnect every 2 minutes (plugged in, on wifi, 3.1.04072). Today it has been solid for nearly an hour. I'm connecting from a different location, but I was having the same issue with an earlier version of AnyConnect from the location. PowerNap is disabled for AnyConnect, but that did not fix the issue yesterday.

[support_gyml]

Ok - I am on a MacBookPro Retina connected to the Ethernet by Thunderbolt (from display). So this might leave the problem to the WiFi connection!

[Peter Davis]

We have definitely seen varied behavior between WiFi and Wired.

[Peter Davis · Accepted solution]

Apple has been extremely helpful and a very good partner in root causing the source of this problem. 

We are pleased to announce that we have made available a temporary workaround (CSCuh73010) for the AnyConnect Mac OS X 10.9 connection instability / compatibility issue (Apple Bug Report ID 15261749) via an updated version of AnyConnect (3.1.04074). There are caveats associated with this temporary workaround which are noted in the release notes. Due to replication delays, the release notes may not be updated until Monday.

http://software.cisco.com/download/release.html?mdfid=283000185&flowid&softwareid=282364313&release=3.1.04072

(It is located in the 4072 directory.)

Release Notes:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10884/prod_release_notes_list.html

Note: A SMARTnet-enabled login is required to download AnyConnect Software from Cisco.com.

Here's the release note excerpt: This update is a temporary workaround to resolve the problem of frequent disconnects of the  AnyConnect VPN on systems running Mac OS X 10.9. Apple is aware of this issue and you can reference Apple Bug Report ID 15261749 if you want to  open your own case with them. This patch is a workaround and we are not able to guarantee that it will work as reliably as a fix provided by a future OS patch. A future OS fix will not require you to update AnyConnect 3.1.0472 to operate reliably. Once  Apple provides a fix in OS X 10.9, we may choose to retract this workaround, and unpatched versions of AnyConnect 3.1.04072 will also work reliably.

Best Regards,

Pete Davis

Product Owner, Cisco AnyConnect

ac-mobile-feedback@cisco.com

@AnyConnect

http://facebook.com/anyconnect

[alennard4604]

Just an FYI, we've been using AnyConnect 3.1.04059 w/ OSX 10.9 over WiFi and haven't seen any disconnects.

[mb.generali]

I'm using anyconnect ver 3.1.04066 and didn't notice any issue. Today I worked 8h connected without any problem. So maybe there is a problem with specific vpn configuration. What is specification of VPN configaruration with an issues? Certificates, RSA or something else?

[Ian Brennan]

+1, also on 3.1.04066 and haven't noticed any VPN drops.  I do however have an issue with Maverick s (forums won't let you post proper name??) crashing during sleep/wake. 

Some of the console logs point to AnyConnect, but it might also be caused by my Thunderbolt display.

[Peter Davis]

It's unlikely that AnyConnect is related to your OS X 10.9 sleep/wake problems. First step I would follow would be to reset your SMC if it's simply not waking up reliably. If you have a 3rd party SSD, I suggest going in to System Pref -> Energy and turning off put hard disks to sleep (Battery/Power) and wake for network access as any tweaks you made with these settings could have been wiped out with your upgrade.

[Ryan Harrison]

I was able to get around this by building a new VPN connection via IPsec instead of using the AnyConnect client

[Peter Davis · Accepted solution]

Apple has been extremely helpful and a very good partner in root causing the source of this problem.

We are pleased to announce that we have made available a temporary workaround (CSCuh73010) for the AnyConnect Mac OS X 10.9 connection instability / compatibility issue (Apple Bug Report ID 15261749) via an updated version of AnyConnect (3.1.04074). There are caveats associated with this temporary workaround which are noted in the release notes. Due to replication delays, the release notes may not be updated until Monday.

http://software.cisco.com/download/release.html?mdfid=283000185&flowid&softwareid=282364313&release=3.1.04072

(It is located in the 4072 directory.)

Release Notes:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10884/prod_release_notes_list.html

Note: A SMARTnet-enabled login is required to download AnyConnect Software from Cisco.com.

Here's the release note excerpt: This update is a temporary workaround to resolve the problem of frequent reconnects/disconnects of the  AnyConnect VPN on systems running Mac OS X 10.9. Apple is aware of this issue and you can reference Apple Bug Report ID 15261749 if you want to  open your own case with them. This patch is a workaround and we are not able to guarantee that it will work as reliably as a fix provided by a future OS patch. A future OS fix will not require you to update AnyConnect 3.1.0472 to operate reliably. Once  Apple provides a fix in OS X 10.9, we may choose to retract this workaround, and unpatched versions of AnyConnect 3.1.04072 will also work reliably.

Best Regards,

Pete Davis

Product Owner, Cisco AnyConnect

ac-mobile-feedback@cisco.com

@AnyConnect

http://facebook.com/anyconnect

[totarajendra]

Peter,

Is it possible to make AnyConnect (3.1.04074) version available to everyone without Service Contract? It's asking service contract number to download it from Cisco website and unfortunately I don't have it.

I really appreciate it as it's blocking most of our work schedule and its really frustrating.

Thanks,

Raj

[Peter Davis]

Hi Raj,

We are unable to do this. Customers are required to have active support contracts to get access to software update. Please contact us via email at ac-mobile-feedback@cisco.com to discuss your specific situation and we will see if we can help.

[totarajendra]

Thanks Pete for the quick response. I have sent an email to the above mentioned address.Hope I will get some help from you guys

Thanks,
Raj

[jeffishaq]

The 3.1.04074 client didn't fix the problem for me. 

As I was submitting this post, in fact AnyConnect performed a disconnect / reconnect cycle and I had to sit here for 35 seconds while it did its thing.

It appears that it also didn't fix the problem for some other users as well -- please see:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/23781990#23781990#23781990