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Jan 09 2008

Solution to Reason 442: Failed to Enable Virtual Adapter with Cisco VPN Client on Vista x86

Wednesday, January 09, 2008 12:37 AM

UPDATED July 2008 : Please see below for updated solution to this problem

Again and again I see people complain about this error message (e.g. CISCO VPN Client Software on Windows Vista)

Secure VPN Connection Terminated locally by the Client. Reason 442: Failed to enable Virtaul Adapter

This is actually a quite easy (but annoying) thing to fix. Here's the 100% reliable method I use to fix this.

  1. In Network Connections, right-click your Cisco Systems VPN Adapter which should be disabled and enable it
     image
  2. Right-click your Cisco Systems VPN Adapter again, this time selecting "Diagnose", and you should get the following prompt (your adapter may be numbered different from Local Area Connection 3)

    image
  3. Select "Reset the network adapter ........ ", this will take a while (around 60 seconds on my laptop)

    image
  4. Windows will again prompt you saying the IP configuration is still invalid, ignore this and just press Cancel.
  5. Go back to the Network Connections, right-click your VPN Virtual Adapter and Disable.
  6. Now open Cisco VPN, and you should be able to connect without any issues.

The problem will reoccur every time the connection is not cleanly closed - i.e. suspend / hibernate / loss of signal. However all you need to do is follow the above steps and it'll reset itself.

Update: This problem has been fixed in Cisco VPN Client 5.0.03.0530. Please speak to your Cisco supplier to obtain this new version. When disconnecting from a VPN connection it appears the new client performs these actions for you automatically (it takes around 60 - 90 seconds now to disconnect from the VPN session). I am unable to redistribute the client from this site - please speak to your Cisco supplier / IT Team.

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Comments on this entry:

  1. Pavel Petrek at 1/15/2008 2:25 PM wrote:

    Thanks. Workes perfectly.



  2. stanley at 1/16/2008 2:37 PM wrote:

    Thanks a lot! I tried it (only 1 time so far) and it worked! You don't know how much frustration this has caused me (and lost time).



  3. Boopathi at 1/20/2008 3:50 PM wrote:

    Failed to Enable Virtual Network



  4. M at 1/23/2008 6:44 AM wrote:

    Thanks.



  5. Joeri Scholtens at 1/23/2008 5:13 PM wrote:

    Hmm, it doesn't work. I get the same prompt, but rather than 'local network connection ... does not have a valid IP address' it states that the computer has limited or now connection (while actually their is no connection problem at all). Any idea how to fix this?
    Thanks a lot!



  6. Margaret at 1/24/2008 12:50 PM wrote:

    Worked like a charm - thank you!



  7. Martin Noordzij at 1/25/2008 7:58 PM wrote:

    Thanks a lot. It worked immediately.



  8. krishna at 1/30/2008 3:49 AM wrote:

    i too experienced the same,

    it doesn't work. I get the same prompt, but rather than 'local network connection ... does not have a valid IP address' it states that the computer has limited or now connection (while actually their is no connection problem at all). Any idea how to fix this?

    any alternative to try for fixing this issue?

    thanks a lot!



  9. Leanne at 1/31/2008 8:45 PM wrote:

    I got the same message as above does not have a valid IP address' it states that the computer has limited or now connection

    Any ideas?



  10. Thao at 2/5/2008 8:35 AM wrote:

    Same here. I tried a number of times but didn't work. Any other suggestion will be appreciated?
    Thanks,
    Thao



  11. Casper Bang at 2/6/2008 9:23 PM wrote:

    I still get "Failed to Enable Virtual Network" :(



  12. SM at 2/7/2008 10:41 AM wrote:

    using cisco vnp 5.0.02.090
    vista business
    tried the tip
    thanks, but it did not work
    almost giving up cisco vpn on vista...
    any other option to replace cisco vpn client... how can they be so incompetent - one of the leading companies in the sector, cannot create a simple vpn client that works!?



  13. Navin Mohanta at 2/11/2008 12:33 AM wrote:

    This is how you can get rid of this.

    1. Launch the Task Manager. Go to Processes tab and select "Show processes from all users".
    2. Locate cvpnd.exe and try the reseting of the Network Adapter associated with it.
    3. If that doesn't fixes, then once again kill cvpnd.exe and try installing the client software once again in the same location.

    Hope that helps.

    Thanks,
    Navin



  14. Des Harrold at 2/15/2008 8:11 PM wrote:

    The solution using "Reset the network adapter..." did not work.

