[vpn-help] Shrewsoft Client Issues

[Liam]

Hi,
I am experiencing connection dropout problems using the Shrewsoft VPN 
client (both 2.1.7 and 2.2.0 Beta 2) in Windows (both XP and 7) with a 
new Netgear ProSafe FVS318N (latest firmware) which I am setting up for 
remote users to VPN into.

I have followed and repeated your Netgear How To instructions to the 
letter (http://www.shrew.net/support/wiki/HowtoNetgear) to set up an 
IPSEC VPN and the initial connection works fine but when I connect to a 
network drive and start transferring files or use Windows remote desktop 
(RDP), those connections appear to work well initially but drop out 
every 60-80 seconds every time for around 20 seconds.

The VPN remains up as I can continue pinging resources through the VPN 
the whole time and there are no VPN error messages that I can see. The 
Network tab of VPN Connection shows 1 for Established and 0 for both 
Expired and Failed. The only errors I see are from the Windows pc 
connecting to the VPN stating "The connection has been lost. Attempting 
to reconnect to your session..." for the RDP dropout and a "The network 
resource was not found" for the dropped connection to the network drive.

I tried connecting two different computers (both stable and in good 
working order) using XP and 7 to the VPN and RDP and network drive drop 
outs occur. I have tried using two different Cat5 cables with both an 
indirect connection (using another router) and a direct connection to 
the WAN port of the Netgear VPN router (using static IP's etc). I also 
tried disabling Dead Peer Detection on both the router and the VPN 
clients and it made no difference. If I connect on the LAN side of the 
router using those cables and computers, there are no issues using RDP 
or network drives.

Also, when Version 2.2.0 Beta is installed, it prompts users to update 
to version 2.1.7. This is not ideal given that the reason some users may 
be using this version in the first place is due to the Dead Peer 
Detection issue with some Netgear routers. I would suggest that update 
checks should only seek higher numbers, ie 2.2.0 to 2.2.1 etc, unless of 
course a Beta version was completely revoked.

Anyway, if anyone has any advice I would really appreciate it as I am 
not sure where to go from here.

Thanks,

Liam