SonicWall Mobile Connect App Reviews

I’m running Yosemite, and SonicWALL Mobile Connect does not add the VPN’s DNS server to my Mac’s configuration. This appears to be the same problem that komakino_pdx is having. The DNS server is listed on the “Monitor” tab of the interface, I can ping it, and I can even do a manual DNS lookup using that server with nslookup and specifying the server. Otherwise, the server does not appear in /etc/resolv.conf, and no other software can resolve addresses using the VPN’s DNS. For all of its problems, Netextender never had this particular issue. Having upgraded to Yosemite, I can’t use Netextender anymore without installing the old broken Java 6 runtime - no thanks.

This is a vast improvement over NetExtender - it’s faster, the user interface is improved, and it doesn’t require Java. For those who have having DNS issues, make sure that the DNS suffix is set correctly on your SonicWALL appliance - I originally had DNS resolution issues as well, and correct the DNS suffix to my company’s internal network suffix fixed the issue for me.

I usually don’t write reviews, but this code is so bad it simple does not work. When opened it stays in an endless loop of “disconnecting” which never stops.

Since upgrading to version 3.1.6, DNS does not work. I’ve tried to work with SonicWall support, but their suggestion was to use the netextender client. Prior to this version, the client worked great.

When you hit the disconnect button, it just sits there spinning endlessly. Even after force quitting and launching it again, it shows that it is trying to disconnect. Only way to shut it down is to reboot the Mac.

Will frequently say its connected when the connection is lost. Pings fail to all devices on other side. Have to close, open, reconnect, rinse, repeat to get it back. Sometimes even disable wifi or restart to get the connection back again. But it always says its connected when asked to do so

Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy. And its slow.

Configurations “save”, but once you quit the app and relaunch it, they are no longer there. This is very frustrating. Aside from that major flaw, the VPN connections work for me.

When it works it is great, but then once every few days it freezes, requiring Force to Quit. At that point any time you try again to start it it will freeze again until your Mac reboots :( Not what you expect from a professionally developed application, especially one you depend on for day to day work.

After having my staff create support tickets regarding the speed of NetExtender on OS X, I started seeking a solution- auditing bandwidth management and firewall rules on my NSA 3500, tweaking the cipher suites, ect, and the speed to bring data from the office to a remote user over SonicWall Mobile connect was always disappointing. Then I had a “what if?” and installed NetExtender client in a Windows 10 VM on the same Mac. Speedtests run through the VM/NetExtender are twice as fast as done natively through SWMC on OS X. Even old Java-needing NetExtender on OS X is faster than the shiny new App Store app. Bottom line: slow app is slow. It works, but have patience if you have to transfer files. You’re gonna be frustrated. Which basically summarizes everything around SonicWall products and MacOS.

This client works great, but you do have to set things up porperly. I had to go through a little learning curve, but got it to work fine. First of all, your SonicWall needs to have the latest formware, or at very least something within the last year or so. This is key. You cant expect a current version of a sensitive application like a VPN client to run with old firmware on the firewall? It goes against safe VPN concepts. * I had the issue with the client not disconnecting and had to reboot my older Mac, but once I updated formware on the firewall and configured the firewall porperly, the permanent disconnting error went a way. The other thing to know is that it uses “Search Domains” for DNS on the firewall side. Without proper configuration on the firewal side, nothing will resolve correctly over the VPN tunnel. This is by design. It works perfectly once you set up proper searches. The “How To” docs are ok, but not that easy to find unless you really know what to hunt for. I admit, I lamost gave up. But once I found what I was looking for, I got it configured pretty quickly and am now convinced it’s fairly decent VPN client!

When it works it seems to work fine. However, one key annoyance is whenever I return to my office having used Sonicwall to VPN in from home, the process just thrashes the CPU trying to reconnect (which it can’t from our corporate network due to how our routing rules are setup). You can kill the Sonicwall app but your CPU continues to thrash (and thereby demolishing your battery life). What you need to do is go into Activity Monitor and kill the “neagent” process. Then you’ll get your CPU and fan back. Please fix this.

After upgrading to El Capitan, netextender stopped working. After troubleshooting it briefly a forum mentioned that still Mac Store App worked. Lo and be hold it did and got us running again after upgrades. We even have 2-factor authentication. I haven’t used it long enough to test if it crashes much, but jsut being able to connect is nice.

When I move between networks (for instance when I go from office to home) , sonicwall mobile connect freezes my MacBookPro 11,3 OSX 10.11. it keeps burning CPU usage on 100% and doesn’t repond and I have to force quit it.

Like another reviewer mentioned, there is a serious flaw in this app, at least on El Capitan. Works great at first, but after disconnecting, the app will silently start consuming massive amounts of CPU and hard drive space (over 60 GB!!!) generating a torrent of error logs. It filled my hard drive and almost crashed my system before I could figure out what was going on, kill the process and clear out the log folder. Watch out!!

If disconnected from a good VPN connection then connected behind the Firewall, while still runnin the application will peg the CPU a 100% causing the need to reboot. Force quitting does not do it. Other than that it works great.

Add connection - No connection. No instructions. Does a user have to be drunk to make this work?

If you forget to shut this guy off below heading in the office beware! It jsut spools and spools until it has eaten all your RAM and starts in on your hard drive. Not only do you have to force quit the app but also the service NEAGENT. I was left with a machine that believed it only had 1 gb of space left when it really had 100. It amazes me that a bug like this can make it into the wild and for so long! It has been this way for almost a year now. Outside of that it works pretty well away from the office. I would say it connects but isn’t really connected about 25% of the time on the first attempt but disconnecting and reconnecting clears it up and from there the connection rarely drops even of the worst of hotel wifi. If not for that crazy bug I could easily give it 4/5.

Introduces hundreds of miliseconds of latency vs alternative VPN connection product, making it almost useless. In this case when used on Mac OS 10.11.3 . With SonicWall Mobile Connect: 64 bytes from X.Y.Z.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=1115.139 ms 64 bytes from X.Y.Z.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=714.865 ms 64 bytes from X.Y.Z.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=1039.439 ms 64 bytes from X.Y.Z.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=1273.709 ms With competing VPN client product: 64 bytes from X.Y.Z.1:: icmp_seq=37 ttl=64 time=305.875 ms 64 bytes from X.Y.Z.1:: icmp_seq=38 ttl=64 time=305.697 ms 64 bytes from X.Y.Z.1:: icmp_seq=39 ttl=64 time=307.430 ms 64 bytes from X.Y.Z.1:: icmp_seq=40 ttl=64 time=307.513 ms It’s fascinating how bad SonicWall client software stays year after year for the Mac environment.

It worked great on OS X yosemite but after I upgraded to El Capitan, it stopped working. I am not able to connect to my VPN for work. It connects and immediately disconnects.