    This error first appeared on my system 2 days ago immediately after the last set of Vista updates. The VPN connection had been working perfectly for months up to that. I am going to back out all the updates to isolate the one that causes the problem.

    I will let you know.



  15. Des Harrold at 2/15/2008 9:28 PM wrote:

    My problem is definitely caused by one of the updates - I had to use system restore to the day before to get the VPN to work.

    There are 18 updates so it will take a while to figure out which one causes the problem.



  16. Des Harrold at 2/16/2008 12:49 AM wrote:

    My problem is solved - it appears to be the accumulation of updates. When I run them individually I don't now have the error. The VPN is connecting normally.



  17. Milind at 4/4/2008 2:32 PM wrote:

    The original solution worked for me only for a week or so.. Then I started getting the "limited connectivity" error message instead of "no IP address" message and it stopped working.
    I have found a solution that may be useful to others.

    I have marked the programs VPNGUI.exe and CVPND.exe to "Run as administrator" and to run in "compatibility mode for Windows XP". I have used both these settings and once it worked, not bothered to determine which one fixes the problem or whether both the settings are necessary.

    Now, whenever I reboot my PC, I get a prompt about whether to allow VPNGUI to run (since it is marked to run as administrator). But the 442 error is gone!

    Cheers..



  18. CS Shyam Sundar at 4/11/2008 6:51 AM wrote:

    Im using Windows Server 2008 as my primary Workstation OS!

    I experience the same issue. Solution is both comment 21 [ change vpngui and cvpnd to be compatible with XP SP2 and works like a charm ]



  19. tayyab at 5/4/2008 3:20 PM wrote:

    Thx dear, works great from me :P



  20. phlavius at 5/13/2008 8:08 PM wrote:

    livesaver!!



  21. vozuze at 5/16/2008 7:10 AM wrote:

    Thx , you save me



  22. Darryl at 5/22/2008 5:08 PM wrote:

    Yes, resetting the connection didn't work for me either. This is on Vista Business.

    However suggestion in comment #21 of setting compatibility mode on the 2 exe's to XP SP2 DID WORK! So thanks very much to Milind!



  23. karthik at 5/23/2008 8:10 PM wrote:

    Thank you it worked.



  24. Dave at 5/29/2008 4:55 AM wrote:

    Worked great. Thanks for taking the time to put this together in a user friendly format!!



  25. Thomas at 6/1/2008 10:24 AM wrote:

    Didnt work for me - instead I went to Control Panel, chose Repair, and then it worked again.



  26. Murat Kebabci at 6/5/2008 1:22 PM wrote:

    Thanks for the info ^^ After last Vista updates i got this error constantly and i couldn't find a good solution myself, then found this, tried every solution here and they just didnt work :) Only after i reinstalled the software, resetting the network adapter solution worked, at last i must say..

    PS: I still have no idea which update caused this problem, they were like 14-15 updates so with the time i lost now i have none to backtrack the problem :(



  27. Linda at 6/8/2008 4:37 PM wrote:

    This is not working for me... I have tryed all of the suggestions above; however I keep getting the Failed to Enable Virtual Adapter error.



  28. Satish at 6/9/2008 7:23 PM wrote:

    Thanks man....this works great!



  29. Danny at 6/10/2008 6:02 PM wrote:

    This method did not work.



  30. Dez at 6/11/2008 4:30 PM wrote:

    Thanks for the advice. I tried the first solution but it never worked, I got the low network connectivity message. I tried the compatibility method but that also failed. I then uninstalled the windows updates that I installed today and after rebooting, the client worked again. I suspect that the update that caused the client to stop working is KB950759 which is a security update for IE7 in vista although I am yet to try re-installing them.



  31. Bradg at 6/17/2008 2:22 PM wrote:

    Great, works on Server 2008 also.



  32. Chris at 6/24/2008 11:23 AM wrote:

    still getting the issue here



  33. vinhboy at 6/26/2008 4:38 AM wrote:

    If it does not work the first time, keep doing it. Sometimes I have to enable/disable my VPN adapter several times before I can connect. Hopefully there will be a real fix for this soon.



  34. Nice post!! at 7/1/2008 1:09 PM wrote:

    Thanks, it's work #1 for me..



  35. Jaykar at 7/2/2008 12:51 PM wrote:

    I tried. Still not working . I continue to seek help desperately



  36. David at 7/2/2008 10:57 PM wrote:

    Duplicate IP Address Triggers Error 442 on Windows Vista

    The following error "Reason 442: failed to enable virtual adapter" appears after Vista reports a duplicate IP address detected. Subsequent connections fail with same message, but Vista doesn't report a duplicate IP address detected

    To work around error 442, do the following steps:

    Step 1 Open "Network and Sharing Center".

