OpenVPN - TLS Handshake Failing

[awexx]

I have been at this for months and cannot get it to work correctly.

I can see my laptops IP address in the router logs, and it's being picked up correctly, but failing and dropping almost as soon as the VPN client hits "MANAGEMENT: >STATE:1626558390,WAIT,,,,,,". After that, it stops there for a minute or so before spitting out an error "TLS Error: TLS key negotiation failed to occur within 60 seconds (check your network connectivity)".

All steps on the router's gateway have been followed to a tee.

I've previously seen on this forum that it's a possibility there's issues with the latest client for OpenVPN, so I downgraded to one from early 2019 (2.4.7). No dice.

Added 'remote-cert-tls server' to the end of the config. While this did get rid of the "No server certificate found" error, it didn't fix the above issue.

Can't get into NETGEAR Support chats anymore since you have to pay for support after 90 days.

Some extra info about the router:

Model: R6260

Firmware #: V1.1.0.78_1.0.1

OS I'm connecting from: Windows 10

Help on this would be appreciated.