Pulse Secure 1.9.2 & 1.9.13 disconnecting - Intel AX200 / AX201 wifi adapters (Dell laptops)

[JohnHenrysHammer]

Hi

My firm has been using Pulse for a number of years, with no serious probems (approx. 10k staff, most of whom have been wfh for the past 18 months).

However, since introducing Dell Latitude 7400 / 7410 / 7420 laptops into the firm, we are seeing Pulse disconnecting on these devices continually and randomly. This can occur when users are actively using the devices or when devices are locked.

The only components these models (the ones we have) have in common are they are modern standby devices AND they have either the Intel AX200 or AX201 wifi adapter (wifi 6).

Is anyone seeing Pulse disconnects on devices using these wifi adapters?

We have:
- updated the wifi adapter driver to the latest available version (22.90)
- updated Pulse Secure (1.9r13)
but this made no difference, Pulse still frequently and randomly disconnected.

Can anyone advise if there is a known Pulse interoperabiity with these wifi adapters?

We see this error in the Pulse event log often around the time Pulse disconnects:

The connection Pulse VPN (ID ) encountered an error:
Network error.
System error (10054):An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.
Peer address: (removed for security)

This suggests to my mind that the Pulse backend is killing the connection, but I have no way of knowing if that is accurate.

Appreciate if anyone who has encountered this can point to the root cause.

Thanks

JHH

[[email protected]]

@JohnHenrysHammer I think the version is reversed Is it 9.1R13 and users are facing disconnects when using WiFi?

Is it happening over LAN connection as well?

Is there any user using the same WiFi model and not affected by this disconnection issue?

How frequent are these disconnects?

Do we see any network change happening during the time of disconnect, like WiFi gets reset automatically and reconnect?

In the pulse client debug logs, do you see any event with the line is no longer present after issue occured?

[JohnHenrysHammer]

Thank you for replring [email protected]

Answers below.

@JohnHenrysHammer I think the version is reversed  Is it 9.1R13 and users are facing disconnects when using WiFi?

Is it happening over LAN connection as well?

All wifi - bar one user who is connected to the LAN via cable.

Is there any user using the same WiFi model and not affected by this disconnection issue?

Yes. We have two domains. In the other domain (call it domain B), the same laptop models with same wifi adapters are being used, but with a different vpn solution (Cisco AnyConnect). There are no reports of any issues on these devices.

Only on the domain A, where Pulse is used as the vpn solution, are we seeing these frequent/random disconnects - and ONLY on these models/wifi adpaters. On older laptop models in domain A this issue does not occur.

How frequent are these disconnects?

They are random; some users report once or twice per day, others more than that. The can occur when the device is locked or when the user is actively using the laptop.

Do we see any network change happening during the time of disconnect, like WiFi gets reset automatically and reconnect?

On some but not all laptops we will see this message in the Windows event logs:

The connection CRAS VPN (ID a99d26de-1b4a-4777-9977-c958f9301f31) was disconnected due to change in routing table. Interface address changed from 192.168.0.79 to 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

In the pulse client debug logs, do you see any event with the line is no longer present after issue occured?

I'll need to check that.

[[email protected]]

@JohnHenrysHammer Thank you for the update. This appears to be matching with a common issue which I used to troubleshoot ie., Pulse Client reports the physical interface gets disconnected and reconnected causing the VPN connection to interrupt.

Windows Event log excerpt did confirm the same which is, the Interface address changed from 192.168.0.79 to 0x0000.

Does the users use in-built WiFi adapter or somekind of USB-WiFi adapter? I have seen this issue occurring when using USB adapter type WiFi cards.

[JohnHenrysHammer]

Hi

Thanks for replying.

The wifi adapters are built-in to the Dell 7410/7420 Latitude laptops.

Regards

John

[[email protected]]

@JohnHenrysHammer Please check with the latest PDC version (9.1R15) and file a support ticket with us if you still observe this issue.

[AF_LM]

Any update on this issue? I'm having a similar problem with my laptop same adapter?

Can someone post the outcome of the ticket created?

Thanks