Unable to connect through a captive portal

Help
,
1

I am trying to use a public WiFi network that uses a captive portal. When I start the computer and connect to the WiFi network, I see a message asking me to log in. When I click on it, Chrome (which is my default browser) is launched and goes to networkcheck.kde.org at which point it just stops. I get the following message:

This site can't be reached
networkcheck.kde.org unexpectedly closed the connection

When I try going to detectportal.firefox.com/canonical.html instead, I see that I get redirected to a captive portal url but end up with the same error message but with a different url instead of networkcheck.kde.org.

I know that the captive portal is working fine because my phone (iOS) and windows laptops connect without any issues. How do I troubleshoot this?

2

I don’t quite understand what was wrong to begin with but running the following did the trick [source]:

xdg-open http://$(ip --oneline route get 8.8.8.8 | awk '{print $3}')
3

This command essentially looks up your routers ip adress and runs xdg-open with that ip.
Example: xdg-open http://192.168.1.1

4

This command essentially looks up your routers ip adress and runs xdg-open with that ip.

Yup, I figured as much.

But the question remains… why did I have to do that? Why did networkcheck.kde.org (or detectportal.firefox.com or even Apple’s captive portal detecting URL that I used) not able to figure that out on their own? Where is the system failing and how can I figure that out? Right now, it’s just a complaint that the feature is not working as advertised. If I could be a bit more constructive and provide details about where things are failing (they might very well be something on my end) there may be a path forward to a resolution.

1 Like
5

Good questions.

Is the router also your nameserver (DNS server?)

In the thread you posted your solution from it mentiones and links to information about systemd-resolve and dnsmasq.

Maybe there is something here that is creating problems for you.
Could be a networkmanager thing.

6

I am not sure how to check that. This is not my router. It is at the place I work and I have no control over most of the stuff.

I tried almost everything in that thread. Really, the only thing that worked for me in the end was what I have posted. Admittedly, I (still) do not know entirely what I was doing other than just trying things out.

7

Not so sure it has to do with dns any more after reading a little.
But you can find what dns is configured with:
cat /etc/resolv.conf

I have ideas, but since you are on Neon, I think it is better someone on that distro would advice.

Everything I find on the internet seems to one way or another point back to the arch wiki, so you could try creating the script from there and test.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NetworkManager#Captive_portals

8

This is what I have in my /etc/resolv.conf:

nameserver 127.0.0.53
options edns0 trust-ad
search .

I am currently not connected to my work WiFi, in case that matters. I can check the contents of this file again when I am at work to see if something has changed.

9

Getting the same issue with KDE Plasma on Arch Linux running NetworkManager, systemd-resolv and iwd backend for wifi. When I click on “log In” button on the Network applet , it opens networkcheck.kde.org but its fails to open the captive portal with the following error:

image
image819Ă—344 32.6 KB

But http://nmcheck.gnome.org/check_network_status.txt and other URLs work fine. I tried changing config files in /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/, /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d. But still it opens networkcheck.kde.org and fails.
I even tried making changes /usr/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.networkmanagement/contents/ui/main.qml but still clicking the button opens networkcheck.kde.org.

10

Yup, networkcheck.kde.org has been nothing but a pain for me. I don’t think it really ever worked for me. I use detectportal.firefox.com/canonical.html instead.

11

One observation – when I go to networkcheck.kde.org from a Chrome Incognito window, it works as expected.

@Lavish – can you please give it a try too see if that helps in your case as well?