Nov
20
2007
Find citations on Bloglines or Technorati. View blog reactions
By category: References, Tech Support Tips, Tools, Tutorials.
I updated my Mac to Leopard a few weeks ago. All good.
Yesterday I ran the update to 10.5.1. Not so good: It knocked out my Cisco VPN client. Permanently. Rebooting did not help. Reinstalling did not help. (I rely on VPN non-stop, even to retrieve my office email.)
So today I poked around for a while and after some deep searching found the fix. It’s easy, and worked for me on the first try. The solution was on Anders Brownworth’s site (thanks Anders!), and I’m reprinting an excerpt here in the hopes that it will make it easier to find for somebody else.
If you are running Cisco’s VPNClient on Mac OSX, you might be familiar with (or tormented by) “Error 51: Unable to communicate with the VPN subsystem”. The simple fix is to quit VPNClient, open a Terminal window, (Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal) and type the following:
sudo /System/Library/StartupItems/CiscoVPN/CiscoVPN restart
and give your password when it asks. This will stop and start the “VPN Subsystem”, or in other words restart the CiscoVPN.kext extension.
Subscribe to this blog.
REINALDO ALVARADO November 24th, 2007 - 6:32 am
I updated my Mac to Leopard (10.5) too. But I can’t run Cisco VPN Client, appears the error 51: Unable to commu.. and I tried to execute the sudo command but doesn’t work too. I made the OS X Update to 10.5.1 and I tried again but doesn’t work.
I tried the following solutions in http://security-protocols.com/2007/08/20/cisco-vpn-client-error-51-mac-os-x/ but doesn’t work too.
I don’t know if I connected with the Airport has conflict with the VPN Client?
Steve Carlson November 26th, 2007 - 10:25 am
Interesting… I haven’t had this problem on my Mac running 10.5.1 yet, but this morning I had exactly this problem on my older Mac laptop running 10.3.9. I’ve never had this error come up so persistently before - even a reboot wouldn’t fix it. I’m glad I read this post last week, so I could give the fix a try! Thanks Nate!
Meredith Sweet November 28th, 2007 - 11:17 pm
Alas, this didn’t work for me. I wish I’d known about the incompatibility with Leopard before I installed it, but I was a little gung-ho. I tried the sudo command and when I restarted the VPN client, it still gave me the same error. Perhaps Cisco will release a compatible version for Leopard soon (like… yesterday)?
Brian December 7th, 2007 - 8:18 am
I have heard that there is a version of the client in beta. This fix isn’t working for me either. Fortunately /Unfortunately I haven’t upgraded my main partition, I installed Leopard on another one just to test the VPN.
Frustrating to say the least.
Roger Mc Murtrie December 9th, 2007 - 11:08 pm
I also have this problem on my Intel Mac.
Running the suggested command:
sudo /System/Library/StartupItems/CiscoVPN/CiscoVPN restart
Password:
Stopping Cisco Systems VPN Driver
kextunload: unload kext /System/Library/Extensions/CiscoVPN.kext failed
Starting Cisco Systems VPN Driver
extension /System/Library/Extensions/CiscoVPN.kext does not contain code for this architecture
which seems very strange as I’m sure it was working at some stage with 10.5.1!
Since it was working I compiled and installed quite a few unix packages. I wonder if one of those
messed up some architecture file?
Gianni December 10th, 2007 - 9:06 am
It seems I can connect ok, I go through all the connection steps that I usually go through, but then my LAN access is disabled.
It is set to enabled in my profile.
I have a new macbook pro running leopard 10.5.1 and cisco client 4.9.01 (0080).
I can connect on my windows laptop just fine.
Why would my LAN access be disabled?
Any help would be appreciated.
Kerwin Rabbitroo December 12th, 2007 - 7:40 pm
Thank you! Worked like a charm for me!!!
-K
Abel Law December 13th, 2007 - 8:22 pm
I manually ran VPNClient in the terminal and got this message. Any ideas???
dyld: Symbol not found: _kSCPropNetOverridePrimary
Referenced from: /private/opt/cisco-vpnclient/bin/cvpnd
Expected in: flat namespace
QString::arg(): Argument missing: Error 51: Unable to communicate with the VPN subsystem.
