Randomly redirecting me to a login page for my Huawei modem

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Randomly redirecting me to a login page for my Huawei modem

jerryb

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#243376 9-Dec-2018 07:50

Hi everyone.
Just hoping someone can shed some light / educate me on this...

First - the equipment...
LG G6 cellphone, running Android 8.0.0
Huawei 4G B315s-607 broadband modem

Activity...
Browsing at home, over a wireless connection between my phone and the modem

Here's what's happening...
When going from one website to another, I occasionally get redirected to a login screen for the modem.
It never happens when I'm going to different pages within the same website.
It can happen when I click a link from a Google search, or if I just type a web address directly and hit enter.
Most of the time when I re-try (e.g. by clicking on the same link), I get the same redirect. But if I type in the web address, it works fine.
Occasionally it happens even when I haven't clicked a link (i.e. I typed the website name). When that happens, I back out, re-try and it seems to work.
There's no obvious pattern. It might happen for a website today and the same website might be fine tomorrow.

Background info...
I've had this modem for quite a while (2 years?) and it's only started happening in the last few months (3 months maybe)
I've never logged into the modem (it's a plug 'n' play thing, without any user configurable options as far as I can remember, and it worked from day 1). I don't even know if there is a username or password.
I recently did a factory reset on my phone (for unrelated reasons) but that's made no difference - I was seeing these problems before the reset and I'm still seeing them now.
It's never happened when using my laptop or desktop. Just my phone (which is how I connect to the web, most of the time)

I'll see if I can upload a couple of screen captures...

This first one from when I was deleting a bunch of redirects from the browser memory - I started typing "Spark" and it displayed a long list of the redirects that it had done...

And this one from a different day, showing the page that I get redirected to...

Any thoughts?

(edited to add captions to the screen captures)

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5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2141847 9-Dec-2018 08:02

And, for those of you that enjoy conspiracy theories, I tried posting that message 4 times from my house (using the setup above). Failed every time.

But here I am sitting in a cafe, and it worked first time (same phone, over Spark's normal 4G network).

Where's my tin hat? :-)

cyril7

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#2141874 9-Dec-2018 09:25

My guess is the dnsmasq service in the Huawei has lost the plot and doing dns redirects to itself, if you manually change the dns of a laptop to say 8.8.8.8 for a test does it fix.

Cyril

DarthKermit

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#2141875 9-Dec-2018 09:28

jerryb: And, for those of you that enjoy conspiracy theories, I tried posting that message 4 times from my house (using the setup above). Failed every time.

But here I am sitting in a cafe, and it worked first time (same phone, over Spark's normal 4G network).

Where's my tin hat? :-)

You've obviously pissed off the Chinese government and now the NSA and GCSB are making your life difficult.

chevrolux

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#2141916 9-Dec-2018 10:47

That would normally happen when the WAN down - i.e. "no internet connection".

Is the DSL and Internet light on the router when this happens?

jerryb

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2141919 9-Dec-2018 10:59

cyril7: My guess is the dnsmasq service in the Huawei has lost the plot and doing dns redirects to itself, if you manually change the dns of a laptop to say 8.8.8.8 for a test does it fix.

Cyril

Thanks, I'll give that a go when I'm home, and I'll report back.

DarthKermit:
jerryb: And, for those of you that enjoy conspiracy theories, I tried posting that message 4 times from my house (using the setup above). Failed every time.

But here I am sitting in a cafe, and it worked first time (same phone, over Spark's normal 4G network).

Where's my tin hat? :-)

You've obviously pissed off the Chinese government and now the NSA and GCSB are making your life difficult.

And as if that isn't bad enough, every time I put on my tin hat, it seems to start transmitting stuff. (It's a Huawei HTH 2000)

chevrolux:
That would normally happen when the WAN down - i.e. "no internet connection".

Is the DSL and Internet light on the router when this happens?

I must admit, I've never checked. My gut feel is that the internet connection is ok, because I'm able to browse as normal immediately before and after. But I guess it could be intermittent short outages. I'll have a look the next time it happens.

Thanks everyone for the replies so far.

toejam316

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#2142046 9-Dec-2018 14:43

Your router updated, and it's now hijacking your DNS requests MITM style to request you finish off the update process - basically asks you to turn on auto update (highly recommended by anyone who has to deal with these damn routers, because of stuff like this LTEM update), agree to the Huawei Terms of Service, change the router default access password from admin, and optionally, change your WiFi name and password.

