VPN works then minutes later doesn't work

[fkiwergrower]

Hello,

I just started in this role with my new company. I am trying to use VPN to connect from home. It will connect for a few minutes and then disconnect. And then when I right click on the client the VPN option isn't even there and it won't be restored until I have gone back to work and connected to the regular network there. Where do I begin to troubleshoot this issue? It's baffling.

Thank You,

Greg

[SteveG]

As always with networking there are multiple ways to tackle this issue. For the moment I'll assume you don't have access to the Fortigate firewall which the VPN is terminating on. First off I'd run a packet capture on your PC to understand what's happening at a packet level. For instance are you seeing packets being sent to the VPN and not getting a response?

Also worth checking your home router has 'Allow IPSec VPN' enable as sometimes this does need to be enabled otherwise you'll see stuff like this happen. From what you're saying it sounds like the IPSec keep alives are being dropped. If you have access to the Fortigate I'd run a "diag sniff packet any 'host your.public.ip' 4 0 a" again to check if packets that leave your home PC are reaching the firewall.