Hotel Wi-Fi networks with iPad

I had the same issue! This solution - allowing popups - worked like a charm. I got access in less than 30 seconds after resetting the pop-up option. This should become part of the standard Apple support checklist - the support agent I worked did not offer this solution and simply referred me to the hotel server administrator.

Well done Oscar!

I had the same problem. I'm staying in Washington DC this week and have been frustrated about not be able to connect. I read through this post and could not find the help. Most hotels have the signup page that is difficult to get past. What I did that worked. I restarted my iPad, then I cleared all cookies and cleared all cache. It worked. I finally got the Hotel's signup page and was able to accept the hotel's policies. I hope this helps.

The real solution follows:

1. Settings, Safari, auto fill, names & passwords off

2. In the same dialog window, above, clear all under names and passwords

If you don't do item 2, above it still won't work.

Now you should get a automatic login screen, for example Nomadix, which a lot of hotels and cruise ships use.

THANK YOU! Clearing everything under names and passwords FINALLY did it! I was going crazy trying to get my friend's iPad to work!

Glad it worked!

Hi everyone,

After reading this whole posting, I would like to put in my 2-cents.

I have an iPad 2 and really enjoy using it. However, for the past year, I found out that the iPad has issue with wi-fi connection.

There's no issue at home or at the apple store. However, whenever I travel, and I travel a lot, it seems like my iPad cannot even see the wifi. Originally, I thought it was the hotel issue with poor wifi. Accidentally, I turned on my laptop and my ipod touch one time and realized that both have very strong signal and full bar when iPad didn't even show the wifi option.

I tried all the suggestions you recommended, reset, hard restart, clear safari, even change the brightness of the screen. Yet, still no wifi signal.

I was at starbucks the other day and the say situation happened. It is just very frustrating. I went to Apple store and the genius told me that there's no issue with my iPad because I can connect to their network.

I love my iPad, but I do believe this is a bug of IPad and Apple's responsibility to fix it. If the iPad cannot even connect at the Apple store, then there's a real issue. Apple should make a product that is compatible with most other devices, just like the ipod touch.

It's frustrating that the genius arre not even willing to admit there's an issue.

This is interesting (avoiding the emotional adjectives that continue to come into my brain...).

Until spring 2012 I had no problem connecting to wi-fi with any of my Apple devices, even in the rooms of hotels that offer free wi-fi. Suddenly this spring, I began to experience major connectivity problems. I am currently in Gulfrt MS, and all three hotel chains at which I stayed on the way (La Quinta in Hickory NC, Wingste in Atlanta GA, Hampton Inn Biloxi) exhibited the same problems with all my Apple gear (1st gen iPad, two MacBooks using SnowLeopard & Lion, two iTouches both using iOS 5.x)

Viz.., I was able to establish a connection in the room, saw the DHCP and the rest of the specs established except for the DNS service. Suspicious, I opened Safari but was unable to get the login screen to enter the password for the wi-fi. It appeared that I was connected to the local router but not the Internet.

This is not a problem at food establishments or hotels offering free WiFi without password protection (MacD, Panera, truck stops). It is as if I am unable to get as far as the login screen; Safari eventually times out.

Now here is the bizarre part: On a hint from a LaQuinta desk clerk, I tried to login in the lobby and had vey little problem - a little longer wait than previously, but always able to get the login screen. Then curiously the wi-fi usually worked back uh the room.

So, for me, I guess I will have to go to the lobby/breakfast room first each day. (Is this why so many people seem to go to the free buffet breakfast in their pajamas these days...?)

In the past I stayed at Hilton chain hotels, but I'm traveling with dogs and found myself trying out motels that would permit pets. That's why I notices the consistency of the problem. (The little guys are rooming with a friend here in Gulfport so we coulda stay where we liked).

