Sessions do not appear
Guests are online, but the panel does not show them.
Symptom
Sign-in succeeds and the guest browses, yet Active Sessions stays empty and the analytics and reports are missing people. A variant: the guest appears, then drops off the list after about ten minutes while the access device still shows them connected.
Check these first
- On the access device, confirm RADIUS accounting is enabled and points at the same Captivo server as authentication, on UDP port 1813.
- Confirm periodic accounting updates (interim) are enabled; one minute is a good interval.
- If the missing devices never see the portal (printers, TVs, staff phones), check whether they are in Settings → MAC Whitelist; a device that bypasses the portal is only matched to your tenant through that list.
Possible causes
Accounting is off
How to tell: Sign-in works but Active Sessions never fills, for anyone.
Fix: Enable accounting on the device and send it to Captivo on 1813. Vendor steps: pfSense, OPNsense, MikroTik.
No interim updates
How to tell: The session appears at sign-in and disappears about ten minutes later while the guest is still online; it may reappear when the guest disconnects.
Fix: Captivo treats a session as live only while the device keeps reporting it; without a signal for ten minutes the session is shown as ended. Turn on interim updates (Interim, Accounting Update Interval or similar) with a one-minute interval.
1813/UDP is blocked
How to tell: Authentication (1812) works, accounting never arrives; a firewall between the device and Captivo logs dropped packets to 1813.
Fix: Allow UDP 1813 from the device to the Captivo server. On-prem, also check the host firewall on the server itself.
MAC-bypass devices are not on the list
How to tell: Specific devices that skip the portal are missing from every list and report, while portal guests show normally.
Fix: Add the device under Settings → MAC Whitelist. The access device sends only the raw MAC address for these devices, and Captivo assigns their sessions to your tenant through that entry.
Clock and time zone
How to tell: Sessions exist but land on the wrong day in daily reports, or late-evening sessions show up under the next day.
Fix: Keep the access device's clock on NTP. Reports and lists are shown in the time zone set under Settings → General; a session that crosses midnight in that zone is counted on the day it started.
If it is still not solved
- A screenshot of the device's accounting settings
- The MAC address of a guest who is online but missing, and their sign-in time
- What the device's own session list shows for that guest
- Access device model and firmware version