Hi,
I noticed a red dot indicating “offline” in the bottom right corner of my Specify 7 portal pages. But everything works just fine. Not sure why I have this warning message!? Is this normal? What does this indicate? Can I remove this warning?
Thanks
Hi @Heryk,
The ‘offline’ indicator uses the browser’s logic for determining if the device is connected to the network. This means it may appear under different circumstances depending on the operating system and browser you are using. If you are on Windows, it may be trying to reach Microsoft’s servers, which may be blocked.
See this excerpt from Mozilla’s documentation (Navigator: onLine property - Web APIs | MDN):
Browsers and operating systems leverage different heuristics to determine whether the device is online. In general, connection to LAN is considered online, even though the LAN may not have Internet access. For example, the computer may be running a virtualization software that has virtual ethernet adapters that are always “connected”.
On Windows, the online status is determined by whether it can reach a Microsoft home server, which may be blocked by firewalls or VPNs, even if the computer has Internet access. Therefore, this property is inherently unreliable, and you should not disable features based on the online status, only provide hints when the user may seem offline.
If I recall correctly, your Specify installation is behind a VPN, which leads me to believe this is the most likely cause. No features are disabled due to this message, though as long as it cannot “phone home”, it will be visible. Would you be interested in a user preference to control the visibility of this warning?
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Thank you, Grant!
Since we are operating behind a firewall, it would be quite helpful to have the option to disable this warning. This way, users won’t be unnecessarily concerned about a message that doesn’t apply to our specific configuration. Thank you once more!
Hi @Heryk,
I’ve opened a GitHub issue so this capability can be considered for future addition!
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