As I said at the outset, this is an interesting problem in my case. A combination off comparability with Safari and signal strength issues? Certainly the signal in the room would not be different technically from the signal in the lobby in all three hotels,would it? Have some changes required by the latest MS OS upgrades caused this Safari (presumably) problem? I do have Apple care so I will eventually have a talk with those folks; I only hoe that they will not claim that they never heard of the problem!

wait

I had this issue with my iPhone 5 today. I was able to connect to the free hotel wifi at this Residence Inn yesterday--the login page popped right up and everything worked perfectly. Today, it was not working. It finds the network just fine, but then the login page wouldn't come up. If I "forgot" the network, and then reconnected, I could get the login page to come up, but it wouldn't load. Shutting down the phone and turning it back on fixed the problem for me (autofill was already off by default). I suspect there's a Safari bug in iOS 6 that is causing an issue. I did have Safari crash on me yesterday--I was pushing it pretty hard with 7 pages open, but a crash is a crash.

I could not connect my ipad to La Quinta Hotel in Clarksville. My iPhone had no problem. I read a thread that recommended going to the lobby to connect and that did the trick. Went back to my room still connected. Unfortunately ,I have keep going back to the lobby every night to reconnect.

The following worked for me, please try it and verify:

Double-click the home button to bring up the list of all running applications.

Touch and hold on the first application to bring up the [-] on all applications in the list.

Close ALL your applications by clicking [-] on each one.

Click the home button to return close the now-empty applications list.

Open Settings and try again to connect to the hotel wifi.

My theory is that many applications now constantly poll (facebook may be particularly egregious) so it is one of those applications that makes the first connection to the internet after the new DHCP lease is obtained. That application "steals" the login page, preventing Settings or Safari from bringing it up for you.

Thus it might be sufficient to close all applications that regularly use the internet ... but that would include anything ad-supported, so closing everything is safer.

This might also be why powering off and back on works for some people; however, I was told by an "Apple Genious" that because IOS tries to restore the running applications after a reboot, it's a good idea to periodically clear them all out by hand. (That was for a problem unrelated to wifi access, but seems like potentially good advice anyway.)

Hello, I had that same issue. What you need to do is go into settings then wifi, go to where your netword ssid is displayed, your network name, open it, then use the arrow at the right of the subfield, to go into your dhcp, static all of the different ip obtain options.. blah blah. Then you will have a option to forget network, do this, then back out of everything, go back in to setings, wifi, etc, you get it. rescan for networks, when you see your network, you should be able to touch it and open up the password sub-field. enter your password to your network, and bamm you be in business... Also to anyone else, I have read others issues, I not having traveled much lately, cannot explain the hotel and other location issues. But I have noticed the ipad has very conflicting behavior when connecting to a network and then a different network and so on. Example, if you have multiple networks that have the same ssid, name, even with a different modem/router it gets them confused and tries to auto-connect. even though they are diffrent modem/routers.very odd and sloppy... how I discovered the problem, was i set up a lot of small networks just for people at their homes or small office, and I set most residential the same, we will say, home-2013. So I had someones ipad, and I was the one who set their network up, his and my network names were the same, even though coming from completely different modems. At first, I was astonished to see that such a piece of supposedly superior technology, lacked even the basic concept of distinguishing the difference between networks with the same name. any other device can do that, Smartphones android and apple???? ***??? Well, I hope this helps some of you:] and thank you for reading my rant...

Message was edited by: berserker-82

also. I have heard several companies set up a lot of hotel chains networks, maybe they have the same ssid, name, but different password, humph worth a try good luck everyone...

Forgetting the network and trying again works only some of the time. The problem is that the hotel wireless networks don't have a network password, instead they allow DHCP to obtain an IP address without a password and then redirect all HTTP traffic through a gateway that makes you enter a password before you can do anything else. This is so that they can ask you to approve a charge for the service at that gateway page if they choose.

If the first thing that happens after the IP is assigned is that some background application attempts to use HTTP, that application will get the gateway login page, and now you're screwed. The only way to be sure that doesn't happen is to prevent any background applications running until after you're successfully connected to the network and past the gateway page.