    Step 2 Select "Manage Network Connections".

    Step 3 Enable the Virtual Adapter ("VA"—Cisco VPN Adapter).

    Step 4 Right-click on Cisco VPN Adapter and select "Diagnose" from the context menu.

    Step 5 Select "Reset the network adapter Local Area Connection X".

    If this procedure does not work, run the following command from cmd:

    reg add HLKM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters /v ArpRetryCount /t REGDWORD /d 0 /f

    Then reboot.

    This resolves the issue until Vista reports a duplicate IP address again. Follow the preceding steps to resolve it again.

    If that doesn't work, run the following from cmd.

    Note If you have UAC enabled, you must run cmd as administrator:

    reg add HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters /v ArpRetryCount /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

    (CSCsi26106)



  37. Cheesmanr at 7/10/2008 8:06 AM wrote:

    I still get "Failed to Enable Virtual Network"



  38. Kdub at 7/10/2008 2:55 PM wrote:

    Entering reg add HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters /v ArpRetryCount /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
    worked for a couple of days, then the error came back. So I used reg add HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters /v ArpRetryCount /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f (CSCsi26106) and that worked for a couple of days. Now nothing works this is getting stupid....any ideas?



  39. cjatfenway at 7/14/2008 5:30 PM wrote:

    This is driving me insane. I tried the approach that the original article suggested and it did work, once. After 10-15 minutes it disconnected me from the VPN again. Then I tried it again and it hasn't worked. I then also tried to set the compatibility of the vpngui.exe and cvpnd.exe to Windows XP SP2 and that also hasn't worked.

    This error is driving me insane as the only solution that has consistently worked for me is rebooting, but that's not going to work for me, especially when there are hard deadlines and/or I'm in front of clients. :(

    For the record I'm running Vista Business. This was never a problem on my previous machine, running XP.



  40. Smith at 7/16/2008 8:34 PM wrote:

    That was all it took. Thanks for the fix.



  41. Martin at 7/23/2008 5:15 PM wrote:

    Yes! Worked like a charm - thank you!



  42. Laurent at 7/24/2008 6:11 PM wrote:

    Use the windows built-in VPN. it will ask for your credentials and stuff, but will tell you it could not conenct. select the "setup conenction anyway". once created, right click on the VPN connection, click properties and in the security tab, select advanced, then settings then select "allow these protocols" and slect all of them except "automatically use my windows logon..." click ok, then yes. then try to connect again and it should work. it worked like a champ for me. hopefully it will work for you now. cisco s*#ks



  43. Yuri at 7/25/2008 2:47 PM wrote:

    Running the following line in CMD window (As administrator) fixed the problem:

    reg add HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters /v ArpRetryCount /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

    VPN started working correctly after reboot (all other methods didn't work).



  44. Edmund at 7/30/2008 6:54 PM wrote:

    This steps works perfectly.
    Thanks!



  45. John at 8/1/2008 10:00 PM wrote:

    I was getting errors and found that if I disabled some of the IPv6 stuff in the System Device Manager of Vista - it improved significantly. Note that you have to show hidden devices to see the teredo tunneling drivers.



  46. Jamal at 8/15/2008 2:06 PM wrote:

    What I did to get it to work is to just go to the cisco adapter and Enable it. Then try the Cisco VPN connection. Ours started up fine.

    It seems that our client saw the adapter get disabled and then re-enabled in seconds. Try this and let me know how it goes.



  47. Aaron at 8/18/2008 7:44 PM wrote:

    Well, I just installed 5.0.03.0560 and it has the same problem...



  48. DS-76 at 8/24/2008 10:43 AM wrote:

    Worked amazing saved me a whole day working from home thanks.



  49. Arash Ghavami at 8/26/2008 4:32 AM wrote:

    I confirm Aron's comment. I have the same version (5.0.03.056) running on Vista and still the same problem. Your solution/work around is still valid though. Thanks for sharing it.



  50. tustush at 8/31/2008 6:48 PM wrote:

    all the above did NOT work for me

    Solution (quite simple):

    Services -> Internet Connection Sharing Service

    Just stop it... de-selecting ICS on all connection did not work for me



  51. John Bryntze at 9/2/2008 8:48 PM wrote:

    Great ideas! I have found out similar tricks as the rest here and posted it on a KB:
    http://john.bryntze.net/jbkb/index.php?title=Vista-kb18_Cisco_VPN_%22Reason_442:_Failed_to_enable_Virtual_Adapter%22



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