10.4.8 upgrade breaks Checkpoint Secureclient VPN

Is anyone else having this problem or successfully using Checkpoint Secureclient VPN with 10.4.8?

Summary:

After upgrading to OS X 10.4.8 and restarting, the 'airport' process started to use ~95% CPU. Wireless networking failed to work. After removing the VPN client and restarting everything worked fine. After then reinstalling the VPN client, the problem started again.

Steps to Reproduce:

Download the Checkpoint SecureClient from http://www.checkpoint.com/techsupport/downloads/bin/securemote/r56/macosx/10.4/S ecureClientB6120010011.pkg.zip, unzip and install. Mac will restart. Airport process should then start to consume excessive CPU, and wireless networking will fail.

Macbook 2.0Ghz, Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Oct 5, 2006 8:18 AM

Reply
11 replies

Oct 6, 2006 12:48 PM in response to Tony Piper

tony, i have what may be a similar problem. after i upgraded this laptop to 10.4.8 the VPN (Cisco v4.9) no longer functions properly when connected to secure sites. this happens only on my airport/wireless connection at home (where it counts). basically the VPN will connect but data transfer afterwards is extremely slow. nonsecure sites are fine. seems like a conflict with a specific wireless/network configuration. unfortunately, no-one responded to my post of earlier this week. our local IT guys tried some things but its not yet working. if you have any ideas please let me know.

tx

wayne

Oct 6, 2006 2:09 PM in response to Wayne Frankel

Hi Wayne,

Check out http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20061002005556198

"Mac OS X 10.4.8 seems to have fixed the issue with the Cisco VPN client causing kernel panics on restart and a shutdown restarting straight away. I removed the the CiscoVPN folder from system/library/startupitems so that I could restart or shutdown my machine before I installed 10.4.8. I restarted. Did a permissions check. Installed Mac OS X 10.4.8 and the re-installed the Cisco VPN client and now it works fine."

Might be worth following these steps to see if a clean VPN client reinstall works. Good luck!

t

Oct 8, 2006 9:36 AM in response to Tony Piper

thanks, tony, but it didn't work. i even did the permissions repair when booted off a cd, and also i cleared-out another ciscovpn folder (under 'frameworks') but i'm experiencing the same problem. looks like i may have to either do a clean system install and go back to 10.4.7, or perhaps wait until .9 comes out, unless you or someone else has other thoughts. but thanks anyway. wayne

Oct 25, 2006 10:42 AM in response to Tony Piper

Tony (et al?),

Our IT guys figured out the problem or at least a workaround. Try to connect with the VPN and have it fail. Then go to system pref/network/airport/tcp-ip and there's a button for "renew DHCP lease." Click this, and all will be fine. Apparently there are some bad prefs that get wiped when this is renewed.

I don't know if it will recur, but the fix worked the first time at least.

Whew...

Wayne

Nov 7, 2006 9:28 AM in response to Tony Piper

Hi Tony,

I can absolutely confirm that 10.4.8 breaks Checkpoint Secureclient VPN. I have the same problem, the airport process loses its mind and goes to ~95% CPU. There are other threads on Airport going to ~100%, like this one:
http://discussions.apple.com/post!reply.jspa?messageID=3351318

If you remove Secureclient, the airport process works fine again.
The only workaround I have found, if you want to leave Secureclient installed, is to tell Airport not to remember preferrered networks. You have to go into the Aiport System Preference, click the Options button and uncheck the box to "Automatically add new networks to the preferred network list". You also have to delete all your existing preferred networks because the airport process seems to lose its mind when it tries to connect to a preferred network. My suspicision is that it gets caught in a loop talking to Secureclient.

This may not be a usable workaround for many, it means typing in WEP keys everytime you connect to a WiFi network, or turning off WiFi security, but it is something. It seems like a permanent solution is either an OS X patch of a new version of Secureclient.

iMac G5 17" and MacBook Pro 15" Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Nov 7, 2006 12:36 PM in response to David Murdock

Thanks for confirming this, and pointing out the other thread, David. I wondered if I was going out of my mind... glad to see that it's the airport process instead 🙂

Right now I'm running securemote in an XP session under Parallels, which works fine for now. Thank goodness for Microsoft (j/k). Given the time it took for Checkpoint to come out with the Universal Binary VPN client, I won't hold my breath waiting for them to release a fix for this problem.

cheers,

Tony.

Nov 9, 2006 8:33 AM in response to Tony Piper

Hi Tony,

I am not confident yet this is a permanent fix, but after I uninstalled SecureClient, setup my preferred wireless network, and the reinstalled SecureClient I haven't had any more runaway airport process problems.

I am not sure if this is a result of defining my preferred network first before installing SecureClient or simply the act of reinstalling SecureClient, but it is solved for me for now.

Nov 10, 2006 11:27 PM in response to David Murdock

Checkpoint SecureClient VPN is running fine on my Powerbook G4 17" 1 GHz (Mac OS X 10.4.8). However, I have the same problems with airport running at 95% CPU usage and eating up all physical memory on a MacBook Pro 15" 2.0 GHz (also running 10.4.8). I can't tell whether the problem was there before upgrading to 10.4.8, because I didn't try Checkpoint with previous OS versions. I filed a bug report with Checkpoint and talked to Apple Support over the phone, but no resolution from either side.

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10.4.8 upgrade breaks Checkpoint Secureclient VPN

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