If your organization use Pulse Secure (PS) VPN software to connect to institutional e-resources such as HPC, database, or repository and you are having a connection issue (keep disconnecting after just a few seconds) well you are not alone. After a minute of searching in Google, you will find many people are having the same issue. What is so disappointing about this is, a lot of threads have "Solved" tags, but no real solution is given.
In this short blog, I would like to share my solution. First thing first, I am using windows 11 and working somewhere in UAE (I think it should also work with windows 10). When reporting the issue to IT administrator, I was given a recent version of PS Launcher (in my case 9.1.13 build 12971). They told me to remove the old one before using the latest one. I tried doing that and the issue is gotten worse. The new PS launcher can not even detect the setting from the institution server/network.
My workaround is as follow:
- Install the old version (the one that has some issue in the first place).
- Get the secure connection setting from your institution's server.
- Close PS: right-click the bottom-right corner PS icon and choose "exit".
- Install the PS latest version (do not uninstall the previous version).
- Restart your machine.
- Try connecting via The Pulse Secure as you would normally do.
I know that this solution is not elegant in any way, but it works for me. I waste quite a lot of time trying to troubleshoot this issue and frankly speaking really disappointed with Pulse Secure and the company behind it.
Hopefully, this short blog can help others save their precious time.
Cheers,
</Taufik Sutanto>
UAE, 27-March-2022
PS: You can not download the latest PS launcher app from the company website, you have to ask your IT administrator in your institution for it (another bummer -_-" ).
