This started with Mac OS Mojave, and still happens occasionally. A message something like "A problem occurred: The web page couldn’t be loaded" is displayed.
This is a quick workaround for that malfunction. Once you connect to the public wifi instead of a captive window an error shows up: "A Problem Occurred. The web page couldn’t be loaded"
There seems to be an issue with displaying the captive screen within the integrated browser. Open up another browser, like Safari and bookmark/open the following page:
http://captive.apple.com
It might be necessary to refresh this page multiple times until the correct captive screen will be shown. But after a few retries you should be able to authenticate.
My latest blog post: No More Nukes?: I can make an argument both ways about whether nuclear weapons are good or bad. (posted 2025-06-23). Warning: mysqli_connect(): MySQL server has gone away in /Library/WebServer/Documents/Owen2/Inc/Footer.m.inc.php on line 51
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Could not connect to MySQL:
TIPS PAGE