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

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

This issue occurs only on Macs.

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

First check if it is still installed:

  1. From the Finder go to the Application folder.
  2. Look for the "Cisco" folder and open the folder.
  3. Then double click on "Uninstall Anyconnect" start uninstall process.
  4. Follow instructions to uninstall VPN program.
  5. Reboot.

If nothing is there here is the procedure for manually uninstalling the AnyConnect client:

You will be prompted for your password. Once you enter it, just follow the steps and reboot.

If you are still having problems, run this command from the Terminal and then reboot:

          sudo pkgutil --forget com.cisco.pkg.anyconnect.vpn

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.