Safari and Chrome can’t connect to the server after Catalina update

Yes, still have this issue often. I'm trying to wrap my head around a 3k mac that cant connect to wifi. When is apple gonna fix this issue? At the bare min the OS should connect to the net. I dont get it. Makes me wanna return my mac.

THIS WORKED FOR ME. VPN UNINSTALL.

Had similar issue. After considerable troubleshooting and two Catalina re-installs I still would randomly loose my internet connection although I could still connect to my network via wifi and ethernet.

Had a brainstorm when on the line with an Apple senior advisor that my networking issues possibly were being caused by my VPN. The Apple tech did have instructions to remove VPNs from the system in his troubleshooting guide.

Completely uninstalled IPVanish VPN with this link; https://support.ipvanish.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000668874-Clean-Install-of-IPVanish-on-macOS.

But because I was unable to connect to the Internet with my MacBook Pro I downloaded the uninstall on my iPhone and then Air dropped the uninstall onto my MacBook Pro to run it.

Reinstalled IPVanish and a week down the road everything still seems fine. Fingers crossed and hope this helps for others..

Here's the solution to my problem, thanks to Apple Support. It was not Catalina. It was Malware installed probably through a Flash update in October. First, download Malwarebyte. It's free and it will find malware on your mac and delete the files. There was one file it could not delete so the Apple Support guy had me physically delete it.

I first noticed the problem when Google Earth Pro could not connect to server and would not boot. Then I had intermittent problems accessing the internet and using email.

What the malware did was to check a setting in Proxies in the Network Preference pane. None of those boxes should be checked. What this did was essentially hijack any use of the internet, even though the Network pane said that the Ethernet and Wireless connections were fine.

To fix that get into the Network Preference pane (in System Preferences). Click Advanced. Then choose Proxies. None of those "protocol" buttons should be checked. The malware kept on rechecking "SOCKS Proxy". Unchecking it works, but if you don't delete the Malware file when you restart your machine it will be checked again.

Anyway, everything is fine now for me.

I had the same problem and by calling Apple support we figure out this solution.

Keychain access> system> arrange by kind> delete all airport network passwords

Restart your computer and you will be able to connect to public wifi.

The most reliable solution I've found is to manually execute the "Captive Network Assistant" which is what generates the normal login screen for a public wifi. It can be found here System\Library\CoreServices\Captive Network Assistant

The only way, albeit tedious, that it works for me is to start in Safe Mode, connect to the network and then reboot. It is **** obvious the the network device driver when loaded in normal mode, is being overridden by another device driver? How hard is that to fix.

[Edited by Moderator]

Just in case the last few posters did not read my response from several days ago, this very problem I resolved with the help of Apple Support. It had nothing to do with Catalina. It had to do with malware that was hijacking by internet connection. To check if this has happened to you, open System Preferences, Network. Click "Advanced" and then choose "Proxies". If SOCKS Proxy is checked (nothing should be checked unless you have specifically checked something), you have malware that is redirecting. You can fix that by unchecking SOCKS Proxy. But it will reassert itself when you reboot.

So, to stop that from rehappening, run Malwarebytes (free software), and keep on rerunning it until all the malware is deleted (it will list what it deletes, but sometimes finds more on rerunning). By the way, doing this also resolved my problem of Safari search engine (which should be google) being redirected to Yahoo search.

I had the same problem after dealing with Apple support the first time they eventually walked me through the deleting the wifi and re-adding it after a pram clearance. This only worked for a short period of time, about a week later it was failing every hour. The next time I got someone competent at Apple support and I was instructed was to do a re-download and install of Catalina because he determined it was a corrupted file. After going through that OPT CMD R experience and reinstalling the OS it has been solid and working at maximum speeds. I would suggest doing a reinstall immediately.

For me the solutions of trying to redirect the url to apple.com captive site did not work. However, I did come across this solution that worked for me. It is definitely more involved than most, but it works!

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

Hi, none of the solutions worked for me but I found this method here https://poweruser.blog/macos-catalina-wifi-issue-captive-portal-broken-45610cc016b5

Basically you navigate through finders following this path  /System/Library/CoreServices/Captive Network Assistant.app/Contents. In my computer, once i found the Captive Network Assistant.app, I had to disconnect first from wifi, re-find whatever public wifi I was trying to join, and while my wifi icon is flashing I click on the Captive network icon repetitively to time it's opening with the connection of wifi. It might take a few seconds but then the login popup should come up if you timed it correctly. It has worked for me with different public wifis so far.

I would hope that they have some engineer working on the issue. It’s actually kind of sad that they have someone who’s already identified the issue with a launch daemon and it still hasn’t been addressed.

@ Hasan-x

“The solution is so simple...”

No, it’s not. This isn’t a “one size fits all” fix.

As others can frustratingly attest, the complexity of resolving this issue can vary from one device to another.

Glad it worked for you.

My problem is intermittent and can be temporarily cleared by disabling wifi and re-enable it. However it returns. Have tried to re-create location, safe boot, renew DHCP in trying to resolve the problem.

When problem occur, app cannot connect to the internet but the wifi logo indicate it is still on. A closer look on the network configuration shows the network mask had been changed from

xxx.xxx.240.0 to xxx.xxx.0.0

Hopefully someone can identify the issue more closely based on this information.

Renewing the DHCP lease does not resolve the problem. The hardware configuration is as follows

MBP mid 2014

Cisco wifi running WPA2 Enterprise

Tried almost everything here and found out it was a proximity issue! I had no problem connecting to the wifi after updating to Catalina but when I moved to my room (probably 4meters from the router) it went bonkers. Had the patch downloaded and installed (by connecting to a LAN), it worked for 2 days then acted up again. Decided to sit close to the router just for shikks and giggles and viola, connected to the wifi with internet instantaneously.

Update :

After repeated calls to Apple Support, I elected to re-install Catalina..

Although I could not connect to any websites via Safari prior to the re-install, I was still able to connect to the App Store, from which I re-installed Catalina.

Following the re-install, I was once again able to access the internet via Safari, with no issues.

Again, it appears that the source of these internet connectivity issues with Catalina are varied, as are the remedies.