unable to access surfshark via openvpn

[vjer2021]

Ther is a very concise tutorial on the surfshark website on how to access their vpn on pfsense via openvpn. I followed said tutorial but i am unable to get it to work. i must confess that the complexities of vpns in general as well as openvpn are a little above my paygrade but i followed the steps word for word to no avail. the interface it creates on opt one remains down at all times.
i checked the logs and openvpn connects, grabs an ip address and disconnects without giving any reason.

the last attempted connect of the log is below

Oct 17 08:12:37 openvpn 80631 event_wait : Interrupted system call (code=4)
Oct 17 08:12:37 openvpn 80631 SIGTERM received, sending exit notification to peer
Oct 17 08:12:38 openvpn 80631 SIGTERM[soft,exit-with-notification] received, process exiting
Oct 17 08:12:38 openvpn 43005 WARNING: file '/var/etc/openvpn/client1/up' is group or others accessible
Oct 17 08:12:38 openvpn 43005 OpenVPN 2.5.2 amd64-portbld-freebsd12.2 [SSL (OpenSSL)] [LZO] [LZ4] [MH/RECVDA] [AEAD] built on Jun 24 2021
Oct 17 08:12:38 openvpn 43005 library versions: OpenSSL 1.1.1k-freebsd 25 Mar 2021, LZO 2.10
Oct 17 08:12:38 openvpn 43119 MANAGEMENT: unix domain socket listening on /var/etc/openvpn/client1/sock
Oct 17 08:12:38 openvpn 43119 NOTE: the current --script-security setting may allow this configuration to call user-defined scripts
Oct 17 08:12:38 openvpn 43119 WARNING: experimental option --capath /var/etc/openvpn/client1/ca
Oct 17 08:12:38 openvpn 43119 Outgoing Control Channel Authentication: Using 512 bit message hash 'SHA3-512' for HMAC authentication
Oct 17 08:12:38 openvpn 43119 Incoming Control Channel Authentication: Using 512 bit message hash 'SHA3-512' for HMAC authentication
Oct 17 08:12:38 openvpn 43119 TCP/UDP: Preserving recently used remote address: [AF_INET]193.37.252.195:1194
Oct 17 08:12:38 openvpn 43119 Socket Buffers: R=[42080->42080] S=[57344->57344]
Oct 17 08:12:38 openvpn 43119 UDPv4 link local (bound): [AF_INET]192.168.253.158:0
Oct 17 08:12:38 openvpn 43119 UDPv4 link remote: [AF_INET]193.37.252.195:1194
Oct 17 08:12:43 openvpn 43119 MANAGEMENT: Client connected from /var/etc/openvpn/client1/sock
Oct 17 08:12:43 openvpn 43119 MANAGEMENT: CMD 'state 1'
Oct 17 08:12:43 openvpn 43119 MANAGEMENT: Client disconnected

any idea what is going on?
Thank you

[Bob.Dig]

@vjer2021 First it is SHA512 not SHA-3 512.

[vjer2021]

@bob-dig said in unable to access surfshark via openvpn:

@vjer2021 First it is SHA512 not SHA-3 512.

low and behold, that solved. it. thank you Bob. You're a gentleman and a scholar. and curse my eyesight.