How to force Note 9 to use Wifi with no internet

[Charltones]

Hi,

When using wifi on my local train, the connection doesn't provide internet access until you browse to a separate site after clicking through the pop up portal page. This means there is a short period when there is no internet access available via wifi and you are meant to open the browser, surf to swrstream.com and log in.

This used to work fine on my iPhone, but on the Note 9 it appears samsung is being too clever and deciding that since there is no internet through wifi I must use 4G instead. Note this is without  the 'switch to mobile data' setting turned on.

Is there any way round this? Or perhaps an app that can update routing to force use of wifi?

[ChrisM]

Hi @Charltones 

Just so we understand this fully, is your phone connecting to 4G to allow you to sign in and connect to the Wi-Fi network of the train? As an excercise, try turning your data connection off before boarding the train and then signing in through the portal page. This should still allow you to connect to the trains Wi-Fi.

Let us know how you get on.

[Charltones]

Yes correct. The phone is connected to 4G. It picks up the train wifi and pops up the wifi sign-in captive portal. On this particular train operator all this has is an 'ok' button and a link to swrstream.com which you have to open (over wifi) in your browser and then sign in before you can access the web. I know it is convoluted!

Because I think the samsung phone detects that the wifi network doesn't have a route to the internet, it flags it as 'internet may not be available' and actually routes data traffic via 4G, despite the fact that swrstream.com is available via wifi and that is what I want to connect to.

It is a good shout to turn off mobile data and see if that works. I suspect not but will report back. I'd hoped there was a setting or a hack I could do to say 'just let me use wifi without checking for internet and overruling it' but looks like there isn't.