Mac OS Big Sur support

[selvin.bkng]

I have accidentally upgraded to Mac OS Big Sur, since then Global Protect app is not able to connect to VPN. 

Should I expect Global Protect to work on Big Sur already? Or is it on the way? 

Thanks

[BPry]

@selvin.bkng,

You accidentally upgraded to a non-released developer preview? Something about that statement doesn't seam plausible 😉

The only agent that I've validated to work with Big Sur for our developers (and my own MacBook Pro, 'cause why not) is 5.1.4. That release works perfectly fine and so far has both handled the upgrade to Big Sur without issue if already installed, and installs perfectly fine after Big Sur has been installed. 

Enjoy Big Sur, it's a pretty massive update in all aspects. 

[selvin.bkng]

@BPry  Yeah ostensibly it doesn't seem plausible, accidentally upgrading to Big Sur. Maybe I phrased it badly. I actually intended to upgrade from Mojave to Catalina (Beta) but ended up upgrading to Big Sur. I don't regret upgrading though. All in all it's a great upgrade. Except my company hasn't yet updated the GP client from 5.0.9.

I see the reason now why it's not working anymore. Will get in touch with my company admins. Meanwhile is there any other way I can upgrade the client by myself?

Thanks

[BPry]

@selvin.bkng,

Not unless you can get a copy of the 5.1.4 pkg file. If you reach out to your internal IT, they'll be able to simply log into the support portal and download the 5.1.4 macOS GlobalProtect agent and provide it to you. 

[NorthernLightsTech]

While trying to upgrade from mojave to catalina, Big Sur Beta was downloaded. Could something have been clicked, set, or checked that would have caused this? I found a blog post that mentioned this,

"One thing I did to avoid accidentally updating my primary boot drive to the new macOS version (and also to avoid having other macOS betas installed) was to uncheck the “Automatically keep my Mac up to date” box seen in the image below."

[marcoiac]

I have non accidentally 🙂 upgraded to Big Sur yesterday. GlobalProtect doesn't seem to be working on my MacBook 12" although it's running and unkillable. When I force quit, it pops up again in Activity Monitor after a few seconds. This is like two months after Big Sur has been around, looks like. My med school was running version 4.9x and they just upgraded to 5.0x (I know this because I did not upgrade to Big Sur on another laptop). The app seems running but it's not visible and I cannot use it to start the med school VPN. Is there any suggestion/solution to this? It seems all very weird. Already contacted my IT but haven't heard a word from them yet

[BPry]

@marcoiac,

5.1 and 5.2 builds of the agent are working fine on Big Sur. If your university is still pushing out 5.0 agents the only "fix" is that they publish a newer agent or you otherwise gain access to a newer release of the agent. Your university IT staff can supply the proper PKG of a newer agent, but presently the license agreement doesn't allow me to share those files with you. 

[marcoiac]

Indeed my university IT staff just shared with me version 5.1.4 (I think) which I download from Box and installed. Then I double click on the app and I still don't see it as a menu bar item (as it used to be) even though Bartender app sees it and says it can't 'manage' it. What am I supposed to do? Activity Monitor sees it as up and running but if I can't see it I can't use it to start my VPN. Any tip? Thanks

[selvin.bkng]

@marcoiac 5.1.4 should have worked fine. But It seems to me that you have run into an infamous bug of Bug Sur Big Sur. You may find some solutions to that in this reddit thread

[BPry]

@selvin.bkng,

Personally hadn't seen that this was a bug in the beta on any of my installations, thanks for sharing the thread. 

[kiwi]

When in doubt, please check the compatibility matrix: 

Where-can-i-install-the-globalprotect-app 

Cheers !

[jdelio]

Just to let everyone know that a Blog has been written to help address this question.. 

DOTW: Palo Alto Networks Compatibility Matrix

This helps answer the MacOS Big Sur support question.