Cannot connect to public WiFi

[jcpainter]

Has anyone had (and solved) this problem?

We are currently at Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores, AL. On my laptop I can connect to their G band non-secure WiFi network with an "Excellent" signal strength. However, I get no internet access.

Other devices in our rig connect and get internet access just fine.

I've spent hours with Dell Pro-tech support to no avail. I've spent many days Googling this problem and have discovered that others experience the same issue on public WiFis, but I can find no posted solution.

Dell's last suggestion emailed to me was as follows: "I would suggest clearing the ip stack and flushing the dns. To do that open command prompt on your pc by clicking start and going to search at the bottom and type cmd, the cmd.exe should come up at the top but you have to RIGHTCLICK on cmd.exe and then click run as administrator. Hit yes on the next window and the run box should pop up when you hit that. This should bring up the black command screen. In this window type this in. ipconfig/release then hit enter. That should turn your ip to 0’s. Now in the next line type in ipconfig/flushdns and hit enter. After that type in netsh winsock reset and hit enter. After that exit the command prompt and then reboot your pc and try the connection again."

This did not resolve the problem either.

If anyone has experienced this strange phenomenon and found a solution, I would be forever grateful.

Thank you,
Jean Painter

[wa8yxm]

One of the problems that may apply at least in some parks is the park's router/DCHP package..

With older systems (Windows systems) if I did not get an IP address assigned it would give me an informative message.. With 8.1 it just says "Connected" but there is an exclamation mark on the icon (yellow)

Figure out how to view the adapter status. (I am wired just now so that's not easy) and see what your IP address is.. There is one that is a "Default" address, I forget what it is but am googling. One of the "Automatic, I can not get and address from the host" IP addresses is: 169.254.0.1 if my search is right (Looks right to me) this is never a valid address.

if this happens look for the "Default Gateway" if it is something like oh, say 192.168.1.0 Then you can try manually assigning an IP address.. How to do this varies a bit from adapter to operating system so I won't go into the detail but

Try an address (in this case) of something like 192.168.1.201 Usually that is OUTSIDE the DCHP range of the router and will connect you,, The first three numbers (Called Octets since they are represented by 2 hex digits or 8 bits) should be the same as the gateway, For the third I like to use 200+ when I do this (200-250) 255 is reserved 254 may be the router. numbers larger than 255 are not valid.

I have done this for many folks over the years

Many Parks simply take a Linksys small office/home router out of the box and plug it in .. in one park I frequent (This was 2 or 3 managers ago) the SSID was not even changed, it was still LINKSYS,, I was helping folks every day to connect, finally I decided to do something and tried the default admin password for that box.. It worked (no I won't give it away) reset the number of DCHP addresses from 50-100,, Cut way down on the number of folks I had to help.

One was a woman.. (The very next day) I showed her the problem.

When the park first plugged it in most of the users, like me, were using laptops but due to advances in portable electronics we now have game machines, PDAs and .. Oh here's one.. Suzie's I-Phone.

Yup, You guessed it,, She was Suzie.

[joebedford]

I had one adapter that presented N APs as G. As it was a G adapter it wouldn't connect.

[travelzoo]

Keep a eye open for the WIFI repair crew in the park. They are a good bunch and can probably help you. They are not in the park every day, but keep watching for them. You can also ask at the office if they are in the park.

[jcpainter]

YC 1 wrote:
rt click on your wi fi strength bar, click, open network and sharing, click "manage wireless networks", Click the one you are trying to use and remove it. Heck, remove most or all of them. Just for good measure reboot your computer. The start the picking of the wireless hot spot again and when the type of system comes up pick public. It might seem like it is doing nothing so be patient. It can take a minute for this screen to show up.

Nope, didn't fix it. It even says it has internet access, but won't bring up any site.

[jcpainter]

YC 1 wrote:
How long have you had this problem?

Did you do "restore to earlier time", ?

Does a screen ever pop up that ask what kind of network is it? Public, Private, etc.

New computer, so problem from day 1. No, the screen never popped up asking what type of network it is. It just connects the the network and says "Signal Strength: Excellent"

[jcpainter]

powderman426 wrote:
There is a simple solution for this issue of not able to get connected inspite of having connection: Goto Run:c:\temp . Here you have to delete all the files/folders that present in this temp folder.(don't leave any single file/folder) in this directory. Now, disconnect that internet connection which is annoying you.. press refresh of F5 on the desktop screen and then try to connect to that internet connection back, for your surprise you will find the internet connection on with its full speed. This is for 8.1

The other thing is to briefly shut down your antivirus as it can block access.

Thank you very much for your suggestions, but this did not work either. When running the network troubleshooter on this connection, the resulting message is "Windows can't communicate with the device or resource (primary DNS server). This is the error message I Googled and found suggestions duplicating what the Dell tech recommended.

Although several forums had questions on this problem, no one posted a solution that worked for anyone with the problem.

[YC_1]

rt click on your wi fi strength bar, click, open network and sharing, click "manage wireless networks", Click the one you are trying to use and remove it. Heck, remove most or all of them. Just for good measure reboot your computer. The start the picking of the wireless hot spot again and when the type of system comes up pick public. It might seem like it is doing nothing so be patient. It can take a minute for this screen to show up.

[YC_1]

How long have you had this problem?

Did you do "restore to earlier time", ?

Does a screen ever pop up that ask what kind of network is it? Public, Private, etc.

[powderman426]

There is a simple solution for this issue of not able to get connected inspite of having connection: Goto Run:c:\temp . Here you have to delete all the files/folders that present in this temp folder.(don't leave any single file/folder) in this directory. Now, disconnect that internet connection which is annoying you.. press refresh of F5 on the desktop screen and then try to connect to that internet connection back, for your surprise you will find the internet connection on with its full speed. This is for 8.1

The other thing is to briefly shut down your antivirus as it can block access.