If I connect to a public wifi hotspot I get a popup window where the landing page from the operator is shown (captive portal). How can this be managed? Because the window is closed after the login there is no chance to get the session window for logout etc. from the service provider.
Thanks.
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)
Contact the service provider.
Sig, that's not the point.
The popup is a new "feature" since Mac OS Lion and comes up always if you connect to a public hotspot where you have to sign in/log in. It's like the way it works in IOS if you connect to a hotspot and the auto login is enabled. It is closed when you finish the log in.
This cuts the normal process for public hotspots because all of them will normally show a session/service window after the login to enable to stop your connection etc.
In the way it works now in Lion you never get this page. And I can't find a setting to disable this.
It's not a Lion feature. It belongs to the service provider. Contact them.
It definitely is a feature that started with Lion. This window is separate from any regular web browser and goes away once you've logged in. Before, if you joined a network that required a login, you were not prompted until you opened your web browser and tried to go somewhere. Now, Lion "tries to go somewhere" automatically for you and pops up this window if it can't get there.
I would like to disable this "feature" myself since I use 1Password in my browser to log into sites, and I can't do that in this pseudo-browser popup.
You are responding to a post that is almost a year old. This is not a Lion issue or feature. It is either the ISP, the web site but most likely the local hotspot.
I don't understand how you could read my post and still say that.
First, I understand that this post is almost a year old. That's because this issue started with Lion and continues into Mountain Lion.
Second, I understand that the login page itself comes from the local hotspot connection. The page itself is not what we are referring to, however. We are referring to the automatic popup window *from the OS* (Lion and Mountain Lion) that displays that web page when a user connects to a Wi-Fi hotspot that requires such a login. This popup is *not* part of a web browser, but rather a feature of the OS. It does not act like a normal window: it hovers over everything else; it cannot be closed with Cmd-W (my biggest complaint); and it dismisses itself automatically when the user logs in (the OP's complaint).
Before Lion, as in Snow Leopard, the OS did not prompt the user to login to the Wi-Fi hotspot. The web browser took care of that when an attempt was made to access a website. In Lion, a feature was added to try to access apple.com and prompt the user to login if the local Wi-Fi hotspot returned a login page instead of the apple.com website.
I admire the fact that you have over 30,000 points on the forum here, but I'd respectfully ask you to not assume that we are wrong when you don't seem to understand the problem.
Have it your way.
@sig: It is not helpful to respond to an issue in this way. If we have found a solution for that we will not ask the community.
When you find the solution for that please post it for the community.
When OS X connects to WiFi it checks to see if it can access the web or if another page gets in the way.
If your ISP's captive portal is WISPr compliant it includes XML in the response that tells the OS to open a login window. I remember seeing details in a WWDC talk on networking improvements that mentions this but I forget which one exactly.
That's very helpfull. The captive portal is WISPr compliant.
The question is why Apple implements this "feature" in the OS. It is very unhelpfully. The problem is that it will prevent the normal login process at a public hotspot. The OS window is closed after the login and the success page which opens after the login will not be shown in this way. Therefore logout and other features are not accessable.
It was implemented because people would connect to WiFi and open Mail or VPN right away instead of trying to surf. When the non-Web application didn't work the OS would be blamed.
The WISPr XML should include the logout & status URLs but from what I've seen Apple doesn't implement it.
Some captive portals can sneak a bit of Javascript code into web pages to open up a status/logout window as the user surfs but I find this distasteful.
Right now we capture DNS for "hotspot" and put a message on the login page to surf there to logout or get status but that doesn't get much use since we don't limit by time used. Ie it is only used if a user wants to log out so they can log in on another device.
Thank you, jonauer, for your replies. I'm glad Apple did this for users who just don't get it. Unfortunately, though, I'd just like to turn off this feature because I cannot use 1Password in the window and I cannot dismiss it with the keyboard. It seems this is not possible. I realize that was not the OP's request, so I will stop commenting here. :-)
If anyone does find a way to turn it off please let me know here:
I run a number of wifi hotspots, all of which use a captive portal "Splash Page" that is branded per location.
Since the iOS6 update I have been swamped with guests and customers complaining about this www.apple.com "success" page popping up instead of the intended customers login and terms acceptance page. When cancelling it drops the wifi router connection and there is no way to connect to the intended free wifi hotspot.
The problem is in Apple's update, there currently is no way to disable this unwanted feature.
The solution is to go to your Settings>General>Cellular>Cellular Data and turn it OFF when you are at the hotspot location.
Now when you choose the hotspot's SSID and join it......you will get the sign in page from the captive portal and not the "success" page.
Be sure and turn the Cellular Data back on.....when you leave the hotspot.
Apple needs to fix this WISPr function, I am only a small provider and I am sure that worldwide there are going to be hundreds of thousands of iphone, ipad and laptop users who will no longer be able to sign on at wifi hotspots, work, universities, hospitals and hotels.
As a side note: I have an older 4S phone with iOS6 and I cannot join.....my wife has a newer 4S phone with iOS6 installed and even though both our phones are set exactly the same......she can connect without turning off her cellular data and I cannot. Curious?
Thank you for the information, Videogreg, but that is not at all related to Mac OS X Lion. Please be careful about where you are posting.
PopUp window at public wifi hotspots?
