network manager openvpn "invalid VPN secrets"

When using network-manager-openvpn and network-manager-openvpn-gnome in Ubuntu 13.10 to log into a commercial VPN provider, I consistently got an "invalid VPN secrets" error. I did NOT get this error if I called openvpn and the identical conf file from the command line, leading me to believe that this is not an issue with the openvpn package itself.

Complete removal and reinstallation did not resolve the issue.

The workaround from the the site's forum is that you cannot use any special characters in your VPN password. Sure enough, removing the '!' from my password cured the symptom and network-manager operates as required. The VPN provider has downgraded the quality of my password from 'excellent' to 'good' because I no longer have any special characters in it. At this point I have not tested any other special characters.

I believe that proper operation of the package(s) would allow [encourage?] use of special characters in passwords.

Ubuntu 13.10 3.11.0-15-generic
network-manager-openvpn 0.9.8.2-1ubuntu2
network-manager-openvpn-gnome 0.9.8.2-1ubuntu2
openvpn 2.3.2-4ubuntu1

Thanks to all those who contribute!