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I can not connect to a single public Wi-Fi hotspot that does not require a password but instead shows a pop-up window pointed to captive.apple.com

The pop-up opens blank with the error "The web page couldn't be loaded"

Any idea on how to fix this?

bmike
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BNB
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3 Answers3

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Found a solution! If you get a similar problem like this one:

A problem occurred

The solution is to visit the following URL directly from Safari: http://captive.apple.com/hotspot-detect.html

You should be able to connect immediately.

For some reason, Mojave is not redirecting or opening that page properly, hence the error.

BNB
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  • How does that work, opening a website on apple.com while the macbook does not connect to the hotel wifi? – Hermann Klecker Oct 22 '18 at 18:09
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    although this works most the time sometimes I get an error where MacOS just decides it cant get internet and refuses to grab a local ip adress. – Samuel Thompson Oct 23 '18 at 23:00
  • This problem no longer exists (for me) since I upgraded Mojave to the stable version. During beta, yes, I wasn’t able to connect, ever. – BNB Oct 24 '18 at 04:00
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    I didn't use the beta version, but found this problem in the stable version. Oddly, it has manifested in two slightly different ways---on the first boot after updating the login page would not load at all, producing exactly the behaviour in the screenshot, but on the second the login page did load, but the error message appeared on clicking "login" after entering a username and password. – mdp Oct 24 '18 at 13:01
  • This simply gives me the error “You are not Connected to the Internet” when using Safari – Praxiteles Nov 13 '18 at 09:08
  • Are you joking me?? How did that even work. I was not connected to the internet at a Hilton hotel. Click that link and it redirects me to the page I needed and not Im on..... – Cesar Bielich Nov 22 '18 at 17:17
  • This URL basically pulls the pop up page that appears (or should appear) on some public WiFi connections where you need to confirm or type something, such as a voucher code, your details or simply a button that says something like “connect to the internet”. It is a formal way to connect you to that network. Sometimes this pop up insists in not showing up or if you accidentally closed it, it may take a while to appear again (if ever). – BNB Nov 24 '18 at 04:06
  • As soon as you paste in the URL into Safari, the URL works in your default browser and gets you to the terms page. – Zlatty Jan 07 '19 at 15:00
  • This works, but is a real pain compared to how it worked before and is "supposed" to work, as it were... – rogerdpack Feb 12 '19 at 15:26
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    cannot believe this is still not fixed (in 10.14.3, at least) sigh – Joey Connick Feb 19 '19 at 20:14
  • I don't know how but it works! – Anwar Shaikh Feb 22 '19 at 23:22
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    This didn't work for me but http://captive.apple.com/ did – David Mar 20 '19 at 20:41
4

To be clear, third party browsers don’t work for me, it has to be Safari.

First tried pasting the url into chrome (my default browser) but no luck. Then pasted into safari - success

bmike
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Steve
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0

Good news, upgraded to 10.14.4 from 10.14.3 and now it works. I also have Sophos installed not sure if that was at play or not.

See also Mac won’t display WiFi login box after upgrade to El Capitan some of the answers there still work with Mojave, incredibly (like "create a non admin login, then wifi starts working").

rogerdpack
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