KB44010 - After upgrading to Pulse Desktop Client (for macOS) 9.0R1 and above, end users receive "1205 Unable to setup virtual adapter"

This article describes an issue where end user are receiving the error message of "1205 Unable to setup virtual adapter" when connecting to Pulse Connect Secure after upgrading to Pulse Desktop Client 9.0R1 and above.

When attempting to connect to Pulse Connect Secure (PCS) device after upgrading to Pulse Desktop Client (for macOS) 9.0R1 and above, end user may receive the following error message:

1205 Unable to setup virtual adapter

In the debuglog.log, the following entries will appear:

dsAccessService dsTMService p0664 t6273 PulseFirewall.mm:61 - 'firewallAPI' 
Waiting for driver to become available
...
dsAccessService dsTMService p0664 t6273 PulseFirewall.mm:79 - 'firewallAPI' Failed to load kext
dsAccessService dsTMService p0664 t6273 PulseFwRulesManager.cpp:204 - 'PulseFwRulesManager' 
Error loading fwKext during addRulesByCategory for category=1
dsAccessService dsTMService p0664 t6273 FwKextFilterImpl.cpp:574 - 'FI' Error enabling FwKext filter
dsAccessService dsTMService p0664 t6273 tunnel2.cpp:603 - 'TM'  Enable EnforcementPolicy failed 0xe0000001
dsAccessService iveConnectionMethod p0664 t6273 ncAdapter.cpp:298 - 'ncAccessMethod' 
Can't connect to TM Inteface: 0xe0000001

Additionally, end user can run the following command via terminal:

sudo kextload /Library/Extensions/PulseSecureFirewall.kext

This will result in a "Not Found" error message.

This issue occurs due to failing to load the Pulse Secure Firewall kernel extension (kext) due to installation failures.

In some rare instances, the kernel extension may fail to install properly during the Pulse Desktop Client installation and can be resolved by uninstall and reinstall of the client.

If the problem persist, Pulse Secure does recommend to open a support ticket and reference the following knowledge base article.