Gnome Network Manager failing to connect

I set up my network manager, and was able to set up a VPN, but when I go can click the on/off slider, it blinks and stays off. I get this error is the syslog:

<info> [1537687904.4383] audit: op="connection-activate" uuid="9bf2cf6b-c8d5-4fed-b12a-467ed7fd7ea5" name="dev" pid=6615 uid=1000 result="success"
gnome-shell[1619]: JS ERROR: TypeError: item is undefined#012setActiveConnections/<@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/status/network.js:1518:17#012setActiveConnections@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/status/network.js:1515:9#012wrapper@resource:///org/gnome/gjs/modules/_legacy.js:82:22#012_syncVpnConnections@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/status/network.js:1853:9#012wrapper@resource:///org/gnome/gjs/modules/_legacy.js:82:22
NetworkManager[1068]: <info> [1537687904.4453] vpn-connection[0x559af12262d0,9bf2cf6b-c8d5-4fed-b12a-467ed7fd7ea5,"dev",0]: Started the VPN service, PID 7191
NetworkManager[1068]: <info> [1537687904.4526] vpn-connection[0x559af12262d0,9bf2cf6b-c8d5-4fed-b12a-467ed7fd7ea5,"dev",0]: Saw the service appear; activating connection
gnome-shell[2726]: Invalid VPN service type (cannot find authentication binary)
gnome-shell[2726]: Invalid VPN service type (cannot find authentication binary)
NetworkManager[1068]: <error> [1537687904.4788] vpn-connection[0x559af12262d0,9bf2cf6b-c8d5-4fed-b12a-467ed7fd7ea5,"dev",0]: Failed to request VPN secrets #3: No agents were available for this request.
NetworkManager[1068]: <info> [1537687904.4799] vpn-connection[0x559af12262d0,9bf2cf6b-c8d5-4fed-b12a-467ed7fd7ea5,"dev",0]: VPN service disappeared

Google has some bugs listed from years ago, but nothing recent. Any Ideas?

oh, and the command line is working fine.

2 Answers

In my case it helped to install

sudo apt install network-manager-openvpn-gnome 

Because syslog contained hints that

/usr/lib/NetworkManager/nm-openvpn-auth-dialog

cannot be found.

You do not mention whether or not you have a visible nm-applet .

What worked for me was to follow this page:

Basically, you press the Alt-F2 keys and search the /usr/bin for for the nm-applet , select it and allow it to run with each startup.

Then I used this page:

In my case I then imported data from downloaded configuration files from the VPN service, but yours may be different.

ETA: In my case I also need to run sudo apt-get install openvpn network-manager-openvpn. Then it worked fine.