Hi everyone,
I wanted to post an update on an issue I was having with OpenVPN on my PiFi setup, in case anyone else runs into the same problem!
Original Setup & Problem:
- Device: Raspberry Pi 4
- OS: PiFi (OpenWrt 23.05.2)
- OpenVPN Version: 2.5.8
My OpenVPN setup used to work perfectly a couple of months ago. However, when trying to set it up again recently using a newly downloaded .ovpn configuration file from my provider, the VPN would never complete the connection and stayed stuck on “Connecting, this may take a few moments”.
- For UDP, the logs showed:
UDP link remote: [AF_INET]xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:53TLS Error: TLS key negotiation failed to occur within 60 secondsTLS Error: TLS handshake failed(Note: DNS resolution and pings to the server worked fine). - For TCP, it failed immediately with:
Options error: --explicit-exit-notify can only be used with --proto udp
Solution:
It turns out that the newest .ovpn configuration files released by the VPN provider (following major updates around mid-2026) include directives or parameters no longer compatible with OpenVPN 2.5.8 on PiFi.
The Fix: Reverting to an older .ovpn configuration file from before July 2026 completely fixed the issue. The connection establishes immediately as expected.
If you are experiencing similar TLS handshake errors or options errors after importing new configuration files, try downloading/rolling back to an older version of your provider’s .ovpn files!