How to debug grayed out VPN connection in Network Manager?

Solution 1:

I had the same issue on Ubuntu 12.10 and fixed it by restarting nm-applet like this...

killall nm-applet
nm-applet --sm-disable &

Try installing network-manager-openvpn and network-manager-vpnc and linux-pptp.

sudo apt-get install network-manager-vpnc network-manager-openvpn linux-pptp

I know it's PPTP but it can't hurt to try this.

If that doesn't work, try this:

Backup /etc/network/interfaces to /etc/network/interfaces.original.
Delete all lines from /etc/network/interfaces not including the string "lo" (leaving two lines, probably the first two, beginning auto and iface).
Reboot.

Hope this works for ya!

From http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=974882