L2TP VPN is not working on macOS after update to 11.7.2.

No way, ExpressVPN does not allow you to set up a L2TP connection with your server so I have cancelled my subscription, I understood from a post in other forum that it was suitable but it is not.... still looking forward to finding a suitable program

According to my conversation with Apple 2nd level technical support, there is no way to downgrade to 11.7.1

The solution offered is to wipe your drive, install the factory operating system and then update ONLY to Catalina. Proceeding past that will give you the 11.7.2 without the ability to go to 11.7 selectively.

Of course, this was my desired path, to undo that most recent patch, but it's not possible, .you'll be stuck with Catalina (which I personally skipped installing because it wasn't stable in my experience)

Jab, many modern and inexpensive routers include OpenVPN servers. this is the solution I went for. I have an Asus and at TP-LInk router set up for this at various offices. Client software is free, too.

Sonicwall routers offer a VPN option, but other than the L2TP over IPSec that we have been using, you need a subscription, and these routers are relatively expensive, but probably much higher in security.

Thanks Peter, at the job we have got a Mikrotik and currently I am configuring SSTP (let's cross the fingers) for testing, also I could configure an OpenVPN too, next step. I am not network expert so everything is step by step...

What I see if that we are in a trouble with this problem, Apple is not going to fix it and we can not upgrade to Monterrey neither to downgrade to Catalina (too much work)....

One thing I might add to @Tweise13 comments is to make sure you turn off any automatic update!

We've made a lot of noise about this, so perhaps with 11.7.3 they will have fixed it, since it's not been deprecated or Monterey wouldn't be supporting it.

Unfortunately, you can't restore a time machine backup that was completed in 11.7.3. It will prompt you to update the macOS you just installed fresh. So you are left with doing a manual drag 'n drop... and will have to reinstall all applications and setup your various email accounts, etc.

This is ridiculous. Apple, please reply to this thread and let us know when you are going to fix the protial you broke. I have a fleet of laptops deployed with Big Sur purposely because this is what supports the CAD software that our office uses. Upgrading to Monterey would require us to spend almost $10,000 on upgrade cost to the CAD software. We depend heavily on VPN connections. Mistakes happen and we understand that but this needs to be corrected ASAP. This has gotten ridiculous. I have seen no communication from Apple.

There's nothing I can find about fixing this issue. I know it works in Monterey because one of my remote workers is using it perfectly. Even though I changed the router. I'm sure it's an error and not deliberate disfunction.

I have found that installing OpenVPN is working well for me. On this TP-Link router (AX-1800) both server protocols were available and both are running simultaneously. Router available on Amazon.

One huge advantage I've found is that with the L2TP protocol, I had to set it force all internet traffic over the VPN, which burdened the other networks with my private traffic. OpenVPN setting is fine with the internet traffic routed using the local routes, and only the office network going over the VPN. (tip: setting my TP-Link otherwise caused problems when disconnecting and reconnecting when the traffic was routed over the VPN. They call the remote network "home network" on the TP Link, so you want to set that to "home network only" on the server.)

same issue.

tried Apple support uselessly. Only hope is next update 11.7.3 to see if they will fix the bug or not.

honestly this is the first time I was really upset with the support team.

no way to reply that after their update and fault, you have an obsolete hardware. No way.

In my case, I just overcame the problem. I was able to learn how to set up OpenVPN in our mikrotik and now I am able to connect with my network remotely with some level of security.

Looking at that Apple is not going to fix it soon I can not wait more.

"Thank you" to Apple for caring... It is quite obvious that l2tp is broken on purpose, because no such problem was found in other OS versions (Monterey and Ventura). And to switch to Monterey, my MacBook PRO is getting too hot, I doubt that the situation will be better on an officially unsupported Ventura.

I had to switch to Ikev2 and VPN in test mode. As a result, we stayed on Ikev2, because it does not require a third-party client.

What to do to users who do not have admin access to network equipment or other restrictions on the part of information protection, I will not know. 

Once again, "Thank you" to Apple for caring...

Same problem, any solution, F*** apple, any warning about this update 11.7.2, i'm working well in 11.7.1 i now is imposible connet in my VPN company, fix the problem your problem many machine is run in bigsur 11 in my case is imposible upgrade monterrey my machine is mac pro mid 2014 and 1tb ssd, 16ram and is imposible upgrade monterrey for your obsolescence program that is shi** you know! My machine es complete capability to run monterrey but is imposible to upgrade thanks yours

i suppose that Apple never read these forums, they (the forums ) only help us as users for sharing experiences and solutions to problems. I am thinking about to come back to Linux distro again (Ubuntu or similar), only it makes me reconsider it due to the apps that I am using and the effort required to search alternatives to some of them

Updating macOS to 11.7.3 didn't solve this problem with VPN. I deleted L2TP VPN connection and configured again - the same problem.

Then I erased SSD drive of my Macbook 12" 2015, reinstalled macOS from a scratch, and restored from Time Machine. And only now it solved the problem.

It was terrible experience...

Hi,

Same issue here :(

Is there any way to restore previous version of BigSur ?