Nintendo Switch Blank "Registration is required to use this network" Page

[Matthew_K]

We're trying to get some Nintendo switches on our Meraki wireless network to support Teen programs my organization is running, only problem is that none of us can get any of the devices to connect to any of our SSIDs. It appears to take the PSK and it looks like it connects to the Network Device, but then the switch attempts for an internet connection that fails and then a message will show up on the Nintendo switch stating "Registration is required to use this network" (This is even for SSIDs that have the splash page disabled.) but when you proceed to the next screen, where you would accept a splash agreement (if there is supposed to be one), the page is white/blank except for the upper left corner which just states "Ok".

One time I tried to connecting to our standard guest network, which has a splash page, and it allowed me to accept the agreement and it even showed our company website for a moment as expected (so I got excited), but when I backed up the connection didn't hold. I haven't been able to get it do that again, even after forgetting/clearing the guest network, power cycling the Nintendo switch, and trying to reconnect.

I've tried spinning a whole new SSID too, that was open (no encryption), no splash page, set with external DHCP server assigned/bridged mode, no VLAN tagging, no group policies by device type - and still the same as mentioned above.

I found another post related to Nintendo Switches and Meraki wireless requiring port forwarding but it sounds to me that they can connect to their SSID and have access to the eShop/OS updates - just not online play.

I'm scratching my head on this one, anyone have some ideas?

Thanks.

[ww]

Are you using a firewall or meraki mx or dns service doing some content filtering/blocking?

[Matthew_K]

Hi WW,

Before making this post, I tested making a new SSID from scratch, which had no firewall & traffic shaping on the Meraki side, but the same behavior I detailed was observed. I'm planning on connecting with some of my colleagues to see if we can dive into our firewall appliance's settings to see if we're blocking traffic - but I was thinking that the Nintendo switch should still be able to get onto our network before that would really apply. (I could see our firewall settings limiting online play, but not flat out preventing a device from getting on the network in the first place.)

[Matthew_K]

I found an article on how to connect your Nintendo Switch to a wired connection, and the same observations are observed. (It requires registration.) This shows that the issue is not isolated to the Meraki Wireless system - and it must be something else going on in our network (E.g. Firewall settings.) Since this finding rules out Meraki Wireless - I don't think further discussion on this post is needed any further as it would be out of the Meraki scope.

Thank you everyone who viewed and commented.

[Matthew_K · Accepted solution]

Even though it wasn't a Meraki specific issue, here is the solution. (Just in case someone else is searching the internet for the same issue and bumps into this thread.)

We needed to make an HTTP exception in our Watchguard Firewall.

When a Nintendo Switch connects to a network it immediately tries to connect to ctest.cdn.nintendo.net and it wants to get a response in a specific way. It looks like our HTTP Proxy was stripping some of that information, so it was failing - and the Nintendo Switch was interpreting this as there being a splash page needing a confirmation from the user first before it could join the network. (Hence why it was asking for the user to register to use the network.) An HTTP-Proxy exemption allows devices to connect to ctest.cdn.nintendo.net and then it finalizes connecting to a network.

https://www.reddit.com/r/networking/comments/10dau9j/anyone_know_how_to_register_a_nintendo_switch_t...

https://www.watchguard.com/help/docs/help-center/en-US/Content/en-US/Fireware/proxies/http/http_prox...