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Perform a web request capture in the web browser - Android

Laurent TYGREAT
  • Updated

How to capture web requests in your Android web browser to help the Cloudi-Fi support team troubleshoot captive portal issues 

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure that you have the following prerequisites:

  • SSID configuration is complete

  • Captive portal configuration is complete

  • The authentication page is available

  • Chrome browser on both your computer and Android phone

Learn how to capture web requests in your Android web browser

If you experience some latency or access issues to the Cloudi-Fi captive portal, our support team can ask you to perform a capture of the web requests in your web browser.

This article will explain to you how to perform this task.

To capture web requests on your Android smartphone, we will use Android Debug Tools to connect your computer to Android and remotely access the browser. We will then use the "Web Developer mode" as usual to capture web requests.

1. Enable developer mode on your Android phone

  • On your Android phone, go to "Settings" > "System" > "About phone."
  • Touch the "Build number" field 7 times. You will be seeing a message as you approach the 7 touches.
  • Once complete, touch the back arrow, and the Developer options appear under Settings. Depending on your Android version, they could also be under "Settings & updates."
  • Go to "Developer options" and enable "USB debugging."

2. Connect your phone to your computer

  • Connect your phone by USB cable to your computer
  • From connection mode pop-up, select "Transfer Files / Android Auto" or allow debugging mode if you see a pop-up
  • The first time, you will see a pop-up on your phone asking to allow the RSA key of your computer. Click Allow

3. Download ADB tools on your computer

  • Download ADB from this link : https://developer.android.com/tools/releases/platform-tools
  • Unzip it. You will then have a directory named "platform-tools."
  • Launch a CMD/Powershell window from this directory
  • Run command ".\adb devices" to see if your phone is correctly attached
  • Run command " .\adb forward tcp:9222 localabstract:chrome_devtools_remote"

Powershell command - Start adb

4. Capture the web traffic with your computer

  • On your computer, open this URL on Chrome: chrome://inspect#devices
  • Wake up your phone and open your Chrome app. You should see the next screen; click on "inspect."

Remote target on Chrome inspect tool

  • On the new windows, click "Preserve log" and "Disable cache."
  • Browse to "neverssl.com”. This normally triggers the captive portal (HTTP request)

Android - Start HAR capture

Android - perform HAR capture

  • Try to register/connect on the captive portal
  • Wait some time for the requests to be complete
  • Export the .har capture and forward it to the Cloudi-Fi support team

Android - Export HAR capture

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us. How do you  contact your support? 

What’s next?

Please refer to this page for additional details regarding our Cloudi-Fi Knowledge Base.