macOS keeps dropping IPv6 address???

[Monotremata 22]

Im not sure if this is a macOS issue, or an Air issue, because Ive found forum posts elsewhere with people complaining about the same sort of problems.. Figured I would ask here, ask you folks are a bit more network savvy, and I really can't stand Apple's discussion forums haha. 

 

Anyways, a summary.. 2 of the 3 servers here in Los Angeles I use are now gen 2 so Im trying to stick with the 'new way' and keep connected through IPv6 for the last few months. My Mac lately (maybe in the last few weeks), has started dropping the IPv6 address after an unspecified amount of time, and I have no idea why. I have my TCP/IP settings set so I should automatically get an IPv6 address, and my actual ISP, Spectrum/Time Warner, does in fact have it, because we have it running on our router, and I can pass an ipv6-test.com check in my sleep with it. I didn't start using it though until I joined Air back in the end of last December (might have been January), so I haven't used my ISP as a test subject yet either (because I think it mainly relies on IPv4 anyways). What happens when the Mac drops the address, it freaks Eddie out and it disconnects. Then of course, tries to reconnect but it can't. Almost immediately after it tries, it stops and says "Restart 3 secs..". And just sticks in a loop of that, and for quite awhile will ONLY try to reconnect to the same server. Eventually it'll switch to one of the two IPv4 servers I have in my list and those actually still work. Ive noticed quite a few times Ive just randomly opened Eddie while Im playing around, and noticed, its now connected to Alkes instead of Merope or Sabik. I thought it might be Eddie, but this morning I connected with Tunnelblick to Merope with IPv6, and when I came home from work at about 11:30 tonight, Tunnelblick had been stuck trying to reconnect to it for about 15 minutes, so the problem follows the VPN client, has to be the Mac? The only way I can make it stop and connect again, is to actually turn off the Airport card, and turn it back on and let it reconnect to my router and reset its local IP addresses.

 

Has any Mac user experienced this before? Is there a way to figure out how/why my Mac is dropping the connection?? This is what Eddie tells me in the log. This is from a few days ago when it happened (it happens every day sometimes multiple times, but it takes awhile).

 

 

I 2018.06.28 00:38:12 - Checking authorization ...
! 2018.06.28 00:38:13 - Connecting to Merope (United States, Los Angeles)
. 2018.06.28 00:38:13 - OpenVPN > OpenVPN 2.4.6 x86_64-apple-darwin17.5.0 [SSL (OpenSSL)] [LZO] [LZ4] [PKCS11] [MH/RECVDA] [AEAD] built on Apr 27 2018
. 2018.06.28 00:38:13 - OpenVPN > library versions: OpenSSL 1.1.0h  27 Mar 2018, LZO 2.10
. 2018.06.28 00:38:13 - Connection to OpenVPN Management Interface
. 2018.06.28 00:38:13 - OpenVPN > MANAGEMENT: TCP Socket listening on [AF_INET]127.0.0.1:3100
. 2018.06.28 00:38:13 - OpenVPN > Outgoing Control Channel Authentication: Using 160 bit message hash 'SHA1' for HMAC authentication
. 2018.06.28 00:38:13 - OpenVPN > Incoming Control Channel Authentication: Using 160 bit message hash 'SHA1' for HMAC authentication
. 2018.06.28 00:38:13 - OpenVPN > TCP/UDP: Preserving recently used remote address: [AF_INET6]2605:8680:12:3:ab8d:dd95:3c5:33a2:443
. 2018.06.28 00:38:13 - OpenVPN > Socket Buffers: R=[131072->262144] S=[131072->262144]
. 2018.06.28 00:38:13 - OpenVPN > Attempting to establish TCP connection with [AF_INET6]2605:8680:12:3:ab8d:dd95:3c5:33a2:443 [nonblock]
. 2018.06.28 00:38:13 - OpenVPN > MANAGEMENT: Client connected from [AF_INET]127.0.0.1:3100
. 2018.06.28 00:39:36 - OpenVPN > TCP: connect to [AF_INET6]2605:8680:12:3:ab8d:dd95:3c5:33a2:443 failed: Operation timed out
. 2018.06.28 00:39:36 - OpenVPN > SIGUSR1[connection failed(soft),init_instance] received, process restarting
. 2018.06.28 00:39:36 - OpenVPN > Restart pause, 5 second(s)
. 2018.06.28 00:39:36 - OpenVPN > All connections have been connect-retry-max (1) times unsuccessful, exiting
. 2018.06.28 00:39:36 - OpenVPN > Exiting due to fatal error
! 2018.06.28 00:39:36 - Disconnecting
. 2018.06.28 00:39:36 - Connection terminated.

 

And thats all I got, it just keeps looping through that same process over and over. Only way I can get it to reconnect to an IPv6 server is by shutting off wifi and turning it back on. This may have just started in OS 10.13.5, because I was using Castor a lot when it was the first Gen 2 server, and never had any problems with it, other than the slow speed because Im in California and its all the way in Belgium. Never had this trouble when Chamaeleon in Texas first became a Gen 2 server, same with Merope and Sabik first days in as Gen 2.

[xero939 0]

Hello,

 

So while I'm not an Air VPN user, I did stumble on your post doing a Google search.  I just wanted to let you know I'm running macOS 10.13.5 and I'm having similar IPv6 issues as you.  I connect a lot using Windows RDP and SSH over IPv6 and I get disconnected a lot.  It seems isolated to just my macOS machine.  My Windows machine is unaffected (I originally thought it was my router or ISP).

 

I don't have a solution, but right now I'm testing configuring my IPv6 address as static.  So far that seems to be doing the trick, but obvious is less than ideal.  I'd rather keep it set as automatic but have the router assign it statically (the last /64 anyway, as my ISP could change it at any time).

 

Currently trying to update to 10.13.6 but I'm not holding out hope that the issue will go away.

 

Sorry I don't have any other fix, but at least you know you're not alone.

[Monotremata 22]

Yeah its not just a 10.13 problem either. Ive found posts and articles elsewhere searching like you with the same problem as far back as like 10.11, and even Yosemite hah. Im guessing its just something Apple hasn't gotten finished all the way because most folks aren't really using it yet. It seems its pissing off a lot of Mac users that only have IPv6 internet access though hah.