In the Android M Developer Preview for Shamu (Nexus 6), and possibly other builds of this OS, the captive_portal_server global
is used by the OS regardless of the state of captive_portal_detection_enabled
in order to determine health of a WiFi network.
For WiFi networks, it will not only draw an exclamation mark on the strength icon, it will blacklist that SSID from auto-reconnecting if it does not successfully curl
the URL specified in the the captive_portal_server global
via that SSID. Manual reconnection is allowed but will only remain connected if you have captive_portal_detection_enabled
and choose "Use This Network As-Is" manually, each time you connect to that WiFi SSID. This override is temporary.
For mobile provider networks, the captive_portal_server
is only used to draw an exclamation mark on the strength icon but will remain connected, and traffic will flow if the connection is functional.
On your rooted device, the solution is to re-enable captive_portal_detection_enabled
if you have disabled it, connect to that WiFi network, select "Use This Network As-Is" from the drop down menu in the captive portal pop-up, disable your mobile network data to focus on determining a website that can be retrieved via your Wifi network by logging in to your captive portal and then use a browser to find one that works. After that, you can disable captive_portal_detection_enabled
to prevent the annoying pop-up.
To reenable your captive_portal_detection
, if you previously disabled it, issue the command:
settings put global captive_portal_detection_enabled 1
Disable your Mobile Network (under Settings - Data Usage - Mobile Data - Off), to force the phone to use the WiFi network for all traffic, temporarily. This will not be required once you have all of your settings where they need to be.
Android M seems to require a website that loads successfully and does not actively return a 204 (no content).
A couple of options include but are not limited to
androidcheck.kiritostudio.com
captive.apple.com
www.textise.net
the network router
localhost
127.0.0.1 (if you have an onboard simple HTTP server)
and the list goes on...
After finding one that works for your WiFi Network (often requires more imagination and attempts behind corporate web gateway proxies that do not like HTTPS traffic prior to authentication), you can save the server.
Save the server by running this in your root enabled terminal app, replacing the example URL with the one you are hoping will work:
settings put global captive_portal_server androidcheck.kiritostudio.com
Restart your device. Try it out. Once you are happy with the behavior of the Exclamation Marks on the icons, the final step is to disable the captive portal pop-up, which is one of the most unfortunate inventions of this decade.
Issue command:
settings put global captive_portal_detection_enabled 0
If you find yourself in a different country or WiFi situation where issues arise, unfortunately you will need to repeat the above from the beginning, reenabling captive_portal_detection_enabled
, restarting, finding the right server and then disabling the portal detection afterwards.