Not able to access websites when Charles Proxy is opened (Windows 10)

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I downloaded the app Charles Proxy, I added the certificate and I can confirm that the Charles certificate is in my certlm (Certificate Manager) in the "Trusted Root Certification" folder, I had also enabled SSL Proxying to include this location: "*:443" which I believe means that I want to see all data coming in.

I'm not sure what the problem is, but whenever I open up Charles Proxy, it doesn't allow me to access any websites, all the data coming in Charles is coming in as status: "Blocked"

I'm using Windows 10 if that helps. I didn't have this issue on MacOS, Help is appreciated!

4 Answers

Here was the solution to my problem:

First quit Charles. Then go to the Internet Options in your Control Panel. Go to the Connections tab. Click on the LAN Settings. You’ll see a Proxy panel. Uncheck the Use a Proxy checkbox. Click OK until you’ve closed the Internet Options.

Then opened up Charles Log, go to Tools -> Allow List and make sure "Enable Allow List" is unchecked.

I suggest you check Windows proxy settings as your applications are most probably trying to communicate on a wrong IP/port proxy address matching.

Open cmd (Windows+R, cmd, Enter). Execute:

rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL inetcpl.cpl,,4

Click on LAN settings, then check Use a proxy server for your LAN.

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Click Advanced button near Address and Port labels.

Define your addresses and ports here. I once had a task that required me to check all incoming and outgoing HTTP/HTTPS connections from my machine, so I set on HTTP field the address 127.0.0.1 with port 8888 and checked the option "Use the same proxy server for all protocols". If you want a finer control, you leave this option unchecked set different ports to handle FTP and Socks connections. Those ports are used by Charles. Check those settings in Charles Proxy as well!

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Click Ok, then click Ok again.

On Charles, in Proxy-Proxy settings, make sure the port numbers are the same for the relative protocols as you set up before in the Windows proxy page.

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I personally have never used Charles on a Windows machine but it sounds like your browser isn't configured to run through the proxy. Firefox use to have an add-on for Charles but now you have to manually enter the proxy ip to intercept the data. I'm not sure if you can use any other browsers on Windows with Charles, but use Firefox and go to Preferences > Network Settings > Manual Proxy Configuration and add your machine's ip address and the default Charles port 8888. Also make sure to check the checkbox to allow HTTPS. Save these changes and you should be good to go.

I don't have a Windows machine to try any of this out, but I've always found the documentation helpful.

There may be something that you've overlooked in the configuration, ssl proxying or ssl certificates sections.

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