e the scene. You have just arrived in a strange city in a distant land. You are stranded. You have your phone but of course, you have no credit. If you could just take a look at a map and figure out where your hotel is or use google translate to ask for directions you would be saved. Before you really panic you check the wifi options. To your amazement that airport/bus station/juice place, you are outside of actually has wifi and it isn’t locked. You quickly connect to this beautiful Wi-Fi and open a browser. You type in your hotel name and wait. And wait. And wait. Nothing happens. The dream is over and your trip is ruined, all because that Wi-Fi didn’t work.
While this may sound a little hyperbolic the failing to connect to an open Wi-Fi connection is a situation that most of us can relate to. The worst part about it is that it is clearly just some bug or glitch keeping us from that sweet sweet free internet. Many of these free Wi-Fi connections require you to enter your email address, agree to give them your information or watch an ad before you are entitled to the free gigs. Sadly many of these windows that ask us to do these things often fail to appear. If you can’t click accept you become locked in this terrible position of being connected to the internet without getting any internet access. It is infuriating.
Usually, when this happens we give up. We complain about the cheap network settings that have been purchased and try a different network or go buy a sim card if they are available. It turns out that these login failures are incredibly common across all Wi-Fi networks and there are steps that you can take to fix the issue. The first step will sound obvious but before you complain, ask yourself if you have ever actually tried it. The first solution is to turn the WiFi on and off again. This sends a request to the Wi-Fi access to reopen the login page and gives you another chance at success. Of course, if it didn’t work the first time it may not work the second time. Option two is to restart your phone. This does the same thing by asking the Wi-Fi login to resend the page but it also resets your phone and may solve whatever issue was stopping the login page from opening.
If this fails, all hope is not lost. You can try and manually enter the URL of the login page in your browser to go directly to the login page. As this is a free access page it should go there without internet access and you can start to get connected. Depending on the Wi-Fi provider you are using they use a small range of URLs for this first page. By knowing these URLs you can essentially ensure that you can get to that prized login page and start accessing the internet very soon. The most common page to try and the easiest one to remember is routerlogin.net. However, if that doesn’t work there are a range of other URLs you should try. The most likely URLs are:
8.8.8.8
Example.com
localhost
Neverssl.com and
Captive.apple.com
While these are incredibly difficult to remember don’t worry. You have your phone with you so save these URLs in your memos now and put them in a folder called “For Emergency”. This is where you should be saving any other information that you may need in case things go wrong.
If none of these options work then it may be required to clear your web browser cache. IF that still fails then you were just not meant to go on that dodgy Wi-Fi connection and the internet gods are trying to spare you. Remember that Wi-Fi is the least secure form of internet access so always think twice before accessing free networks when out in public. It may be a hacker stealing your data.