Captive portal splash page is not automatically popping up for some clients

Hello,

We’ve had a number of complaints from WiFi users that all of the MAX series (Transit, BR1, etc.) have issues getting the captive portal to pop up the splash page immediately after logging on to a WiFi network with the portal enabled. This seems to intermittently affect all makes and models of devices we’ve tested (laptops on Windows or Linux OS, Android Smartphones, and laptops, tablets and phones using iOS.) The feedback we’ve heard, is that the splash page does not automatically pop up and navigating to any other websites, IP addresses or domains, will time out with no portal splash page interception.

The workaround we’ve discovered is that if you close all web browsers and applications that need internet access on your device, and then open a fresh browser window and navigate to a site that is not blocked / filtered (yahoo.com, etc.) that seems to prompt the portal, and you will be intercepted by the splash page. In addition to this, sometimes a full-on reboot of the client’s device is needed to make the splash page appear. This extra step is confusing to riders and we’ve had requests from customers to resolve this issue, so that the workaround is no longer needed.

Here is some feedback we have seen from our customers’ riders:

[HR][/HR]
*I usually take the 8:38 AM bus from Issaquah, and return on the same physical bus at 4:20pm from Brazil.

The WiFi on the bus has a broken initial DNS implementation. There is an interstitital browser screen that must be clicked through to access the Internet. However, this interstitial page does not load quickly when using browsing using a domain name (ie, visiting www.amazon.com). However, if you put an IP address into the browser (ie, 8.8.8.8), the interstitial page comes up right away.

Please ask the vendor to fix their WiFi implementation. It’s not obvious to riders why the wifi does not immediately work when connected with the password.
*

[HR][/HR]
And here’s another one:

[HR][/HR]*Good morning!

The ride (6:38 am) this morning from Issaquah went smoothly. However, the internet was not working. I was able to connect to the AmazonRide network but there was no internet connection. I kept receiving a message that a login using the browser is required. I opened up internet explorer but no web page can load because there was no internet. Please help in fixing this.

Thanks!
*

[HR][/HR]

In both cases it was determined that the user was timing out on any website they visited, because they had not agreed to the T&C at the captive portal splash page, but the splash page was not automatically popping up for them, so they didn’t know what to do.

I can provide diagnostic files, config files or particular units to inspect if needed. But honestly, just go set up a basic captive portal on any MAX Transit or BR1 and then connect on an iPhone or a Windows 7/8 laptop (it can happen on any device, but these two client configurations seem to have the most issues), you should have difficulty making the captive portal appear during a regular web surfing experience, especially if browser windows are already open and a current web browsing experience was in session before accessing the MAX wifi network with a portal in place.

Like I said, we already have a workaround, so we’re really looking for a solution to this issue. Let me know if you need any more from our side, and please keep me updated as you look into this issue.

Thanks!
-Tyler

Hi Tyler,

  1. This is using InControl2’ or Max’s Captive Portal?

  2. Please help to confirm which website client is trying to access and Splash failed to load. Based on the provied examples (www.yahoo.com, www.amazon.com), both are using HTTPS protocol. Fyi, page redirection for HTTPS protocol is not possible since we are not doing SSL decryption.

  1. This is using the Max’s captive portal

  2. The issue is that the captive portal does not automatically pop-up once I’ve logged in to the WiFi network. Shouldn’t the captive portal splash page auto-pop-up before the client starts navigating somewhere? If I connect on the WiFi network, with no browser open, I should expect a browser window to automatically open with a captive portal splash page so I can agree to the terms and conditions. We’re not worried about landing page redirects, we’re concerned because some users complain that they do not get the portal’s “Agree to the terms and conditions” page to show up at all.

Hi Tyler,

As mention by TK Liew previously, users/devices only will be redirected to captive portal if** HTTP traffics** is generated by the client or hitting the MAX devices. This is very important because if the website that the users/devices generated is HTTPS websites , then captive portal can’t intercept the HTTPS connection & display out the captive portal page.

Let’s discuss the auto POP-up for the captive portal when WIFI client devices successful associated to SSID that enabled with Captive Portal.

Captive portal automatically pop-up is the feature belongs to the WIFI client devices, thus it’s very important that we need to check on the WIFI devices whether the feature is supported/enabled for the devices. Even for some cases, we found the auto direction for the client may not work as expected due to different version for the client OS.

For example:
IOS device, you need to make sure “Auto-Login” is turned on.

Since the auto POP-up is beyond our control, usually we will advice if the captive portal is not pop-up, manually redirection is required.

  • Open a Internet Browser and accessing to** HTTP** website.

For the cases reported by user:

Case 1:


I usually take the 8:38 AM bus from Issaquah, and return on the same physical bus at 4:20pm from Brazil.

The WiFi on the bus has a broken initial DNS implementation. There is an interstitital browser screen that must be clicked through to access the Internet. However, this interstitial page does not load quickly when using browsing using a domain name (ie, visiting www.amazon.com). However, if you put an IP address into the browser (ie, 8.8.8.8), the interstitial page comes up right away.

Please ask the vendor to fix their WiFi implementation. It’s not obvious to riders why the wifi does not immediately work when connected with the password.


The above seen like the user is browsing to the HTTPS website. This will cause the captive portal page failed to redirected.

Case 2:


Good morning!

The ride (6:38 am) this morning from Issaquah went smoothly. However, the internet was not working. I was able to connect to the AmazonRide network but there was no internet connection. I kept receiving a message that a login using the browser is required. I opened up internet explorer but no web page can load because there was no internet. Please help in fixing this.

Thanks!


Suspect users doesn’t know how to perform the manual captive portal redirection.

Case 3:


I can provide diagnostic files, config files or particular units to inspect if needed. But honestly, just go set up a basic captive portal on any MAX Transit or BR1 and then connect on an iPhone or a Windows 7/8 laptop (it can happen on any device, but these two client configurations seem to have the most issues), you should have difficulty making the captive portal appear during a regular web surfing experience, especially if browser windows are already open and a current web browsing experience was in session before accessing the MAX wifi network with a portal in place.


Can you provide detail info for this ? As discussed, captive portal only can be directed if HTTP website is browsed.

Thank YOu

Hi all
we have the same problem that Tyler at MAXBR1 devices with Captive Portal configured at MAXBR1 or IC2.IOS 9.3.5 devices couldn’t display captive portal, because of this they can’t surfing.
Kind regards

Just to confirm the problem only happened to IOS 9.3.5 devices?