Some families find that installing the Circle device on their home network has some unintended side-effects related to connectivity and Internet speed. If you have issues connecting to the Internet after setting up Circle, you are in the right place.
We've organized this article based on the type of connectivity issue you're seeing. Look at the descriptions below and pick the one that seems to fit your situation best. You can find details for each by tapping the link below (or just scrolling down).
- Most things work, but one site or app seems to have connectivity problems
- One family member Profile or one particular device is having connectivity issues
- All (or nearly all) of the devices on my Wi-Fi network are having trouble connecting
- All of my devices can get online, but connectivity seems be significantly slower than before
We recommend working through each section step by step. If a step does not apply to your scenario, just move on to the next section.
For connectivity issues only on certain sites or apps
Connectivity issues for only certain sites or apps are most often caused by Filter settings on the profile your device is assigned to. Here are a few things to try:
- Reload the website: It may be that your devices just haven't caught up with the settings changes yet.
- Check the Custom Filters. Open the Custom Filters for the family member whose device is having trouble, and ensure that none of the custom entries are preventing that site or service from functioning as you would like.
- Clear the browser history (cache and cookies). Your browser may have saved information from before a site was allowed and doesn't know to let the site through. Use the settings for your browser to clear out the history and let the browser re-calibrate to Circle.
- For the affected profiles: turn off any settings that might be blocking traffic like, Bedtimes, Focus Times, or Time Limits. Does the issue resolve? You might need to check the devices assigned to that profile and make sure they are 1. assigned correctly and 2. have the settings you want.
- Make sure your Filter Settings for the profile are correct and especially be aware of our Filter Level Defaults. During the time this issue occurred you might see items listed under History >> Filtered that need set to "Allowed." Change settings for the profile if so to allow that traffic. You can also set up a Custom Filter to do so.
Is a site being Filtered that you want Allowed?
The History view will allow you to see timelines of sites that have been visited or filtered for each profile that you have set up. If a site gets filtered, it will often show up under Filtered. Here's how to allow specific sites that Circle has filtered out:
- Open the profile settings for the family member whose device is having trouble.
- Tap the History option.
- Select each website you find in there you would like to be allowed, and tap "Set as Allowed" for that family member. This will add the site to their Custom Filter as a site to always allow.
- Now, try the site again; it should load properly.
For connectivity issues that are specific to a device or profile
Sometimes connectivity issues are device specific and might not be related to Circle. You can try the following to help:
- Identify and assign your devices correctly. A misidentified device might be on the wrong profile and receiving the wrong settings, and thus blocked!
- Reboot the device with this issue. This can help with momentary connectivity problems.
- On the device with issues connecting, forget the home network then reconnect to the network. Make sure the network you connect to is the same one that Circle manages. This might resolve issues with the router resolving an IP address for your device.
- For mobile devices managed by the Circle app: install the Circle app on the device for managing over data or other networks. You may need to uninstall and then reinstall the kid app to fix any issues that may be related to software corruption. You can see more info here.
For connectivity issues that happen on all managed devices
Having connectivity issues after you assign any device to a profile, and that issue goes away after assigning the device to a “None” level profile or as “Unmanaged”? Try out the below to see if it helps your issue.
- Disable Circle from Menu >> Manage/Settings. This can help you test to see if Circle is causing the issue or not. If the issue remains while Circle is disabled you know that there is an issue elsewhere, and you may need to contact your Internet Service Provider or get some support for your network.
- Does this issue resolve after rebooting Circle or your home router? Sometimes all it takes to resolve momentary connectivity issues is a good reboot.
- Circle Parental Controls and Circle Home Plus users only: Does the issue go away if you enable Compatibility Mode in the Circle app? This might indicate an unidentified compatibility issue between your router and Circle that our compatibility check didn’t catch. Contact our team to let us know using the contact information on this site.
- Set any network or unknown devices to “Unmanaged”: Since assigning network devices or unknown devices to a managed profile can cause Circle to see and manage that traffic we recommend setting those to be “Unmanaged”. Make sure you only assign devices to managed (Adult, Teen, or Kid) profiles that you recognize.You can do so from the device list by tapping on the device then “Assigned to…” and checking “Unmanaged”.
- Try the network level fixes below. Slowdown issues may relate to your network configuration.
Network troubleshooting for connectivity issues
Are all your devices having issues connecting or seeing slowdown while Circle is enabled? After working through the above you can also test out if your network configuration is causing this problem.
- Connect your Circle device over Wi-Fi instead of Ethernet, or vice versa. Does this help the issue? Occasionally, changing how the Circle device connects to your network can help resolve connectivity issues like this.
- Make sure Circle has a good connection to the network. This can eliminate issues where devices can't reach the Internet. Try moving Circle closer to your router or connecting over Ethernet. After making a change to the connection make sure to reboot your Circle and router.
- See the section on Compatibility Mode above for help enabling that feature.
- Search our router compatibility list for your router manufacturer and model to see if there are any known issues when using Circle. Make sure to address those if there are!
- If you have two routers in the home, make sure they are set up correctly for use with Circle.
- Have a more advanced network? You may need to try setting some network settings to their defaults or off to see if the issue goes away. Keep in mind that settings like QoS, static routing, or on-device DNS can interfere with Circle’s routing/management of traffic.