Macbook WiFi won't connect to public wifi hotspots, but works fine otherwise

I've looked at other posts with similar keywords, but none of them seemed to apply quite right.

(I have a Macbook purchased in June 2008)

I am able to use my home wifi, the wifi at my mom's house, and even my neighbor's unsecured connection.

However, every public wifi spot I've tried to work at fails. I AM ABLE TO "connect" to the network (Airport shows I am connected), but when I open a web browser I get a "Not connected to the internet" message. This has now occurred at four different locations. (Also, at one of them, I tried to connect with my iPod touch, and i was able to get online without issue.)

Also, when I first bought this macbook, I did not have this issue.

Any helpful suggestions? Thanks!

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3 Answers

Do you have a static IP address assigned to your Airport interface for some reason? How about statically assigned DNS numbers? If that is the case, it might be a coincidence that the assigned address information is compatible with the neighbors's and mom's networks.

Try making a new network location. Go to System Preferences >> Network pane. At the top there is a pull down menu for Locations. Pull it down and select Edit Locations. Make a new location named Test. Click on the Apply button in the lower right.

This will give you a completely new network configuration with all interfaces set for DHCP. You may always change the location back to whatever the old one was if you need to.

I had the same problem.

The key for me was that I had a custom DNS server configured. In my case it was googles (8.8.8.8). I remember doing this some time ago for whatever reason.

Anyway, the public hotspots don't seem to like this. After removing the custom DNS server I was able to connect fine on public hotspots.

For those trying to connect to The Cloud Wifi and finding this page, I found some sort of potential workaround.

I found that none of the solutions like connecting to the router or deleting DNS entries worked.

Visit:

This will direct you a mobile site. Follow the instructions and download the profile. Open your downloads in Finder and double click the profile. You should now be able to navigate to any website and be redirected to the mobile launch page. You will need to create/log into an account, but after that you should be on the network.

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