Please make sure that you have at least one network interface that is currently active
and has an IP address and start this application again., 4
ball420 December 30th, 2007 - 5:43 pm
worked like a charm thanks man!!! i can’t FTP without conecting in to the VPN. was flabergasted by the error u saved the day!!! CHEERS!
sam t January 2nd, 2008 - 10:10 am
I’m working from Tahoe today and was just wondering how I would get my work done without my VPN…when I found the answer. Anders’s fix worked perfectly for me - thanks for posting Nate!
-sam
Toby Negrin January 4th, 2008 - 5:00 am
None of these solutions worked for me — however Cisco has an updated version of their vpn client app (4.9.01) that works on Leopard.
Cheers,
-Toby
links for 2008-01-06 | manicwave.com January 6th, 2008 - 4:21 am
[…] Leopard 10.5.1 Update Breaks Cisco VPN, with Fix - Nate Koechley’s Blog Yesterday I ran the update to 10.5.1. Not so good: It knocked out my Cisco VPN client. Permanently. Rebooting did not help. Reinstalling did not help. (I rely on VPN non-stop, even to retrieve my office email.) (tags: leopard vpn cisco osx) […]
adnan January 6th, 2008 - 12:51 pm
thanks. it worked for me..
jason January 7th, 2008 - 8:11 pm
I can’t get it to work, but I might not have the latest version. Does anyone have a link to the latest? I hate this software.
John January 9th, 2008 - 8:43 pm
I get
error 51: Unable to connect to VPN subsystem
when trying to run the VPNClient.app in Applications.
even after I run that sudo line mentioned above, and it reports to have restarted the service:
machine:~ user$ sudo /System/Library/StartupItems/CiscoVPN/CiscoVPN restart
Password:
Stopping Cisco Systems VPN Driver
kextunload: unload kext /System/Library/Extensions/CiscoVPN.kext succeeded
Starting Cisco Systems VPN Driver
kextload: /System/Library/Extensions/CiscoVPN.kext loaded successfully
My VPN client is 4.9 I believe…
any ideas here? thanks.
Rick C January 11th, 2008 - 6:43 pm
This fix worked great! I am a die-hard mac user but unfortunately am also a system administrator for a a Windows network and rely on Cisco VPN to connect from home.
Hawkins Dale January 12th, 2008 - 10:42 am
I tried all those things, and NONE of them worked. Aaaaaargh!
But then I stumbled across a new version of the VPN client, at macupdate.com: https://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/10317/cisco-vpn-client .
Worked for me. Good luck to you.
David January 12th, 2008 - 6:01 pm
One thing that I didn’t see on getting the VPN client working (when I had this same issue a while back, and then again today), I needed the upgrade to the Cisco VPN client AND to run the terminal command. I was running v4.8 or something to that effect, and pulled the latest version down from macupdate.com and all was well v4.9.01 (0090).
Interestingly though, I did run into the problem again today when I manually expired my IP through my router because my macbook and the router are too stupid to play nicely together to renew/reset IP addresses, anyways, ran the terminal command, and all is well…
StaticNAT » Captain the warp subsystems are down what should we do?!!! January 14th, 2008 - 12:02 pm
[…] in 10.5.1 I kept getting the VPN subsystem could not be contacted. Well here is the fix from nate, “If you are running Cisco’s VPNClient on Mac OSX, you might be familiar with (or tormented […]
Andre January 18th, 2008 - 7:26 pm
No luck for me. Will try to restart the computer, but it can wait until I really need the VPN.
On a side note it seems that Cisco is not respecting the Mac way of doing things with files and all. They are all in the wrong places.
Ruben January 19th, 2008 - 10:30 am
You can fix this problem by updating your VPN software to version 4.9.01.0800
Download at:
http://www.cperi.forth.gr/service_mans/vpnclient/MacOS/vpnclient-darwin-4.9.01.0080-universal-k9.dmg
mangoman January 26th, 2008 - 6:40 am
hi,
I have leopard 10.5.1 and cisco VPN client 4.9.01 (0100). I can connect ok to my office and access web based servers in the lan using their ip addresses but i can not access the internet.