It'll keep bothering you until you deal to it, so I'd suggest just quickly doing it and leaving it at that. For the sake of simplicity, if you don't have a specific secure admin password to set, I recommended my customers to utilize %OurISPName%Admin - hard to forget that, hopefully.

Anything I say is the ramblings of an ill informed, opinionated so-and-so, and not representative of any of my past, present or future employers, and is also probably best disregarded.

hio77

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#2142056 9-Dec-2018 14:52

toejam316:

basically asks you to turn on auto update

This is controlled from our end, not the CPE side.

chevrolux:

That would normally happen when the WAN down - i.e. "no internet connection".

Is the DSL and Internet light on the router when this happens?

This is what it will be. Although that's a 4G modem.

Have you tried speaking to the center? sounds to me like for some reason it's dropping signal.

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toejam316

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#2142057 9-Dec-2018 14:55

hio77:

toejam316:

basically asks you to turn on auto update

This is controlled from our end, not the CPE side.

chevrolux:

That would normally happen when the WAN down - i.e. "no internet connection".

Is the DSL and Internet light on the router when this happens?

This is what it will be. Although that's a 4G modem.

Have you tried speaking to the center? sounds to me like for some reason it's dropping signal.

Huh - Sure wish the red team could say the same! Would've saved me a massive headache.

Anything I say is the ramblings of an ill informed, opinionated so-and-so, and not representative of any of my past, present or future employers, and is also probably best disregarded.

hio77

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#2142059 9-Dec-2018 14:56

toejam316:

Huh - Sure wish the red team could say the same! Would've saved me a massive headache.

I'm surprised if they dont.

they manage their other modems..

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

Asterus

12 posts

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#2196711 12-Mar-2019 18:40

Howdy folks!

The kind peoples of Geekzone kindly unlocked this thread for me so that I can seek (hopefully) your viewpoints or advice on how to proceed as I, too, have the same issue as did or does JerryB, the originator of this thread.

Background

About 4 or 5 weeks ago (maybe a tad longer, can't quite recall, today being Tues 12 Mar 2019) my Huawei wireless modem (supplied by Spark - they have two types, not really material at this stage methinks as to which one I have) started randomly redirecting my webpages to the modem's login address. Didn't take me too long to figure out what was going on.

I thought I'd be able to avoid this by doing something in my Firefox's settings, but no go. Also, I couldn't really find anything in the Windows 7 Pro registry that would help, either.

This forced redirecting really annoyed me. So I did access my Huawei modem and log in. Despite the Huawei menu on the left being visible, albeit greyed out, the only options available to me were to "Update", and to accept the TOS ("Terms of Service", or whatever it was called, can't remember now, but you know what I mean).

After reading the TOS there was no way I was going to accept that at all. It is conceivable (or maybe obvious to those in the know) that there may have been a Huawei TOS that I accepted when I originally used the modem well over a year ago. But this latest one, nope, I aint gonna accept it. Why?

Paranoia and Conspiracy Theory

Well, as already alluded to in one or two of the replies to this thread regarding paranoia and conspiracy theory, perhaps I am a little bit that way inclined in connection with the company Huawei (I wasn't at the time when I got the service - didn't know anything about it). But now, well, I guess I am somewhat concerned. And hence my trepidation to proceed with the accepting of the TOS and the update.

Forced Update

I am concerned what hio77 and toejam316 stated where one states that the updating is done from their end and not the CPE end (CPE, is that Customer Premises Equipment?). But if from "their end", well, whose end? Is this referring to a company? My supplier is Spark. Can they arbitrarily access my Huawei modem and force it to update, and as per the associated comments in this thread force the end user to complete this process by logging into the modem and accept the TOS and then do the update? This is extremely annoying.

So, where to from here?

If I am resolute in my desiring to not go ahead and simply update and accept the TOS, what are my options? Is there any way to avoid the continual redirecting that this Huawei wireless modem is forcing on me? If not, are there any other wireless modem vendors besides Huawei that I can avail myself to, notwithstanding that they, too, may have some similar mechanism like the Huawei. But at the moment I am ignorant of any deviousness attributable to them like what has been publicized regarding Huawei. And as such I am prepared to purchase a new wireless modem and burn the Huawei one.

