VPN not working on Windows 10 1903

Our tablets have decided to upgrade today 24th September to this version of Windows coming from version 1809, and has broken the Windows VPN we use.

Guess I will need to remove the feature upgrade, if there is no proper fix. As our users use the VPN on the Windows Login screen which no longer works.

FYI:

Ryan Dixon and DocHoliday666 provide the answer but I wanted to add as well.

SUMMARY

VPN will not provide username and password prompt when clicking WiFi system tray icon and selecting VPN Profile to Connect (RasMan and update 1903)

Explain in more detail (optional)

ISSUE:

If you click on the Wifi icon on the system tray then select a VPN Profile name you want to connect to, you can click Connect but no username and password login prompt box will show up. Rather a spinning circle will run for minutes until it times out. After two hours with Microsoft support and escalated to Senior Systems Engineer I was provided with this bugs work around for Windows 10 Home. I feel silly as I wish I could have done the steps below soon after update 1903.

WORK AROUND

Open Network and Internet Settings -> under Network and Internet click on VPN -> select VPN Profile click Connect ->the Windows Security window will show up to Sign In enter your credentials.

AFFECTED VPN PROTOCOLS

L2TP over IPsec

PPTP

IKE

This is a very clumsy way to access VPN.   I have a few users that changed their windows update setting and were upgraded to 1903, and all ran into this issue.  I was able to figure out this issue and workaround, but again the workaround is very clumsy.

Did Microsoft give any indication they are going to fix this, or is VPN UI being deprecated from the task tray?    I tested a fresh 1903 install and it didn't exhibit this issue, only on the upgrades to 1903.

There's still no official and reliable fix for the issue...and I'm beginning to think that there'll never be. It seems that Microsoft would rather care about idiotic consumer features like changing theme colors, "video" quality, adding emoticon to touch keyboards, etc. rather than fixing core functionality of the OS like memory leaks, VPN issues, etc.

I can see the priority of these "features" for Home edition SKUs, but the things that they are introducing in updates and fixes don't mean a thing for those of us with Pro/Enterprise deployments. I really wish that they would separate the editions more and get a competent development team that understands what constitutes "quality" in servicing future editions of Windows. Each update they do does nothing but dumb down the OS more and more while making the whole Windows experience worse. 

I've actually pulled many of our 10 deployments and reimaged with Win7 or 8.1, just so we don't have to deal with the constant useless updates that make me spend a whole month (or two), twice a year, fixing stupid issues that shouldn't have occurred in the first place. Most of these issues are caused by ridiculous updates to each subsequent version of Windows that destroy all compatibility with the previous version.

Hello,

This is a known issue which originated with KB4497935 and was resolved with KB4505903. So affected users can install KB4505903 and it should solve the problem. You can also download KB4505903 using this link:

https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4505903

Details from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-information/resolved-issues-windows-10-1903:

RASMAN service may stop working and result in the error “0xc0000005”

The Remote Access Connection Manager (RASMAN) service may stop working and you may receive the error “0xc0000005” on devices where the diagnostic data level is manually configured to the non-default setting of 0. You may also receive an error in the Application section of Windows Logs in Event Viewer with Event ID 1000 referencing “svchost.exe_RasMan” and “rasman.dll”.

This issue only occurs when a VPN profile is configured as an Always On VPN (AOVPN) connection with or without device tunnel. This does not affect manual only VPN profiles or connections.

Resolution: This issue was resolved in KB4505903.

------

Another workaround: 

In Desktop, create new shortcut to C:\Windows\System32\rasphone.exe.

Double click on this shortcut and test your VPN connection now and see if it works.

Hope this helps!

Hello,

This is a known issue which originated with KB4497935 and was resolved with KB4505903. So affected users can install KB4505903 and it should solve the problem. You can also download KB4505903 using this link:

https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4505903

---

Details from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-information/resolved-issues-windows-10-1903:

RASMAN service may stop working and result in the error “0xc0000005”

The Remote Access Connection Manager (RASMAN) service may stop working and you may receive the error “0xc0000005” on devices where the diagnostic data level is manually configured to the non-default setting of 0. You may also receive an error in the Application section of Windows Logs in Event Viewer with Event ID 1000 referencing “svchost.exe_RasMan” and “rasman.dll”.

This issue only occurs when a VPN profile is configured as an Always On VPN (AOVPN) connection with or without device tunnel. This does not affect manual only VPN profiles or connections.

Resolution: This issue was resolved in KB4505903.

------

Another workaround: 

In Desktop, create new shortcut to C:\Windows\System32\rasphone.exe.

Double click on this shortcut and test your VPN connection now and see if it works.

---

Hope this helps!

This is NOT the issue at all. And, it's still not resolved. The VPN we are talking about is not an Always On VPN, so KB4505903 doesn't do a thing, even though it's already installed. It even says in the descr for the KB that it "doesn't affect manual only VPN profiles or connections".

Secondly, the "workaround" is not a solution. We need a reliable fix, not workarounds. End users don't understand the extra desktop shortcut and will 1) accidentally delete the shortcut, 2) will forget about it and continue to call IT asking why their VPN won't connect (because they used the network tray icon to attempt connect), 3) is a massive kludge for deployment (try deploying a fleet of 100+ laptops and having to create all the extra ****), 4) is absolutely workflow breaking to utilize (the user has to minimize every Window to reach the icon, if they even remember where it is located; and no, creating the shortcut elsewhere isn't a solution, as it becomes even more kludgy), and 5) breaks when a forced OS upgrade happens (yes, the upgrade has cleared the whole phonebook and requires copying in a previous .pbk file again, if you remembered to back up the changes to it, or creating all entries from scratch)

Finally, Microsoft hasn't even addressed the issue that we are discussing here. They are more worried about useless little issues with the GUI and other "consumery" features and hasn't addressed any of the serious issues with the core of the OS. On 1903 installs that do mysteriously have working VPN via the tray icon, it'll randomnly not connect. It'll spin at "Connecting..." forever and will then stop allowing any VPN connections until a full reboot has happened. Then, without changing a thing, it'll connect. There's other connectivity issues that have been complained about via the "Feedback Hub" as well as many opened support cases that are just being ignored, such as WWAN connections taking forever to initialize after user login leaving the button greyed out along with WWAN connections that never initialize completely so that the user can't enable/disable the "Let Windows manage my connection..." checkbox, leaving the user wondering why their networks, VPN, and other connections are so broke. Well, MS doesn't have bear the brunt of this ****, we do as IT.

Adding that extra work on top of having to write custom scripts that nuke useless apps, like Xbox anything, 3D printing ****, forced auto-updates (and the associated auto-reboots that cause data loss), and other useless apps that clutter up our deployments, and we've spent so much time getting our users computers functional. Well, functional until something happens with Windows Update and they get forced to another version overnight. Then, we have to do it all over again.