Error: unable to load VPN connection editor

[krzykorzeniewski]

Distribution

Mint 21.2

Package version

Cinnamon 5.8.4

Graphics hardware in use

NVIDIA Geforce RTX 3060Ti LHR

Frequency

Always

Bug description

When trying to establish VPN connection using Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP) the following error message shows up in the "Add VPN" window: "Error: unable to load VPN connection editor". Basically when trying to establish connection using this protocol there is no option to fill Gateway, Username, password fields etc.

Steps to reproduce

1. Install sstp-client: sudo apt install sstp-client, then use sudo apt install network-manager-sstp and reset the network manager: sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager
2. Go to Network, Add VPN, select Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP)

Expected behavior

Instead of the error message being shown, there should be option to fill in neccessary information such as Gateway or User Name

Additional information

No response

[claudiux]

@k0rz3ni3wsky Once you've created your connection, use nm-connection-editor to edit it more precisely.
@leigh123linux Maybe add a direct access to nm-connection-editor from c-c-c?

[leigh123linux]

@claudiux I think the issue is bigger than that, other network plugins fail in a similar way.

[claudiux]

@leigh123linux We're not going to rewrite the NetworkManager code, are we?

[leigh123linux]

@leigh123linux We're not going to rewrite the NetworkManager code, are we?
We should consider rebasing the network code in the c-c-c network panel.

[claudiux]

@leigh123linux You're right. In particular, the different types of VPN are poorly managed. Anything else?

[ghisvail]

Same issue when setting up an OpenConnect VPN connection on Mint 22

[dkosovic]

The issue turns out to be with NetworkManager VPN plugins that are using NMACertChooser or NmaCertChooser.

With cinnamon-control-center 6.4.0 and commit b44d9ec a warning message is printed to the logs
when trying to load a GTK3 VPN plug-in like fortisslvpn, sstp, l2tp, vpnc and openconnect that are using NMACertChooser or NmaCertChooser :

** (cinnamon-control-center:3674): WARNING **: 18:00:00.500: Could not load editor VPN plugin for 'org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.l2tp' (.:259:1 Invalid object type 'NmaCertChooser').

There used to be a workaround in place for NMACertChooser but was removed with commit 0f4d212 (to fix a segmentation fault amongst other issues as described in issue linuxmint/cinnamon#10616)

Note: NMACertChooser is not a native GTK3 widget, but a widget from libnma which is a library used for integrating GUI tools with NetworkManager.

[udorronsoro]

Hi:

Any news on when this will be fixed or if there's a temporary workaround?

Thank you!

[dkosovic]

nm-connection-editor was suggested earlier as a workaround to create/edit the VPN connections.

[dkosovic]

NetworkManager-openvpn is using NMACertChooser and has the following commit to workaround the NMACertChooser issue :

• https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/NetworkManager-openvpn/-/commit/8cde95234832f10acd8f6a7c375354e948ee53c1

None of the other NetworkManager VPN plugins (fortisslvpn, sstp, l2tp, vpnc and openconnect) that use NMACertChooser have a similar workaround.

EDIT:
VPN editor plugins using NmaCertChooser or NMACertChooser bug reports or fixes :

• NetworkManager-l2tp >= 1.20.18 now include a fix for cinnamon-control-center compatibility:
  • nm-l2tp/NetworkManager-l2tp@b9ba6a6
• NetworkManager-sstp has a commit fix :
  • https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/network-manager-sstp/-/commit/76fc8eb10cafb48d1e4985ac34a1bfa62980eb69
• NetworkManager-openconnect merge request fix :
  • https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/NetworkManager-openconnect/-/merge_requests/73
• NetworkManager-vpnc bug report :
  • https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/NetworkManager-vpnc/-/issues/15
• NetworkManager-fortisslvpn has a commit fix :
  • https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/NetworkManager-fortisslvpn/-/commit/0296450f9bb8b3f34e0032103a9c5ba359553320

[TobHaeg]

@k0rz3ni3wsky Once you've created your connection, use nm-connection-editor to edit it more precisely. @leigh123linux Maybe add a direct access to nm-connection-editor from c-c-c?

Hello, i was today also struggling with this issue. The german router manufacturer AVM is using this protocol in his Fritzbox.
I'm using linux mint with cinnamon.

It took me some time to find this solution here. As it seems to take a long time to solve the problem, pleas add a hint in the error message to nm-connection-editor in the error message.

[tlvu]

Until we have a proper solution to this problem, can we have a simple work-around to add a hint in the error message to use nm-connection-editor?

For corporate users, trying to use Linux instead of Windows is already an uphill battle, adding an apparently broken VPN connection could be a deal breaker. Unless Linux Mint wants to push those brave users to Ubuntu !