[AntennaPod] Quits download via Wifi when using Blokada

[Krawei]

Dear team,

when I'm activating Blokada and want to download podcasts with AntennaPod I can't do it via Wifi anymore.

AntennaPod asks me to download my podcast audio files via cellular/4G instead of using my working Wifi connection.
There are no "blocked xyz" event messages from blokdada while this, but it works again when I'm disabling Blokada.

I hope I made my issue clear. Please fix this pity behaviour :).

[ghost]

Hello Krawei
We're sorry to hear that! Could you please tell us which OS you use and what filter-lists you are using so we can reproduce it :)
Regards.
Noël
P. S.: Please use the issue layout for issues to make it easier for us to get an overview of the problem.

[Krawei]

Hello Noël,

I'm using these filter lists:

AdZHosts (recommended)
Mother of all AdBlocking
"vereinheitlichte hosts-liste" (https://raw.githubunsercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts)
HPHosts ads hosts-Datei
MVPS hosts-Datei
Adaway hosts-Datei
Dan Pollock's hosts-Datei
Peter Lowe hosts-Datei
Social hosts file
Coin Blocker Lists

[Krawei]

Here is the requested issue layout:

Steps to reproduce
While connected to a Wifi and running Blockada in the background, open AntennaPod => update episodes => seek for an interesting episode => click on the download arrow.

Expected behaviour
Antennapod should download the episode without any issues.

Actual behaviour
AntennaPod asks for downloading the episode via cellular/4G. That happends when there isn't current Wifi connection.

Blokada version
3.4

Device model
BQ Aquaris X

Android version / ROM
8.1.0

Questions

How long have you been using Blokada?
Since two weeks

How long time ago has the problem started to happen?
Since the beginning.

How often does this problem happen to you?
Everytime.

[ghost]

I can confirm your problem. I will try to create a workaround if possible.
Thank you for your patience :)

[Krawei]

Thanks 👍 :)

[ghost]

I did some research and it seems that this is a VPN-specific bug. There are bugs on other VPN apps aswell that are similar to you. So I think that the only way to get rid of the bug is by temporarly deactivating Blokada for downloading the episodes at the moment.
I tried it for myself and it does not only concern Blokada but all VPN services.
I will keep trying!

Regards.
Noël

[virtadpt]

I'm seeing it, too.

Blokada: v3.4 (100500)
Blocklists: AdZHosts (yes, only one)

[hameno]

I've noticed that Pocket Casts warns about metered Wifi connection. I've contacted their support and they said, that this could be due to an active VPN. It looks like this can be fixed with P: https://developer.android.com/preview/behavior-changes#network-capabilities-vpn

EDIT: Some related issues:
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/69011592
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/68657525
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/70125374

[jawz101]

I've also had issues with PocketCasts and NetGuard. @M66B says it's an issue with LineageOS 15.1 but didn't leave specifics.

@ameshkov have you noticed issues with AdGuard on Oreo in regards to something about network connectivity changes, always-on VPN, or metered network detection?
I've noticed mention on your issue tracker of your internal pull requests 397 & 401 so I didn't know if it's something that can be ironed out with VPN apps.

@Krawei what Android version or ROM are you using?
And if you're on Oreo can you go into

Settings > Network & Internet > Data usage > Network Restrictions

and toggle your saved WiFi connection to Not metered? It's a new setting toggle in Oreo I've noticed. Perhaps Automatic sucks at figuring it out.

[ameshkov]

@jawz101

Might be the same as this one:
AdguardTeam/AdguardForAndroid#1587

Quote from there:

On Oreo, we should be calling VpnService.setUnderlyingNetworks when the tunnel is established and VpnService.Builder.setUnderlyingNetworks when we're preparing the tunnel.

Originally, it helped. Then after one of the security patches, it got back. However, it seems that there's no issue on Android P.

[jawz101]

Thanks for chiming in. I figured bringing a few VPN app developers together might be interesting :)

[Krawei]

Any updates here?

[yafp]

Just as a side note:

I am using AntennaPod as well (on a BQ Aquaris X2 device running Android 8.1) and can't reproduce this issue so far.

And AntennaPod is not whitelisted in my case.

Could your issue be related with a specific blacklist?

[alexanderadam]

I had issues as well and had to add AntennaPod to the whiltelist back then.

[virtadpt]

I explicitly whitelisted Antennapod last night, and it's working as expected now.

[alexanderadam]

I'm sure it would make sense to add AntennaPod to the default whitelist of blokada.

[thesuperzapper]

@kar

Android pi, allows VPN's to pass though the fact that the underlying connection is undeterred, you have to call setUnderlyingNetworks() like is described above.

https://developer.android.com/about/versions/pie/android-9.0-changes-all#network-capabilities-vpn

This means things like podcast apps which check for an undeterred connection to download, would be able to do it with blokada running.

[Krawei]

Seems being fixed in v3.6. No need for a whitelisting anymore.

[thesuperzapper]

Are you 100% sure @Krawei, I am still getting issues.

[ZiMilio]

@Krawei @thesuperzapper This issue it's still there for me on Blokada version 3.7 (022000). It also happens on Google Podcasts App.
I've made a bit of analysis and found that Google Podcasts not downloading when Blokada is active, no matter which kind of connection I'm using (Mobile or Wifi), no matter if the app is in the list or not (following I'll post my whitelist), no matters which DNS servers I'm using (I've tried my default ISP ones, Opndns and cloudfare), no matter which blacklist is used (I've also tried to disable all blacklists). So the problem I think is related to VPN-like connection.