The ‘VPN Service’ payload could not be installed. The VPN service could not be created.

[FidikVien]

Seen on macOS 26.1 when attempting to deploy cloudflare security profiles, this profile had worked in pervious versions.

[backstab5983]

Known issue, something changed in 26.1:

https://help.nextdns.io/t/83y1waa/macos-the-vpn-service-payload-could-not-be-installed
https://www.reddit.com/r/ControlD/comments/1ooq1iz/psa_macos_261_breaks_native_custom_dns_profiles/

Not sure what ControlD and NextDNS had to do to fix it, but they did.

[ozanaydindev]

System: MacOS 26.1

Adding the following value to the .mobileconfig file resolved the issue for the unsigned version.

<key>PayloadScope</key>
<string>System</string>