OneLinersCommand workbench
Verified diagnostic signature

OpenVPN AUTH_FAILED or inactivity timeout

OpenVPN reported an authentication, transport or TLS control-channel failure. Read the first causal line; AUTH_FAILED and inactivity are not proof that a certificate is invalid. Match this output from openvpn, then continue with sourced, read-only checks.

Confidence
high
Platforms
linux · macos · windows
Verified
2026-09-09
Recognized output

Signature matched locally

OpenVPN AUTH_FAILED or inactivity timeout

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Likely causes

What usually produces this signal

  1. Expired, not-yet-valid, revoked, or incorrectly issued peer certificate
  2. Wrong CA, certificate purpose, expected identity, or system clock
  3. Mismatched tls-crypt or tls-auth material
  4. Blocked transport, wrong endpoint, or incompatible TLS policy
Safe next checks

Collect evidence before changing the system

01

Show recent OpenVPN service logs

journalctl -u openvpn --since <since> --no-pager

The output matches the expected target and exits without an error.

02

Resolve a hostname to its IP address

dig +short <domain>

The output matches the expected target and exits without an error.

03

Check whether a TCP port accepts connections

nc -vz <host> <port>

The output matches the expected target and exits without an error.

04

Inspect a remote TLS certificate

openssl s_client -connect <host>:<port> -servername <host> </dev/null 2>/dev/null | openssl x509 -noout -subject -issuer -dates

The output matches the expected target and exits without an error.

Related signals

Other output patterns from this error family

VERIFY ERROROpenVPN reported an authentication, transport or TLS control-channel failure. Read the first causal line; AUTH_FAILED and inactivity are not proof that a certificate is invalid.peer certificate verification failureOpenVPN reported an authentication, transport or TLS control-channel failure. Read the first causal line; AUTH_FAILED and inactivity are not proof that a certificate is invalid.TLS Error: TLS handshake failedOpenVPN reported an authentication, transport or TLS control-channel failure. Read the first causal line; AUTH_FAILED and inactivity are not proof that a certificate is invalid.TLS Error: TLS key negotiation failedOpenVPN reported an authentication, transport or TLS control-channel failure. Read the first causal line; AUTH_FAILED and inactivity are not proof that a certificate is invalid.