A quick tip for you, in celebration of the fact that I’ve just managed to sort out a network connection problem I’ve had for ages.
The Issue: You’re out and about with your notebook (in my case, a MacBook Air). You settle down to do some work courtesy of a public wi-fi hotspot (BT Openzone, Boingo, The Cloud, T-Mobile etc.). Connect to the Wi-Fi network and…. well, nothing happens. You’re expecting to see some kind of log-in screen, but you either get a blank page, or some kind of connection error. So you’re connected, but for some reason, you’re being blocked from accessing the hotspot’s login page. So you disconnect, reconnect, reboot… and still nothing. Bah. To rub salt into the wound, your mobile phone can connect just fine.
Having experienced this problem on trains and hotspot services around London, today I worked out two solutions. Either may work for you, or both (hopefully).
Solution 1: Connect Directly to the Hotspot Router’s IP Address
There may be different ways of accessing the router’s IP address, but on the Mac, click on the Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar, and select Open Network Preferences… Click Advanced, then click the TCP/IP tab to see the Router’s IP address.
Copy the router’s IP address, then paste it directly into your web browser’s address bar – lo and behold, the log-in page appeared. Worked for me this morning on a train hotspot, but not on a second hotspot I was grappling with over lunch. Try it though, you may be in luck.
Solution 2: Check Your DNS Settings
So, the same issue happened to me this afternoon on a different public hotspot. Solution 1 didn’t work, (the connection was blocked) so it was time for the thinking cap to go on. I can connect to the Wi-Fi signal, but not to wherever the log-in page is held – so it’s some kind of routing issue. Maybe there’s an issue with DNS? So, back into Network Preferences… Open Network Preferences… Click Advanced, then click the DNS tab. Interestingly, I saw two entries listed – 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 – they’ll be Google’s Public DNS servers. How they got in there, I know not, but my hunch is I may have done that at some point in the past.
What happens if we clear them (using the Minus button) and let the public hotspot router apply the DNS server settings automatically?
As soon as the minus button cleared out Google’s DNS, the greyed-out IP addresses popped in automatically. A quick refresh of the browser, and hey, there’s the log-in page.
Another annoying issue solved. Next?
