Net speed drops 15-20 times when connected to VPN

[saurabh811]

I am using Pulse Secure version 5.3.1 on win 8.1 laptop. I use it to connect to my clients network.
Problem is my net speed drops by almost 20 times when I am connected to vpn. When not connected the speed is almost 20 times faster.
I am using internet via 4G connection thru my phone wifi hotspot. It is a very fast 4g connection. I am based in India.
Once connected with vpn the connection is so slow that I am hardly able to do anything. I have other colleagues, who use the same vpn but experience little slowdown on net when vpn is connected.
Why does my net slowdown so much when the client is connected to vpn.

[zanyterp]

Does the speed drop at the same rate when connecting through other networks (e.g. wired ethernet, non-cellular WiFi)?
When you look at the advanced connection details, is the connection showing as SSL or ESP?

[saurabh811]

It says :
Tunnel type: VPN
VPN type: ESP

Yes, when I am on landline based broad band connection, there is very less speed drop. This seems to be very prominent on 4G mobile wireless internet that I normally use.

[wprengaman]

I have the exact same problem. I am in the US. My IT guys are sure what the issue is. Id really appreciate any help at all. Connections without VNP on the same network are fine. Connect to VPN and my speed is generally less than 1Mbps

[Olivn]

Is it ESP or SSL ?
Because 8.2 still does not support TCP window scaling.

So SSL(TCP) connection works fine in the LAN but degrades as soon as the latency increase.

[arindam_bhattacharjee]

Reviving an old thread. But yes pulse secure is a very bad VPN service. It cuts down my internet speed to more than 90%. I am using FTTH broadband with 100Mbps speed. But after connecting to pulse secure speed is 5-6 Mbps only... Which is pretty bad as a VPN

[tomasso79]

I would also try to revive it, as I also do experience a similar issue with my customer.
However, when using ESP connection it is way worse, than SSL. 

The issue does not occur on all of the devices, even though they have the exact same configuration. Still, plenty of users are affected and so far we could not identify what causes these devices to cause issues.

It is present on all networks - the user's home network as well as an external network that was tested at the office.

The bandwidth of one of the networks was 80 MBit/s 

Pulse Secure ESP connection was 0,4 MBit/s - impossible to work

Pulse Secure SSL connection was around 10 MBit/s - still way too slow considering the maximum bandwidth.

Our Pulse Secure VPN Admins claim the issue has to be somewhere on the client side, referring to the error 303 found in the Pulse Secure logs. This error message doesn't tell much - according to the documentation it is:

303 error The connection encountered an error: Peer address: . A connection encountered an error. - which is really not helpful.

The machines affected are running Windows 7 and some also Windows 10.

We have performed a full cleanup of previous URA software on the affected pc's - previously it was Network Connect, now it is Pulse Secure - deleted all the Juniper and Pulse Secure software on the client with no results.

Is somebody to advise us what to look for, which might be causing this performance degradation?

Thanks in advance for providing any information that you might find useful in this context, guys.

[mbandor]

I'm having the same issue with my Pulse Secure VPN.  Our IT folks have been unable to figure out why the massive drop in speed is happening.  I've tried other ISPs and the results are the same so the issue is not my ISP or my router.  It doesn't matter if I'm direct connect to the router or WiFi.  Any ideas?

[akanoon]

Is your IT team mentioniong other folks are seeing the same issue?  I've attached a quick write-up on some troubleshooting steps.

Can you also send your tunnel connection Advanced Details (File > Connections > Advanced Connection Details...)?

Here's mine now:

[Idriss2020]

Hello,

we have the same problem the speed decrease when we use pulse secure .

help 

thanks.