Pulse hangs on waiting to connect

[RD]

hi,

Recently I have 3 users who are facing this issue. The Pulse Secure Connect Desktop client just simply gets stuck on the Waiting to Connect dialog. No error, nothing. If I do forget saved settings then the login box appears. After entering the credentials once it again stay in waiting to connect. Nothing happens.

Client: Pulse Secure Desktop Client (various versions 9.0.1, 9.1.2 and even the latest version).

OS: WIndows 10 Build 2004, 1903 and 1909.

I have the Juniper SRX240 to which it connects and has xauth configured for AD authentication.

This started suddenly. No config changes were made to the firewall.

Tshooting steps tried:

1. Unsinstalling Pulse. Deleting residue folders of Pulse and Juniper from ProgramData, Program filesx86, user app data (local and roaming), deleted the jnpra files from system32\drivers also. Also manually removed registry entries on one system. No joy.

2. I upgraded 1 user from 1903 who was having this issue to 2004 build. It started working. But then stopped after a day with the same error.

3. Tried changing ISP (wifi, lan, mobile data hotspot). Nothing works.

4. Other user credentials also do not work. Same issue. That means its not a user related issue.

That user can login to Pulse from another system.

5. If after clicking forget saved settings if the user enters his credentials incorrectly the Pulse client gives an error that credentials rejected by firewall. This means that the problem is post authentication. But I do not see any entries in the KMD-logs file on the firewall for the problem user or the IP of his system.

6. Also unisntalled and re-installed network drivers (LAN and wifi). Tried older drivers as well. No help.

Can someone help in this? I know there are topics from 2017 in this forum but no solution yet.

[[email protected]]

If you expand the connection details, do you see any error code?

[youlingxiaozhuzhu]

I am facing the same issue. 

The pulse secure works fine after I reinstall it; but facing the same problem once I restart my laptop. The error message is 'Network error'.

The pulse secure alsk works fine in another test account. 

My OS is MacOS Catalina 10.15.2

[chris meechan]

I had come across this issue with a few of our staff. I had also tried all of the steps outlined by the OP to no avail. Ultimately, what I found with the affected users was that the hosts file on their PC had been altered, corrupted, or not restored to default value. Unknown at this stage how this occurred as these users to do not have admin credential. The default contents of the hosts file wis changed during a VPN session to

'#For NC, no new entry above, between this and next comments'

followed by MAC address and VPN host and nothing else.

So it seems the hosts file never restores after VPN session, perhaps a PC crashing stops the disconnect process and hosts file reverting to default value.

Restoring the original hosts file resolved the issue in both cases. Have not been able to replaicate this or have an understanding of how it occurred in the first place. But my recommendation is to check hosts file. Would be nice for Pulse support to respond on this case?

[[email protected]]

@chris meechan Hosts file restoration issue was resolved in some older Pulse Client codes, please open a support ticket with the Pulse Client debug and procmon logs for review.

[Nishika]

Did you got any workaround for this issue ? I am trying to connect pulse with wifi and it is stuck in connecting .. . With mobile hotspot it is working fine . Please let me know if anyone has any idea where the problem persist . In the wifi side or pulse side . 

[[email protected]]

@Nishika Are you able to access the Internet when connected to Wifi? Is it only the access to pulse VPN not working? Are you able to resolve the VPNserver hostname and ping the IP address?

[peterb]

Having the same issue here. Can you describe how you restored the original hosts file? Where is that file located, and how should it be modified in order to be restored?

[SallyB]

It is now Feb 2022 - I cannot see any solutions given to this problem.

Pulse starts fine and accepts my login but then cycles between "waiting to connect" and "connect" no error message but no progress.

Did anyone find out what the fix is to this problem?  If not where do I report it?

Thank you

Sally

[darrell2nc]

It's now June lf 2022 and Pulse Secure is still not working properly.  Toggle between Waiting to Connect and Connecting but never connects.  Using on Mac with Catalina 10.15.7.  Any ideas yet?  

-Darrell