Background logins stopped working? Blame Doze.

What Doze mode is, and why it stops the app

Doze arrived in Android 6.0 Marshmallow. When your phone is unplugged, sitting still and the screen has been off for a while, Android enters Doze and starts restricting what background apps may do — network access and CPU-heavy work in particular. For battery life it works well. For a handful of apps it is too aggressive.

WiFi Web Login is one of them, because the whole point of it is to run quietly in the background: notice you have joined a network, work out whether a captive portal is holding traffic back, and submit your details. Under Doze the app is effectively paused. So you walk into your usual coffee shop or arrive at work, your phone connects to the Wi-Fi, and nothing happens — the app was not awake to do it.

This is also why the problem looks so inconsistent. Open the app yourself and the sign-in works immediately, which makes it seem like the app is broken only when you are not looking. It is not: it is asleep.

The fix: let the app run unrestricted

You need to tell Android to leave this one app out of the strict battery rules. The wording differs between manufacturers, but the path is broadly the same everywhere.

Unrestricted or Optimised?

This is the choice that actually decides whether background sign-in works.

Optimised is the default on a fresh install, which is why this catches people who never changed a thing.

Still not working?

If the app is whitelisted and background sign-in still does not happen, something else on the phone is usually interfering.

Other battery managers

• Additional power-saving apps. Many phones ship with a second battery tool on top of Android's own, with its own separate list. Whitelisting in one does not whitelist in the other.
• Auto-start managers. Some manufacturers block apps from starting themselves after a reboot or a network change. Look for an auto-start, self-start or "protected apps" list and allow WiFi Web Login there too.
• Aggressive battery saver modes. Turning on a system-wide extreme saver overrides per-app permissions.

VPNs and VPN-based ad blockers

A captive portal has to see your traffic to know you have signed in, and a VPN stops that. Tools that work by running a local VPN — Adguard, NetGuard, Opera Max and similar ad blockers and firewalls — interfere with captive portal detection for exactly the same reason as a normal VPN, even though you may not think of them as one.

The app will tell you when it detects this. Turn the VPN off, reconnect to the Wi-Fi, let the sign-in finish, then turn it back on. Many VPN apps also have an "allow captive portal" or "trusted networks" option that handles it for you.

Check the app's own settings

• Background Login is switched on in Preferences.
• The network is not set to Manual mode in the app's menu.
• Location permission is granted. Android will not reveal the Wi-Fi network name without it, and the app needs the name to know which saved details to use.

Why the app cannot just fix this itself

A reasonable question. Battery whitelisting is deliberately something only you can grant — an app that could exempt itself from Doze would defeat the point of Doze. Android requires the choice to be made by the person who owns the phone, in the system settings, which is why this is a page of instructions rather than a button in the app.

Still stuck?

Send a diagnostic report from the network that is failing. It captures the sign-in page the app is struggling with, which is far more useful than a description.

Open Preferences, scroll to MISC and tap Send Debug Info. Do it while you are still connected to the problem network. Or just write to support@wifiweblogin.com with your phone model and Android version.

In short: Settings › Battery › App battery usage › WiFi Web Login › Unrestricted. That one change fixes the large majority of "it stopped logging me in" reports.