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I'm on a United flight. My kid has sensibly downloaded content to watch offline on Disney+. They open the app, and it forces them to log back in, but it can't reach log in servers. Why is it trying? Because tablet auto-connected to the inflight wifi, but doesn't have an actual internet connection.

So, child locked out of local content they are authorized to view. I'm fancy, so I splurged the $8 to get "full" Wi-Fi (no streaming) on my laptop. I use the captive wifi portal on their tablet to switch full internet to their device temporarily. Try to log into Disney+… "no network connection".

Seems that "no streaming" means "no connections to streaming sites, even login". No problem, I'll just connect them to my tailnet. Of course, need to install @tailscale.com. Go to app store… no connection (no installing/updating apps either). Shit. No prob, just Quick Share the APK from my phone…

Still can't log in. State at things for way too long before remembering I have to actually set the thing to use my exit node on the ground. Finally open Disney+ app, log in, open up downloads page and disconnect all network. Child is finally able to watch their stories.

Other child... had wifi off, no problems whatsoever. I'm trying to decide who fucked up, and I'm pretty sure it's Disney+ for assuming wifi connection means "online". Pretty much breaks the point of offline downloads if you can get locked out by a network error.

Yeah I think that's the right answer. Sounds like they did the easy thing of just treating downloaded content as a local cache for the interface *behind authentication* and offline viewing only happened to work because they had a hacked in fallback for authentication if the device was fully offline.