Certificate pinning
Some apps use certificate pinning or custom trust logic. In these cases, HTTPS MITM will fail and Trace will fall back to passthrough.
What you will see
- The request appears, but the body may be empty or encrypted.
- The Certificate tab shows the original server certificate.
- The connection may fail if the app rejects the MITM certificate.
How to recognize pinning
- HTTPS bodies stay encrypted even after installing the root CA.
- Requests fail with TLS errors or retries.
- The app works without Trace but fails when capture is active.
What you can do
- Disable HTTPS inspection for that app or host if you only need metadata.
- Use full-tunnel mode to capture more context, then analyze with exports.
- Use a debug build of the app with pinning disabled (recommended for internal apps).
Tip
Pinning is a security feature. Only bypass it when you have explicit permission to do so.