Top 7 Use Cases for Active Wall Web Filter in Schools and Enterprises

Troubleshooting Active Wall Web Filter — Common Issues & Fixes

1. Filter blocks everything

• Cause: Expired subscription, webfilter forced off, or profile misapplied.
• Fixes:
  1. Verify subscription/licensing status.
  2. Ensure web filtering is enabled in the policy/profile applied to traffic.
  3. Disable any “force-off” setting for web filtering (or equivalent).
  4. Reapply the correct web-filter profile and test.

2. Filter blocks nothing

• Cause: Service unreachable, ports blocked, profile not attached, or allow-by-default category settings.
• Fixes:
  1. Check connectivity to vendor rating servers (DNS resolution, ping/traceroute).
  2. Ensure required outbound ports (e.g., ⁄₈₈₈₈ or vendor-specified) are open.
  3. Verify web-filter profile is attached to the firewall policy and SSL inspection is configured if HTTPS inspection is needed.
  4. Check category default actions (some categories default to Allow).

3. Slow browsing or intermittent failures

• Cause: High rating/cache latency, MTU issues, proxy/SSL inspection problems, or overloaded appliance.
• Fixes:
  1. Check appliance CPU/memory and webfilter cache size; increase cache if supported.
  2. Test MTU (reduce MTU if fragmentation problems suspected).
  3. Temporarily bypass SSL inspection to see if HTTPS inspection is the cause.
  4. Review logs for repeated timeouts or long rating RTTs; consider vendor-recommended tuning.

4. Incorrect category or rating for sites

• Cause: Outdated rating database or misclassification.
• Fixes:
  1. Force a rating database update/re-sync.
  2. Use vendor “test URL” or debug command to view category assigned to a URL.
  3. Submit site for reclassification with the vendor or add a local override/allowlist entry.

5. SSL/HTTPS sites not filtered or show certificate errors

• Cause: SSL inspection not configured