I don’t want to tunnel through the VPN for internet access but use direct connection from the MBP that is already established. On my previous windows laptop this worked, the VPN just seemed to route any traffic destined for the office lan (ie internal lan ip address) down the VPN and all other traffic (such as browsing, IM clients, online backup) directly to the internet connection ie Wifi or 3g card.
Does anybody know how to configure this?
Thanks
Karen February 9th, 2008 - 9:50 pm
I’ve been using vpn client 3.7.3 (A) on my powerbook (10.2.8) - never, or rarely any problems. On my new macbook pro neither works - when I try to connect all I get is a little window - empty - with “ok” button on the bottom. That’s it - except for an “i” in a balloon………….
My IT dept knows nothing about MAC…..
Thank You
Paul Kwan February 10th, 2008 - 5:12 pm
Thanks for Hawkins URL posting of the newer version of the vpnclient, my 10.5.1 installation works like a champ now. Thanks again.
Joao Siquenique March 10th, 2008 - 5:41 am
Hi all, i’m having some issues with Cisco VPN client when i connect to the office network everything works fine wth the client but i need to use firefox for example to have internet (i can configure the proxy manually) but in Safari i cant do it and also i cant use email.
Do you know how to fix these?
Piyush Srivastava March 17th, 2008 - 3:12 pm
Well, …almost all what you could think of has been covered above. I tried most of the stuff, but apparently it was failing for me. Reason being, some relevant files were missing from the Library. Here are my 2 cents on this:
Initially i had Tiger OS and Cisco VPN installed. All worked well. I upgraded to Leopard using clean install option and everything worked fine still, …after re-installing my Cisco VPN client.
Until one day, my Mac crashed on me. I re-installed the ‘Leopard’ OS using “Archive and Install
” option. The system was back up and running as before, until, …I realized that my Cisco VPN client would error out and popped an “Error: 51″ window.
I browsed through couple of forums and finally made it to work. This is how i got it to run:
Using the ‘Archive and Install” all my files and user settings etc. were recovered. However, neither the “CiscoVPN” folder got created under /System/Library/StartUpItems/ - like earlier. Nor the “CiscoVPN.kext” file was found under /System/Library/Extensions. And these are where the VPNClient executables are located.
Re-installing the CiscoVPN overwrites files to the same location, …if chosen as earlier. Once you have re-installed, you have all your files with correct permissions. And, ready to connect.
Scott Mckenzie April 27th, 2008 - 3:50 am
Great, worked like a charm for me also…. beats using OWA to get mail when out and about!
Thanks
cbare May 22nd, 2008 - 7:01 pm
Isn’t it great that Cisco makes it hard for legitimate customers to download the vpn client? So people end up getting their security software from insecure sites. Brilliant strategy Cisco. Thanks a lot!
Franziska July 6th, 2008 - 2:15 am
Hi!
I got a brand new MacBook / Leopard 10.5.4 with pre-installed X11. The first problems occurred while trying to make a screenshot with Gimp. I realised that Gimp requires Quartz / X11 update 2.2.3 which I downloaded. Now, Gimp offers and executes the screenshot function and opens a new window with the shot - yet, the shot is all black.
Second, cisco vpn (4.9.01) suddenly refuses to start up. It worked until I had the X11 upgrade installed. As vpn doesn’t run on X11 do I not know what the problem might be.
Is there anybody who could help me?
Thanx, cheers Franziska
personal vpn October 2nd, 2008 - 6:28 am
I get error 51: Unable to connect to VPN subsystem when trying to run the VPNClient.app in Applications. What’s worng ?
Nate Koechley October 10th, 2008 - 12:05 pm
I get that error frequently, too. But, as I cited above, typing the following into Terminal always clears it right up for me:
sudo /System/Library/StartupItems/CiscoVPN/CiscoVPN restart
Andre November 1st, 2008 - 11:53 pm
I tried all this and I still got the ugly “Error: 51″ window.
What finally helped for me:
1) Restart the machine
2) Install the mentioned above Cisco update
:-)
Thank you all for the very valuable hints!