Android Wi-Fi Connectivity Check Using All Spent Online Hours

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Android Wi-Fi Connectivity Check Using All Spent Online Hours

This thread has been locked for further replies. You can start a new thread to share your ideas or ask questions.
Android Wi-Fi Connectivity Check Using All Spent Online Hours
Android Wi-Fi Connectivity Check Using All Spent Online Hours
2021-05-27 19:20:42
Model: Deco M9 Plus  
Hardware Version: V2
Firmware Version: 1.5.1

I have a couple of teenagers for which I use the parental controls to limit the number of hours they can be online each day. This works fine for my daughter who has Apple devices, but not so for my son who has an Android phone. 

 

Android is sending out many requests to connectivitycheck.gstatic.com which is eating into his available hours spent online. This is effectively rendering the parental controls feature unusable for him. I have attempted to both block and allow the domain in the Deco interface but it has no effect on its count against his time spent online. 

 

My suggestion is that blocked domains in Deco should not count toward the time limit. This is not something I can easily workaround without rooting his device and disabling the captive portal functionality in Android.

 

 

  

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6 Reply
Re:Android Wi-Fi Connectivity Check Using All Spent Online Hours
2021-05-28 02:38:45

@Dapperdrake 

Hi, I searched on the internet, the request of connectivitycheck.gstatic.com is more related to some programs on the Google play store, like Pixelbook;

Have you ever installed such APPs?

Since you mentioned that the domain name has been blocked via parental control already, did it still show up on the insight>online time page?

Thank you very much.

 

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Re:Android Wi-Fi Connectivity Check Using All Spent Online Hours
2021-06-01 13:58:26

@TP-Link We don't have any Pixelbooks. Yes, his phone has apps installed from the Google Play store, that's a given since he's android based.

 

My original post shows a screenshot of insight>online time - connectivitycheck.gstatic.com is blocked but it still racks up the hours and they absolutely count toward his online time.  Also, it doesn't matter if the domain is blocked or not, its pings count toward his online time.

 

From my research, this domain is usually used by Android devices to verify connectivity to the internet - connectivitycheck.gstatic.com

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Re:Android Wi-Fi Connectivity Check Using All Spent Online Hours
2021-12-27 16:13:03

@Dapperdrake 

 

I would be interested in knowing if you ever resolved this issue.

I have a similar issue.  My daughter has a Google Mini and a laptop.  I think it's the google mini that is causing the problem using up her time.

Bit pointless having a feature htat is unusable?

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Re:Android Wi-Fi Connectivity Check Using All Spent Online Hours
2021-12-28 01:23:52

@Dapperdrake Did you find any solution? I'm having the same problem 

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Re:Android Wi-Fi Connectivity Check Using All Spent Online Hours
2021-12-28 08:32:24

Hi, The previous feedback is about connectivitycheck.gstatic.com.

So I wonder what would be your top spent-online websites under insight>history?  SeveOB @Player23 

If they were manually blocked by clicking it, would it still run out of online time?

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Re:Android Wi-Fi Connectivity Check Using All Spent Online Hours
2021-12-28 10:07:28 - last edited 2021-12-28 10:09:01

@TP-Link

 

I'm a newbie to this kind of thing.  Up til last week, I had the internet and that was about all I knew!  But it was always a bit crap.  I kinda knew what a mesh network was and that we could probably do with one, so now I have invested in a Deco M5 setup.  As part of the setup we implemented the parental controls, which is a pretty good idea actually as our kids are about to hit their teens.

But my eldest now keeps telling me that the internet won't work.  After a while I realised that her daily time limit was used up and that was why.  This works for us, great idea that we can restrict the time she spends online.

She has a laptop and a Google home mini.  I've bumped her allowance to 5 hours a day for the holidays.  She came to me yesterday saying the internet was not working again, but that she had only been on her laptop for a bout 10 minutes and played the radio on her Google home for about an hour.  I clicked through the Deco app and sure enough, it checked out, but like above, there was 4.8 hours spend on connectivitycheck.gstatic.com.

So searching the web led me to this thread.  I'm guessing that it is the mini hub doing something in the background as it is the only thing that makes sense.  She doesn't have a phone or anything else.

But why is it happening and how do I turn it off?  It is eating up her online time allowance.  I've now had to disable the parental controls on her profile.  It's a bit pointless having parental controls and restricting time if background activity means that I have to turn off the feature.

 

Oh, and why can I not right click and paste here?  I had this written in word and thought i'd be able to pop it in by pasting, but not alowed!  Very odd and meant i had to type it all out again.

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