Unable to access Pi-Hole from one single device but others work fine

Expected Behaviour:

I should be able to access the web interface through any device on my home network.

Actual Behaviour:

For whatever reason, my laptop has stopped being able to access the UI. I seem to be able to access it from any other device I have connected to the network. And when I parse through the UI, I can see that my Pi-Hole is very much indeed active and working. I essentially can't access the UI just through this one device, which is weird to me. It doesn't make any difference if I use a different web browser on my laptop either.

Anyone have any guesses as to why this is happening?

Guess 1:
Did you try accessing the web interface using the IP? Using pi.hole only works if Pi-hole is the DNS server for the laptop.

Guess 2:
I know you are able to access from different devices, but sometimes we forget the details.
Are you sure you are using the correct URL?

  • the protocol should br http: (not https);
  • did you include the /admin?
  • if you are using a port different than 80, you need to include it in the URL.

Guess 3:
Check if there is a firewall blocking the access from your laptop

I've always used the IP address of the Pi-Hole server itself instead of relying on a DNS entry.

Here is the logging if I run a curl on this address: curl http://192.168.x.xxx/admin/index.php -v (some data redacted)

  • Request completely sent off
    < HTTP/1.1 302 Found
    < Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
    < Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate
    < Pragma: no-cache
    < Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=9msuih5usmrs20innfk08cvffg; path=/; HttpOnly; SameSite=Strict
    < Location: login.php
    < Content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
    < X-Pi-hole: The Pi-hole Web interface is working!
    < X-Frame-Options: DENY
    < X-XSS-Protection: 0
    < X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
    < Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline';
    < X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies: none
    < Referrer-Policy: same-origin
    < Content-Length: 0
    < Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2025 16:59:01 GMT
    < Server: lighttpd/1.4.53

I was just following along but I noticed that your lighttpd version is a few years older than what is on my install ( 1.4.69 ). I'm not sure if that is significant enought to warrent the issue your seeing but it does beg the question if the system / pihole is running up to date versions.

That depends on the OS. This is probably Debian Buster.

1 Like

Please upload a debug log and post just the token URL that is generated after the log is uploaded by running the following command from the Pi-hole host terminal:

pihole -d

or do it through the Web interface:

Tools > Generate Debug Log

Here is my token URL: https://tricorder.pi-hole.net/05qBSERy/

Hi, wanted to follow up to see if you happened to be able to troubleshoot anything based on the log that I had uploaded?

Sorry.
Tokens are valid only for 48h (you can generate a new one if you like).
Yours expired and it was automatically deleted, but after reading the topic again it is clear that Pi-hole is working as expected.

Did you execute this command from your laptop?

If you did, then it is a browser or firewall issue.
If you can't run curl from your laptop, then what is the output of nslookup pi.hole (running from your laptop terminal or command line)?

Name: pi.hole
Address: 192.168.1.xxx (redacted)

So I'm getting back the IP address that I've been trying to access the admin interface from, as expected.

I've also generated a new log if you'd be able to take a look: https://tricorder.pi-hole.net/57isy61H/

Thank you! I appreciate the help.

Oh yes, I should've clarified that I did execute the curl from my laptop.

Sorry forgot to specifically reply to your message with my answers, so I wasn't sure if you would get a notification for it or not.

You don't need to reply to a specific comment.
We try to read all posts. Sometimes we miss something, but somebody else will answer.

The answer above shows your laptop is using Pi-hole as DNS server.

Note:
You don't need to redact your local private address.
It is only accessible via your local network. No one else will be able to access it.

That curl response is OK.
This means your laptop is able to connect to the Pi-hole web interface.

If the browser is not able to open the web interface, maybe there is a browser extension (or browser configuration) blocking the request.

Just one more question:

Is the laptop running MacOS?

If it is, did you try to change "Local Network" privacy setting on Mac?
I don't use MacOS, but I think this is a per browser setting.

Oh my goodness. You were right about the local network setting. I don't know when or how that got toggled off as I've always had it working in the past. But thank you again! This is a huge relief.

This is the third or forth issue I helped to solved by changing this setting and I don't even use Apple devices.

(I'm guessing here) Maybe some recent Apple update turned it off.