Cisco VPN hangs on securing communications

Question

Twice now, after running the Windows Phone 8 emulator, my Cisco VPN to my client has dropped and then never worked again, hanging while securing the communication channel.

Previously, I rolled back Windows via System Restore. It's happened again and am wondering if there's another, proper fix?

Answer 1

The Windows Phone 8 emulator in the SDK runs via a Hyper-V virtual machine. It's likely that running the emulator VHD has configured the virtual network adapters in the Hyper-V feature on Windows 8.

Reboot your PC so that the Cisco VPN software is fresh and not in a funny state.

Open the Hyper-V Manager and then locate the Virtual Switch Manager on the right.

Remove (and hit Apply) on the Cisco adapter, then try the VPN connection again. Rinse and repeat for all virtual adapters until it works again.

Your emulator may lose connectivity, in which case you may need to reconfigure you local NIC in Hyper-V. On its own, this usually doesn't conflict with the Cisco VPN in the outer OS, but if it does, you know what to do.

There may be a better solution, to configure the virtual Cisco adapter in some way, but at least this will get you back on the VPN again so you can work and get paid.