What would cause "IPC Failed" error (localized description) when trying to load the VPN preferences

What would cause "IPC Failed" error …

That’s a very weird error. Does it persist after you restart the device?

Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!”
Apple Developer Relations, Developer Technical Support, Core OS/Hardware

let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@apple.com"

Yes, it persists on the device as well as in the XCode simulator.

Honestly, I’m at a loss here. I tried what you suggested, at least as far as I can tell, and it works just fine. Here’s exactly what I did:

1. I’m working with Xcode 9.0b4 running on macOS 10.12.6 targeting iOS 11.0b4.

2. I created a new app from the iOS > Single View App template.

3. In the Capabilities tab of the target editor, I enabled Personal VPN.

4. In

   ViewController.swift

   I added the following code to the end of the

   viewDidLoad()

   method:

   NEVPNManager.shared().loadFromPreferences { (error) in
       if let error = error as NSError? {
           NSLog("error, %@ / %d", error.domain, error.code)
           return
       }
       NSLog("success")
   }

   I also added an import of the

   NetworkExtension

   framework so that it would compile.

5. I ran the app on the device.

As expected, it printed:

2017-08-03 11:26:30.034255+0100 VPNTest[631:181487] success

Please repeat this test and let me know what you get.

Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!”
Apple Developer Relations, Developer Technical Support, Core OS/Hardware

let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@apple.com"

Hi,

ok, I did everything you asked except that my device is 10.3, iTunes does not give me the option to update to 11.0 yet. Everything else was the same. I ran your example code and it worked as you expected. So I then tried your code in the simulator and it failed as it did before. I then tried my code in the simulator and it failed. So I restarted everything, Mac, device, etc. Opened xcode and ran my code first without any simulator ever having been run and I did NOT get the IPC Error. I did however get an error starting the vpn connection, probably because the ip address is a string of x's. 😉 So it appears that the simulator has something to do with this. While I would like to be able to use the simulator, I have limited access to different devices, I can still move forward with what I have. I will just make sure that I use only the actual device. I realize that this is anecdotal only with no real evidence to point a finger at the simulator. But at this point in time I need to move forward with what I know works and not spend time troubleshooting something that may be a configuration issue on my mac. Thank you for your help!

So it appears that the simulator has something to do with this.

Ah, I didn’t realise that you were working with the simulator here. In that case there’s a straightforward answer: Network Extension framework is not supported in the simulator. For more background on why this is the case, see this post.

Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!”
Apple Developer Relations, Developer Technical Support, Core OS/Hardware

let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@apple.com"