Nord Causing Consistent Connection Errors After Startup

VPN
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[Windows 10, updated yesterday – Nord is set as a Startup program – Nord is set to Auto-Connect on all connections]

I’ve been using hotel and public business wifi lately (it’s my only internet, other than phone data, atm), and Nord seems to have serious trouble with connecting to wifi that uses Login pages. I’ll connect to the wifi but with no internet, and no splash login page ever loads. And Windows, in its infinite wisdom, has supposedly removed it’s Wifi Settings one-click-method of forcing a wifi portal to load (if anyone knows of a Run or Terminal command to do this, definitely let me know).

When attempting to connect to the wifi, I’m generally “successful” connecting to the wifi itself, but then when using my browser (Chrome) I get errors such as: err_connection_reset ; err_network_changed ; err_connection_refused ; etc.

Attempts to connecting via 1.1.1.1, 8.8.8.8, or “localhost” all fail.

Very occasionally it will spit out a warning that the SSL Certificate or T** Certificate (forget the acronym but it includes a “T”) is invalid, and asks me to trust the connection; and if i don’t trust it, it simply closes the connection.But this is literally what i’m using the fucking VPN for; because this hotel refuses to recertify their SSL Certificates for their login page (and because I constantly use a VPN anyways because they’re a basic security measure).

The only way to get around it is to reset my TCP/IP Settings, set NordVPN to be dormant on startup, then connect to the wifi, then start Nord. But that method is inherently a security risk.

I might be the idiot here, so let me know, but this issue feels like it should not be an issue.

In case someone brings it up, I was able to get around the separate issue of Windows getting itself locked into the “Msftconnecttest” loop, by disabling that “helpful” feature through Registry.

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Those “login pages” are always HTTP (the unencrypted/less secure protocol) since HTTPS (what most websites nowadays use and is basically HTTP with TLS encryption) doesn’t allow redirects or hijacks, which is what Wi-Fi captive portals (login pages) need. On most public Wi-Fi’s with such login pages, you’d have to pass through the login screen to get the unrestricted connection, but with VPNs or proxies, it would be difficult since the captive portal/login page would not be able to see an insecure connection for it to hijack and prompt itself.

Despite this, if I remember correctly, I had some luck prompting the login screen on some free networks with a VPN (can’t confirm, since it happened a while ago).
In any case, try prompting it by going to an insecure website (http), like you’ve mentioned, 8.8.8.8 is one of the trusted ones, and it should allow the login page to pop up. Just make sure to open it in incognito mode, since cookies sometimes have an impact as well. Also, disable custom DNS if you have any. Oh, and based on some comments from the previous posts, some say that the “invisibility on LAN” setting should be disabled in Nord but not sure how that might help.

If still no luck, would recommend reaching out to Nord’s support - perhaps they are aware of the issue and can recommend something

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Ahhh, this is seriously good info, thank you! I appreciate the quick lesson, I didn’t realize that login pages for public wifi technically hijack your connection. It sounds like it’s sort of a consentual man-in-the-middle attack. I can definitely see what makes it so susceptible to security issues.

I’ll implement all of these – i’m having a feeling that logging in incognito will be the quickest fix, because previously I was able to make some progress by clearing cache and restarting.

Many thanks! Shooting off a report to Nord now.

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Hope that helps! And let us know if it did or if you have found another way - would be useful for others to know that might encounter a similar issue.