Next time you get stuck at Starbucks and your computer can’t connect to an internet connection because it never lets you get to the sign in screen, try typing 172.31.0.1 into your browser’s address bar. Just worked for me.
If that doesn’t work, try the following:
- Check the properties of your wireless network. On Windows, open the Network and Sharing Center and click on the connection name (“e.g, Google Starbucks”) in the following window.
- Find your computer’s local IP Address, sometimes referred to as an IPV4 address. Mine was
172.31.99.210. - Remember the first 2 numbers in the IP Address. e.g,
172.31 - Replace the second 2 numbers in your IP Address with 0 and 1. So,
172.31.99.210becomes172.31.0.1 - Type the resulting address into your browser bar. You should get the login screen.
I used to think if this was happening to me that it was a problem with my computer, and I was just SOL. Turns out, even Google’s routers get stuck sometimes, and targeting the router directly using an IP address can shake it up enough for it to actually let you in.
Go figure.