Forticlient VPN white screen on Ubuntu 18.04

[Ivancn]

Hi,

We have installed two different versions (7.0.7.0246, 7.2.0.0644) of the Forticlient VPN on (at least) three different Ubuntu 18.04 systems. We always get a white screen (image attached). No further errors are shown.

I found this same issue reported in the following post but there is no real resolution to the case, the steps mentioned in the last reply of that post are not useful either:

https://community.fortinet.com/t5/Support-Forum/Blank-GUI-screen-for-Forticlient-7-0-7-VPN-on-Ubuntu...

Thank you for any ideas on how to solve this.

[Jean-Philippe_P]

Hello Ivancn, 

Thank you for using the Community Forum. I will seek to get you an answer or help. We will reply to this thread with an update as soon as possible. 

Thanks, 

[Ivancn]

I really hope to get some information. Tried to reach FortiClient's support but not being a client I was refused any help. Also I see that this issue has been posted in the forum before but no real solution was given, just a couple of band-aids:

https://community.fortinet.com/t5/Support-Forum/Forticlient-blank-screen-Ubuntu-18-04/td-p/42385

TBH i don't really like FortiNet's approach on supporting users with their black boxes.

[rtichkule]

Hello,

If you're having trouble with a white screen while using FortiClient VPN on Ubuntu 18.04, there might be a problem with compatibility between the software and the operating system.

Ensure the system running Ubuntu 18.04 is current.
Some requirements must be installed on your system before using FortiClient VPN.
Utilizing the GDebi package installer, get the FortiClient VPN package for Linux from the Fortinet support website.
Launch FortiClient VPN from the Applications menu after installation.

In the event that the steps as mentioned above are unsuccessful in fixing the problem, you can try starting FortiClient VPN with the --no-sandbox option by typing the following command in the terminal:

/opt/forticlient-sslvpn/forticlientsslvpn.sh --no-sandbox

This will start FortiClient VPN without the sandbox feature, which could help fix the white screen problem.

[Ivancn]

Hi,

I tried what you suggested, same result. White screen.

[Ivancn]

Hi,

Is there a way to contact a Fortinet programmer or support member that could help us with this? I have seen this issue reported on this forum and it has never been solved. Someone must know a solution or at least give an idea. 

Other solution would be to have a fortivpn cli sofware with sso (saml) support. Our client used previously fortivpn-cli but their VPN was "upgraded" to make use of sso (saml) and now the fortivpn-cli doesn't work. Is there any approach to use fortivpn-cli, openconnect or openfortivpn with sso/saml?

[Ivancn]

Is there a way to run this Forticlient VPN from a docker container?

[Ivancn]

I have just been reading through the forum in relation to other cases experiencing the "white screen" issue. Many of them mention to use Nvidia graphics cards. We use Nvidia cards in all of our systems. I suspect there are compatibility issues between the Fortinet VPN Gui and Nvidia drivers.

[BlueManCZ]

Hello, I found the solution to the problem here (thank you @vovan for pointing this out). The "fctsched" service needs to be running. So you can run it manually or configure it to autostart on boot. You need to run it as a root or with sudo.

/opt/forticlient/fctsched

It should probably also be possible to run as a systemd service, but I don't have systemd in my system.

This could also be improved to show the user some info instead of just a nothing-telling white screen.