Cannot establish VPN connection (-5053)

[teaganlee]

Hi there,

I recently bought a new PC and am trying to setup a VPN connection to my workplace so I can remote into my office computer. However, upon installing Forticlient as per my workplace's instructions, I am unable to connect to their server and am receiving message "Unable to establish the VPN connection. The VPN server may be unreachable. (-5053)." 

I have a ticket open with our IT department but they're taking a while to respond, so I figured I'd post something here to see if there's any troubleshooting I can do on my end to resolve this ahead of their investigation. For reference, I have noticed and tried the following:

1) I have tried installing the version of Forticlient on my workplace website (v. 7.2.3.0929), as well as the latest version off the website directly. My workplace produces the error message and the latest version does not do anything (it resets all the credentials and doesn't attempt to connect at all)

2) Reinstalled several times using both versions

3) When I first launch Forticlient on boot, I sometimes notice that it says a connection has already been made and will need to disconnect that one. I have not launched or connected through any other device when this happens

4) I can connect on 3 difference devices I have at home without issue. This error only happens on my new computer and configuration look to be the same with my other devices

5) Interestingly, when I initially set up Forticlient, it worked the very first time. When I moved the PC into a different room, that's when it gave me the error message repeatedly

6) Reset the modem and tried it on both Ethernet connection and Wi-fi

7) Port is 10443, I think I read somewhere that there were some rules that blocked any port over 443 but not sure how to check/configure or locate where these settings are?

Not the most technical person in regards to VPN or server connectivity, so unsure where to look next to resolve this. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[oehmg8]

You can hop into the Fortigate CLI and debug the SSL VPN with 'diag debug app sslvpn -1' then enable debugging with 'diag debug en'. For an IPSec VPN you can debug the applications 'ike' or 'diag vpn ike' or 'diag vpn ipsec'. Refer to Fortinet docs for more info.

[dkochhar]

Hello @teaganlee 

Can you please set the logging on Forticlient to debugs level, export those logs and attach it here for further review.
To enable debugging, please see: https://community.fortinet.com/t5/FortiClient/Technical-Tip-How-to-enable-debug-log-in-FortiClient/t...

[teaganlee]

Thanks for the response, oehmg8 and dkochhar. I was able to resolve this yesterday after realizing that I wasn't able to find related threads because I typed in '-5053' instead of just '5053'. Through this thread I was able to resolve my connection by removing all the folders in my AppData.