How can I connect this MacBook to a school wifi network?

February 27, 2021 7:02 PM

I need to help my child reliably connect to the wifi at his elementary school, in a way that he can do on his own. The network isn't password protected — once connected there is a pop-up window with a captive portal page. On that page there is a link that must be clicked to actually access the internet. The problem is that the captive portal page does not load properly in the pop up, so he can't click anything. At that point the computer thinks it's connected, but he can't access the internet. What can I do?

Some pertinent technical info:

- He's using a MacBook Pro running Mojave.

- I have an admin account. He has a separate account managed by parental controls — the main reason for that is to prevent apps like Creative Cloud from trying to run. If I don't limit those, all kinds of unnecessary stuff tries to run as soon as he logs in to his account.

- I don't seem to have trouble connecting to the school wifi on my account, but I'm not totally sure.

- Once I get connected somehow, either on my account or by using a page like neverssl.com on his account (which doesn't seem to work 100%), there's no way for me to disconnect and try again. Even if I delete the network from the list of preferred networks in system preferences, it stays connected. I need to be able to disconnect so that he and I can practice getting connected again.


Other concerns:

- His teacher has limited ability to help.

- Many (most?) of the kids in class are using school-issued chromebooks, which I assume are connecting just fine. We didn't ask for a chromebook at the start of school, and now we've missed the boat.

- I don't want to switch him to a different computer, if possible. We don't have another, for one, but also he's been using this one for the school year thus far and is used to navigating it.


My questions, in order of preferred solution:

1. Is there a hack to bypass the captive portal altogether? That would be ideal.

2. Failing that, is there a reliable way to trigger the captive portal page?

3. If 2, is there a way to disconnect from that particular wifi network so that he and I can practice joining? We'll sit in the car outside the school to practice this.

posted by Pork-Chop Express to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

That sounds really frustrating. This may be something you already know about, but just in case not, is a little icon appearing in the address bar of the browser that looks like two little boxes? In Safari, that's the indicator that a pop-up window has been blocked. If you click on it, you can choose to allow the pop-up to load (there's an image of what it looks like on this page under "Block or Allow Single Website").
posted by past unusual at 7:14 PM on February 27, 2021

Command-apostrophe will switch between an application's windows -- which is useful when you can't see a pop-up in your browser. Maybe try that?

Or bookmark the captive portal sign-in page once you find it, and set that to his Home page? If he also uses the Mac at home, then make it a bookmark and have Safari always display the Bookmarks, as shown here: https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/customize-the-safari-window-ibrw1012/mac (If that's too much, install another browser, like Chrome, and make the portal log-in page by Chrome's homepage.)

You can go into the System Preferences, then Networks, then Advanced. From there you can choose the order in which the Mac tries to connect to networks -- and that's where you can also "forget" a wifi network. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208941
posted by wenestvedt at 7:19 PM on February 27, 2021

This happens to me a lot in hotels. The OS isn't directing him to the login page properly. If you knew the direct URL to the login page, you can get past the hiccup.

Have him look at a friend's Chromebook as they log in. Show him how to find the URL in the log-in page, then he can type the actual URL into his browser.

Maybe he can facetime with you while doing this? Or have him take a video of his friend or teacher logging out then logging back in and bring that home for you to see.
posted by dum spiro spero at 7:31 PM on February 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

I've been able to force the captive portal on an idevice by going to www.example.com (which is HTTP not HTTPS).
posted by oceano at 8:22 PM on February 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

Contact your school district's IT department (you might find their direct number on your school district's website, or go through the district operator). If your district is of any size, they'll have a help desk that can assist you with any log in issues you encounter. That's what they are there for.
posted by SPrintF at 8:30 PM on February 27, 2021 [4 favorites]

Have him load neverssl.com in Safari. I can't promise it will work in your particular network, but it exists for this problem (crappy non-standard wifi auth in hotels, planes, public places, etc). If you're interested, the page explains why it usually works.

(http://www.example.com should also work but you have to type the "http://" prefix in most modern browsers. If you don't then they'll use the https:// version, which doesn't trigger wifi login page. neverssl.com is easier to use because better because, as the name suggests, there isn't an https:// version, so the browser is forced to load the http:// version whether you type it or not.)
posted by caek at 9:24 PM on February 27, 2021 [4 favorites]

I assume you are using Safari. Try installing Firefox and see if it works every time. You could set the home page to neverssl.com and use it just for that purpose, if nothing else?

It's probably detecting your computer via the hardware ID (called a MAC) that doesn't usually change. I recommend against messing with it.
posted by flimflam at 9:29 PM on February 27, 2021

This happens to me a great deal at Panera, Starbucks, etc.
I'm on a Macbook Air, and I am using Firefox, and sometimes, like you said, the splash page doesn't come up, and I have to fiddle around with trying to find it.
What I have been doing that works well, is, after the Connect splash page doesn't come up, start up Firefox for the first time, and across the top, under the address bar, it will say something to the tune of, "You are not connected to the internet, would you like to connect?" and there will be a box or a link and I click on that, and it brings up the Connect splash page, and I'm off and running.
Hope this helps a little bit.
posted by Bill Watches Movies Podcast at 3:04 AM on February 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

I assume you are using Safari. Try installing Firefox and see if it works every time.

If the other kids' Chromebooks are connecting correctly, I would first try making Chrome the default browser on the MacBook and see if that works.

In her work, my wife has to connect to different corporate and government portals, and many of them seem to require Chrome for everything to work properly. It's quickly become the "This Site Requires Internet Explorer" of our times.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:39 AM on February 28, 2021 [2 favorites]

Did you tell your web browser to block pop-up windows?
posted by wenestvedt at 5:51 AM on February 28, 2021 [2 favorites]

On not Macs, I've had success forcing content portals to load by going to 8.8.8.8 (or really any address that does *not* have a web server on it - that's just an easy one to remember) via HTTP (not https). If there's any content cached from the site you try going to in order to the to the portal, sometimes the browser will pull the cached content instead. And as a few people noted above, HTTPS can cause issues too.
posted by Candleman at 6:45 AM on February 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

Please contact the technology specialist/s at your school. They can help you with all of this!! If that doesn’t help or isn’t possible, call the principal and then superintendent. At my school we are begging kids to reach out when they have problems bc we are all struggling, teachers included. Unfortunately, not all schools are as caring; some have very limited resources and others are just completely overwhelmed and confused. BUT Your son deserves to have a school Chromebook or at least for his home laptop to align. I am a public school teacher in the middle of concurrent teaching and I am very angry on your behalf: I don’t have all the solutions but I am 100% committed to helping students and families find them. All students deserve good access to a good education, and right now this means good technology. I’m sorry this has been so frustrating!!
posted by smorgasbord at 12:57 PM on February 28, 2021 [3 favorites]

As an ex school IT technician, this is exactly the kind of problem I wished parents would bring to my attention more often than they did.
posted by flabdablet at 3:00 PM on February 28, 2021 [1 favorite]