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ASUS RT-AC3100, Can't connect to office VPN

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emgee

Occasional Visitor
Hi all,

My wife uses the Microsoft VPN Client to connect to her office's VPN and it was working fine until a few days ago. A few days ago I did update my router's firmware to Merlin's latest stable 384.16. I did not do a factory reset at that time. Last night, however, I did a full factory reset and reconfigured my router from scratch. Rebooted everything: ISP modem, ASUS, laptop. Still no luck.

FWIW, I use SonicWall VPN to connect to my office's VPN and it continues to work/connect without issue.

I don't think it's an issue on her laptop as we connected her laptop to her phone's personal hotspot and went over LTE, thereby bypassing our home network, and she could connect to her office's VPN server. I contacted my ISP and verified they havent started blocking anything recently.

Under WAN -> NAT Passthrough the following are enabled: PPTP, L2TP, IPSec, and others. Only thing disabled is PPPoE.

I've also rolled back the Merlin firmware to 384.15, that was previously installed, and still am not able to connect using the Microsoft VPN Client in Windows.

I've rebooted both the ISP modem and the ASUS as well, just in case.

Not sure what I should look at next and suspect it's probably something simple that I've overlooked or forgotten about. Hope someone here might be able to help!

Thank you
Mark
 
From scratch means minimally and manually, correct? :) No saved backup config file used?

What features and customizations are you doing to the router? Did you try reflashing the same firmware again (this has fixed a few issues for some)?

Are you using SonicVPN on the router, or on your computer? Can she connect to her work with your computer?

Are you running any scripts?
 
> From scratch means minimally and manually, correct? :) No saved backup config file used?

Yes, manually reconfigured. Not restored from a backup config. Good clarification to be made.

> What features and customizations are you doing to the router? Did you try reflashing the same firmware again (this has fixed a few issues for some)?

Yeah, I've reflashed the firmware multiple times. One of the earlier things I did. No luck. Even reverting to the previous version 384.15 which was on there prior to the VPN not working.

I have some ports forwarded to internal resources, but those have been in place for years. That being said, when I reset the router to factory (holding reset button for 5s) and before ANY custom configruation being done I attempted to use the Microsoft VPN Client on her laptop and could not connect.

>Are you using SonicVPN on the router, or on your computer? Can she connect to her work with your computer?

In both cases, using VPN client on each respective computer. No VPN configured on the Router at this time.

Haven't tried using the MS VPN Client locally yet, I need to get the preshared key from their admin today. But that is on the list. ;)

> Are you running any scripts?

No scripts are run.
 
You may want to check out the M&M Config and Nuclear Reset guides in the link in my signature below to get your router as fully 'reset' as possible.

The following may also help get your router to a good/known state too.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/ax88-packet-loss.62891/#post-563326

Doing just the button on the back of the router to reset it may not be enough.

I hope the links and suggestions help. :)
 
>The following may also help get your router to a good/known state too.

>https://www.snbforums.com/threads/ax88-packet-loss.62891/#post-563326

I got around to trying this, reset it as described. Only changes made: set router login credentials, set up WiFi SSID and security, set DHCP Server for 192.168.0.1 addressing.

SonicWall VPN Client no problem. Microsoft native VPN Client refuses to connect.

Running Merlin 384.16

I have an ASUS RT-AC68U which I reset, loaded Merlin 384.16, did the same minor configuration and voila, Microsoft VPN Client can connect.

I'm at a loss here with the ASUS RT-AC3100 as it was working until late sometime last week (week of April 13th). About to try official ASUS firmware only on the 3100 and older Merlin release 384.12 or something.
 
Problem solved! Sort of. But yeah, it's not me. :D

Turns out it is not my router or any configuration on the router itself that I have. It appears the VPN server is rejecting connections from my external IP. I think.

I noticed when I connected the AC68U that my ISP assigned it a different IP address than my AC3100. As mentioned with the AC68U I was able to establish a VPN connection using the Microsoft VPN Client to my wife's office.

So, I reconnected my AC3100 and assigned it the MAC address of the AC68U under the WAN tab under ISP special requirements. Doing so, the ISP assigned the AC3100 the IP address it assigned to the AC68U. And lo and behold, I could establish a VPN connection using the Micrsofot VPN Client to my wife's office. I then cleared the MAC address on the AC3100, disconnected the ISP modem from it, reconnected and it was assigned its previous external IP and blamo, couldn't connect to the VPN server again.

The sys admin said, a few days ago, that nothing is wrong on that side. Even when I asked if it was possible, somehow that our external IP address was being rejected/blocked by the VPN server. Now that may not be the case but at least I know it's not the router and the configuration.

Still a mystery to resolve, but not the router and its configuration. ;)
 

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