Captive Wi-fi Pop-ups not working since upgrading to Catalina

I've had support conversations off and on over the past couple of weeks as I've been on the road and constantly running into this issue. My latest chat through Messages was with a rep who informed that this is now a "known issue with captive Wi-Fi portals on Catalina." Apple is reportedly working on a fix.

I don't know enough about the testing and beta testing process to understand how this kind of an issue may have made it undetected before being released. One would assume the engineers and beta testers end up on captive wifi themselves from time to time.

The rep also mentioned that the current workaround is to restart in Safe Mode. Based on my experience, that may or may not work.

If you're feeling very adventurous -- and can even follow the instructions -- there's also an article about making your own LaunchDaemon.

https://poweruser.blog/macos-catalina-wifi-issue-captive-portal-broken-45610cc016b5

It's not for the faint of heart ... or a non-programmer type like myself.

Here's hoping for a speedy (and thorough) fix.

Hello squeezing,

Thanks for that info and for choosing the Apple Support Communities. If I understand correctly, you are unable to join certain Wi-Fi networks with your MacBook Air, even after trying some good steps. You can figure out if unexpected behavior is related to a user file or setting by trying to reproduce the issue from another user account. This process includes creating a new user account, logging in to it, and testing for the issue.

How to test an issue in another user account on your Mac

Check for Wi-Fi issues using your Mac

Cheers!

Hello, please see my post here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250713004

Please try to reboot your MacBook into Safe Mode (holding the shift key on boot). If the Captive Portal appears it is likely a 3rd party application that is interfering with the Network Stack.

When you reload you PC back into Normal Mode you should be connected, however that doesn't necessarily mean it is fixed. This is because you have just gone through the captive portal process i.e. Accept T&Cs in Safe Mode for that day. Then after a certain period the Captive Portal may expire your session. you will need to complete the Captive Portal process again and hence it will no longer work.

So the real fix is check for applications installed that could interfere with the Network Stack such as a VPN client i.e. Cisco VPN Client or even possibly an Anti-Virus Scanner.

I had this problem. The least annoying workaround is to boot into safe mode. You should be able to log into the network. Then, reboot normally. You should be able to connect now. If not, I found that Firefox detected that I needed to sign into the network and let me click through the captive portal.

Good luck.

I've had the same issue. The problem is that since upgrading to Mac OS X Catalina, it's impossible to join third-party/captive wifi networks that need to bring up a new "pop-up" window after joining the network to complete their sign-on process. These pop-ups are common at places like Starbucks, hotels, airports, etc. You can appear to be connected to the wifi network but you're unable to do anything online without first accepting terms or clicking a "connect" option on the pop-up. After upgrading to Catalina, those critical pop-ups stopped appearing.

iOS devices don't seem to have that problem. Joining the same network from my iPhone X or iPad Pro brings up the expected pop-up and after accepting/continuing I can browse as normal.

The issue is unlikely to be a third-party extension blocking that connection, unless it's due to an update to be compatible with Catalina. I didn't have this problem at all until I upgraded to Catalina. I've had it every time I tried to join a "captive" network since, though.

I ran though every step in this article:

https://www.igeeksblog.com/how-to-fix-wi-fi-issues-on-mac/

I don't know which step might have cleared it up, but it seems to work better now. I was able to get onto the wifi at DFW, after futzing with all of those settings. Once I got to my hotel, though, I had to restart and turn the wifi back on to prompt the hotel's pop-up.

It's incredibly frustrating. It's clearly happening to many people.