Forum Discussion

BrianG-PPN's avatar
BrianG-PPN
Brass Contributor
Jan 12, 2022

January 2022 Quality Update Breaks VPN Connections

A couple forum posts:

Re: Client VPN Error After January Windows Updates - The Meraki Community

 

KB5009543 - January 11, 2022 Breaks L2TP VPN Connections : sysadmin (reddit.com)

 

These clearly outline the issue with the latest updates breaking VPN connectivity for many Meraki VPN systems (and perhaps others). Rolling back the update resolves the issue.

 

A couple questions for the Windows update team:

1. Any idea when Microsoft will be able to review, confirm and correct this issue?

2. If Microsoft were to release a fix for this part way through the month, how would you typically recommend this get deployed? Windows update for Business doesn't allow us to control/deploy anything other than the Feature and Quality updates. Is the recommendation to just remain unpatched until the February Quality update catches things up and presumably includes a fix for the VPN issue?

  • Theo_Stauffer's avatar
    Theo_Stauffer
    Copper Contributor
    Microsoft, this is kind of critical and certainly not only for us. Our VPN does not expose any Vendor ID that can be disabled and we have 60% of our company in home office due to the pandemic. Uninstalling the security update and pausing updates for 7 days is not a good solution. Please expedite a fix.
    • maskay's avatar
      maskay
      Copper Contributor

      Theo_Stauffer good news, MS released a patch yesterday and it worked for me. you can let your windows updates go through and KB5010793 will fix the issue that was introduced by KB5009543

      • Theo_Stauffer's avatar
        Theo_Stauffer
        Copper Contributor
        Thank you so much. I really appreciate that Microsoft managed to get a fix out this rapidly.
    • Atticraider's avatar
      Atticraider
      Copper Contributor

      Theo_Stauffer 

       

      Morning,

      Currently the work around is to uninstall the windows update (KB5009543), once uninstalled you will then need to restart your PC. After you have done this you will then be able to connect to the VPN.

       

      Once you have tested the VPN connection and it was successful I would suggest to run "wushowhide" and hide the update so it doesn't reinstall until a fix has been released, however you don't need to do this bit for the VPN to work.

       

      This is just a work around until a fix has been released for this issue.

       

      Regards

      • jungzimm's avatar
        jungzimm
        Copper Contributor

        Atticraider 
        Attempts to uninstall using elevated command prompt and attempts to restore to a restore point both fail on my win10 desktop that I need to access my employer's network over l2tp (ipsec) using windows client. Is there another work around. I need this to continue in my job.

    • helviojr's avatar
      helviojr
      Copper Contributor

      The option to be renoved from IPsec server's response is Vendor ID (instead of Vector ID), according to the referred link, but there are dozens of vendor ids, with different purposes each, that are exchanged between the client an the server. For example, to negotiate dead peer detection, tunnel over NAT, Xauth authentication, many really needed to establish a tunnel. I'll try to test some configuration on server side to try to disable some.

      • Reza_Ameri's avatar
        Reza_Ameri
        Silver Contributor
        Microsoft is working on it and they will share update soon.
    • ShamnadRSA's avatar
      ShamnadRSA
      Copper Contributor
      Now we are uninstalling KB50095643 and pausing the update. on each client devices
    • BrianG-PPN's avatar
      BrianG-PPN
      Brass Contributor
      Microsoft still doesn't release these out of band updates via the Windows Update for Business release channel which is how we distribute all of our updates (using update rings in Intune). Why is this not able to be deployed and managed through Microsoft's native tools that they seem to recommend so strongly for cloud-based update management?
      • Reza_Ameri's avatar
        Reza_Ameri
        Silver Contributor
        This is like emergency update and only those affected should download it. It will be available in next cumulative update.

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