Just in case anybody knows…
As you may be aware, paid wifi hotspots sometimes are programmed to resolve ANY host to the ip-address of the login page. And whatever URL you request from this address will (depending on your login status) either give you a login page, or auto-forward you to www.msn.com or some other (not very useful) page.
Now, I was browsing, when suddenly the hotspot authorization system got a hiccup, and a request to the site I was browsing ended up on the login page.
I logged in again. But now, any new request to the site I was browsing, was directed to the login function, and auto-forwarded to www.msn.com!
Grr!
I’m on Vista, so brought up my handy command shell administrative level (with green background, so I won’t mix with the user-level black window 🙂 ) and issued ipconfig -flushdns.
My computers dns cache was successfully emptied, but it turns out that Opera has its own dns resolver cache!
I didn’t want to close and reopen my browser (although it does remember last set of pages visited) and started looking for some way to force rechecking of dns.
I didn’t find any.
Eventually, after some 10 minutes, the “poisoned” dns entry timed out and I could continue, but my nerdy brain was left alerted to a potential problem…
Environment:
Vista, Opera 10.61
(This hotspot forwards to the frontpage of the provider + opens a pop-up with a welcome timer…)
