Hotspot,.....Can't Connect Anymore???

[Repeater04]

When I go to any of a number of coffee shops with a free hotspot, I used to be able to access the internet. Now, when I start up Safari, it goes to my home page, but says I am not on the internet.
It used to go the the hotspot start up page, where I would log in before it took me to my home page.
Now, for some reason it seems to bypass,.....or can't seem to find the login page. Does anyone know a fix for this. Also I checked my network settings , which are on Airport and Automatic. I've also tried the preferred setting and still no go. I'm totally confused. Thanks to anyone who can help.

Peter

[sam]

Maybe you aren't really connected to the Coffee Shop's hotspot... Have you checked to which network you're connected in the Airport menu? Sometimes, the system connects to whichever unencrypted network there is around...

Just a thought...

Sam

[Repeater04]

No I"ve checked. Definately connected to the Coffee Shop's hotspot.Can't seem to figure this one out?

[sam]

I'm not too sure but maybe it's your browser's cache just loading the web page that is has in cache ? Does it have the same behaviour for every web page you try to load?

Cheers

Sam

[Repeater04]

Today I backed everthing up to my external firewire drive. Tomorrow, I will do a fresh install and see what happens. As of late, the airport is connected to the proper hotspot, but Safari does not respond.

[sam]

Keep us updated!

[Dan Millar]

Two Cent's Worth:

If your Airport says it's connected, but Safari will not surf, check to see if the Network settings(in System Prefernces) have an entry for Domain Name Servers or DNS after you've made the connection. There should be one or two numbers that look like 123.456.789.1 listed there. If they are there, then your problem is elsewhere - reinstall! However, I've seen this problem with OS X and 9 - the connection is made but the DNS numbers are not passed through to your computer. If this is the case - you can have a pair of DNS numbers that you manually enter to fix the problem. These can be the numbers that the provider supplies or any "known good" DNS numbers, i.e. the DNS numbers your provider gave you for your home account - assuming you have one! Good luck and let me know if this helps a little/a lot/not at all.

Dan

[Repeater04]

Thanks to everyone  for your replies. Haven't had time to reinstall the OS yet. Will let you know the results when I do. Still have my desk top with OS 9 and dial up,......which is what I am using now to type this.

[Repeater04]

UpDate,...........just found out from another Mac user, that BridgeHead on Elgin St. changed hotspot service providers, and Safari is incompatible with it! FireFox, however works. Pretty Weird!