On upgrade to Catalina, the captive portal wifi login page no longer appears. Because of this I can no longer connect to public wifi portals.
Steps: Connect to a public wifi
Expected result: Captive network login dialog screen should appear
Actual result: Wifi shows as connected, but no login screen, and no internet access, no DNS resolution, not able to access any IPs on the network
MacBook Pro
This is a bug in macOS Catalina (still present with the latest patchlevel, i.e. 10.15 with the supplemental update from 15th October 2019). For some reason the Captive Portal Assistant (the app that produces the captive portal popup window whenever you connect to a WiFi hotspot) won't start automatically.
There are two workarounds:
option 1: Either you can manually start the Captive Portal Assistant app manually after you have connected to the WiFi network. This will bring up the captive portal popup window and you can unlock Internet access there. (Really no need to boot in recovery mode, etc. !)
option 2: From this blog post: To bring back the captive portal window automatically whenever you connect to a captive portal-protected WiFi network you can create a LaunchDaemon that watches for WiFi changes and automatically opens the Captive Portal Assistant app.
Create a plist file with the service definition somewhere:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" \
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Label</key>
<string>my.shim.catalina.captivenetworkassistant.plist</string>
<key>LowPriorityIO</key>
<true/>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>open</string>
<string>/System/Library/CoreServices/Captive Network Assistant.app</string>
</array>
<key>WatchPaths</key>
<array>
<string>/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration</string>
</array>
<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<true/>
</dict>
</plist>
and apply it:
launchctl load my.shim.catalina.captivenetworkassistant.plist
launchctl start my.shim.catalina.captivenetworkassistant
check https://poweruser.blog/macos-catalina-wifi-issue-captive-portal-broken-45610cc016b5 for more details.
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.
This is a known problem with the Sophos Home antivirus software: hthttps://support.home.sophos.com/hc/en-us/articles/360020126572-Captive-Portal-Login-Page-does-not-load-on-MacOS-when-connecting-to-a-Public-Guest-Wi-Fi-Hotspot-.
I've not had a chance yet to test out their workarounds.
I have been having a similar issue. One thing works for me.
I've tried all kinds of things before stumbling across this. I tried going to captive.apple.com, captive.apple.com/hotspot-detect.html, going to the router ip address, going to any generic ip address, deleting preference files from Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration, even typing something into the Terminal: sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder ---None of those things worked. Only logging into the guest account, connecting to the wifi there, and then going back to my user account.
Ps. I've been having a glitch in Catalina with my Guest Account not always allowing me to log in (either not appearing, or requesting a password that doesn't exist). I can fix it by going into System Preferences, deactivating the guest account, then reactivating it again.
Same problem here. Mojave works. iOS works. Catalina does not work. I reboot into safe mode, get the captive dialog and connect, and then reboot again and everything works.
It worked fine prior to the upgrade. I have raised a bug report.
If it works after safe boot you have an app launching at boot that blocks the portal page.
I got the same issue since updating on Catalina. The Landing Page only appears when restarting my Mac.
Ok. I tried it too but it doesn't work on my MacBook.
This worked for me ! Thanks for the help...
jishnupramod, which suggestion worked for you?
Clearing out the Launch Agent/Daemons folders worked for me personally. Not ideal but it’s better than having to reset my MBP every time I need to login.
Will try this. But I’m worried it will recur once i connect and then want to reconnect the next day (or several hours later).
This worked for me, thank you!!
I want to say it’s not Sophos. FWIW, I thought it was, so I completely uninstalled Sophos and still having the issue.
It works if you delete every thing in the following 2 folders: /Library/LaunchDaemons and /Library/LaunchAgents
Turn off wifi. Restart computer. Turn on wifi. It should work.
wifi not working - captive portal login screen does not appear
