Forticlient VPN on Mac dropping connection

[mohitaytel]

Having an issue with FortiClient VPN on my Macbook Pro M3 2023, running Sonoma 14.6.1

I connect back to my office using it and it works for about 30mins, then the connection drops.

Looking at the logs on the FW, there isn't anything indicating why the connection would be dropped at the server end, so I can only assume that the app on the laptop is what is having troubles.

Any suggestions

[ozkanaltas]

Hello @mohitaytel ,

If your connection keeps dropping for the same duration, maybe the authentication timeout for 30 minutes is configured on your firewall. If there is a configuration like this, you should change this authentication timeout value.

Is there the same problem with other users? Or does this problem happen with the macOS machines?

https://community.fortinet.com/t5/FortiGate/Technical-Tip-auth-timeout-setting-for-SSL-VPN/ta-p/2205...

https://community.fortinet.com/t5/FortiGate/Technical-Tip-SSL-VPN-connection-logout-after-8-hours/ta...

https://community.fortinet.com/t5/FortiGate/Technical-Tip-SSL-VPN-timers-explanation-and-SSL-VPN-Log...

[mohitaytel]

Hi @ozkanaltas thanks for your reply.

Chatting to my colleagues who use windows machines and they say theirs stay up until they disconnect themselves. Unfortunately I am the only person running a Mac machine so can't ask any other mac users!

[ozkanaltas]

Hi @mohitaytel ,

Does this problem occur when you are actively using the VPN connection? If your connection drops when you are not actively using it, this may be due to the idle-timeout value.

Unlike Windows computers, MacOS computers remain silent unless you initiate a request, so perhaps your connection drops while Windows users' machines remain connected.

To test this, you can continuously ping an internal server. If your connection does not drop after 30 minutes, we can say that the problem is related to the idle timeout value.

[mohitaytel]

Thanks for taking the time to respond again.

I am running a test now to see if by pinging an internal server if the connection stays up.

If it's still running this afternoon I will know that is the problem and where to go from there,

Much appreciated!