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VPN: On my Mac, some of the options are grayed out during installation

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1.0 - Created on 01-12-2017 Authored by Mike Caban

This issue occurs only on Macs.

If you try to install the VPN but everything is grayed out or you're getting the error 'a newer version is already installed,' this is because there is a previous installation of the Cisco Secure Client VPN still on your machine. 

  1. Check for MacOS operating system and Safari updates. Apply the latest for your current release level.
  2. Clear the Cisco Secure Client Web Browser cache and cookies. Click on the graph icon, then on General, then on Web Browser, and then click Clear Data.
  3. From the Finder go to the Application folder.
  4. Look for the "Cisco" folder and open the folder.
  5. Then double click on "Uninstall Cisco Secure Client" to start the uninstall process.
  6. Follow instructions to uninstall VPN program.
  7. Reboot.

If nothing is there, here is the procedure for manually uninstalling the Cisco Secure Client:

You will be prompted for your Mac password. This will appear blank even when you type. Once you type it, press enter, follow the steps and reboot.

In rare cases, you may need to run additional commands to force your Mac to 'forget' all of the additional components that were installed along with the VPN. 

Paste the following commands, one bullet point at a time, into Terminal. Some or all of those commands may return an error. You can ignore the errors.

8.  Check that there is no other VPN software installed on the computer. Disable or uninstall the non-UCI VPN if there is one. Check that there are no VPN configurations in System Settings=>VPN Configuration.

9. Check that there are no firewall applications that are running that are not part of UCI standard installation

10. Restart the computer

11. Download the latest VPN client from https://uci.service-now.com/sp?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0012170

12. Do NOT install the unsupported features as this will cause issues.

13. For installation and you should only have three required components:

14. Allow additional components when prompted during the installation.

15. In System Settings, verify the following:

16. Test the VPN connection starting with the "Default-UCI" connection first. 

17. If this fails, please try to connect the "UCIFull-classic" group instead. 

18. If there are still issues connecting, please run the Cisco DART program that will provide your system logs in a zip file.

19. Provide a screenshot of installed components in the Applications/Cisco folder.