WiFi Turns On Momentarily for Proxy Sites

[milliman]

I have a Note 5 running Android 5.1.1 on Sprint. I have noticed that when my Note 5 is around a WiFi access point that it knows that uses a proxy site to login that it will always try to connect no matter what my settings. If I am on a Southwest flight with my WiFi turned off, once a minute it will try to connect and bring up the proxy page for the access point even when in Airplane Mode. There is no setting that will disable it from happening. The same is true when I'm near Starbucks or any Xfinity hotspot. Even if my WiFi is turned off, the Note 5 will try to connect to the hot spot, fail, and turn back off.

I showed this issue to Samsung and they were able to replicate the issue. I was wondering if other people noticed the same problem. Does it only happen with Sprint? Does it happen with other versions of Android? If you have noticed this behavior, please explain your experience, software version, and carrier. You may even want to call Samsung so they know more people are having this issue and it increases the likelihood that they will fix it soon.

 

[Almeuit]

This is usually caused by Sprint's "Connection Optimizer". I believe you can find it in settings, more, and then somewhere under there (I can't recall the exact way since I haven't had Sprint since the S3) but that is what is forcing the WiFi to come on. Once you shut that down it should stop.

 

[milliman]

Nope. Connection Optimizer is not installed on the Note 5.