Closing comments

Folks, As I am not overly technically inclined, but I do have some sensibilities that come with age, I do apologise if what I have stated above has any inaccuracies or contradictions. I am very security conscious on the internet, and I do not like being forced into anything that I am unsure of. In all probability I am making a mountain out of a molehill. But I hope you understand my concerns and can assist me in making a decision one way or another, or provide some alternative solution to my predicament.

Thanks and regards,

Asterus.

hio77

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#2196718 12-Mar-2019 19:06

if your having this the issue with the redirections, please reach out to the live chat or callcenter folk and they will be able to support it.

For a spark modem, you should not get any request to update. this is all remote managed (as are your configurations for voice, data etc)

Currently spark only supports the hauwei device. It's locked to it.

Also will be dead obvious that something is a miss and thus picked up on.

As for your comments regarding TOS and Remote access, Please have a read of the following thread.

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=49&topicid=214760

i will simply clarify, This is completed over standard TR069. There is no secret Hauwei backdoor used - The same platform is used still to remote manage technicolor modems and even Chorus ONT's.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

Asterus

12 posts

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#2196852 13-Mar-2019 01:43

Hello hio77,

Appreciate your taking the time to reply and provide me with a recommendation.

I did read through that link to the TR069/ACS thread - I think I got the gist of it; seemed to me to tie in with your summary at the end of your reply to me.

I'll see if I can use my supplier's live chat and/or the call center and see what they say.

So, thank you again!

Asterus.

nunz

1421 posts

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#2197002 13-Mar-2019 09:50

jerryb: Hi everyone.
Just hoping someone can shed some light / educate me on this...

First - the equipment...
LG G6 cellphone, running Android 8.0.0
Huawei 4G B315s-607 broadband modem

Activity...
Browsing at home, over a wireless connection between my phone and the modem

Here's what's happening...
When going from one website to another, I occasionally get redirected to a login screen for the modem.
It never happens when I'm going to different pages within the same website.
It can happen when I click a link from a Google search, or if I just type a web address directly and hit enter.
Most of the time when I re-try (e.g. by clicking on the same link), I get the same redirect. But if I type in the web address, it works fine.
Occasionally it happens even when I haven't clicked a link (i.e. I typed the website name). When that happens, I back out, re-try and it seems to work.
There's no obvious pattern. It might happen for a website today and the same website might be fine tomorrow.

Background info...
I've had this modem for quite a while (2 years?) and it's only started happening in the last few months (3 months maybe)
I've never logged into the modem (it's a plug 'n' play thing, without any user configurable options as far as I can remember, and it worked from day 1). I don't even know if there is a username or password.
I recently did a factory reset on my phone (for unrelated reasons) but that's made no difference - I was seeing these problems before the reset and I'm still seeing them now.
It's never happened when using my laptop or desktop. Just my phone (which is how I connect to the web, most of the time)

I'll see if I can upload a couple of screen captures...

This first one from when I was deleting a bunch of redirects from the browser memory - I started typing "Spark" and it displayed a long list of the redirects that it had done...

And this one from a different day, showing the page that I get redirected to...

Any thoughts?

(edited to add captions to the screen captures)

Happening to us too. However DSL up and down like a yoyo for the last 8 or so days. It seems tied to the internet signal.

BUT going to secure sites seems to lead to a certificate signed bu huawei in the padlocked section of the address bar. Is the modem man in the middling data traffic?

Fixed redirect and cert issues by throwing away the huawei and replacing it with another router.

Asterus

12 posts

Geek

#2197161 13-Mar-2019 11:26

Hello nunz,

May I ask what brand of wireless modem did you get to replace your Huawei, and where did you get it from? I'd like to consider getting a replacement one too if I am unsuccessful in sorting out the issue I am facing.

Thanks,

Asterus.

freitasm

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#2197219 13-Mar-2019 12:13

Reading the message in the OP and reading of a similar case with a different provider in the USA, I think your broadband account might have some problem and the router is confused.

Please turn off the the router for about 15 minutes. Then turn on again and see if it happens.

If it does then your best option would be to contact a Spark support agent. Explain you have a problem with the router and the account settings might have something to do with that.

Good luck - I predict this will be an uphill battle but should be simple to get fixed once escalated.

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