Before you Post...

Read our Posting Guidelines

Travel Question? Use our Planning Resources:

• E-mail our Travel Advisors for expert advice.
• Set up a one-on-one planning session with one of our Travel Consultants.
• Visit our Plan Your Trip section or use the search box above.
• Our Travel Store has books, maps, DVDs and more to help you get the most out of your trip.

elijah,

You'll probably have to go to the "Settings" menu (on the main page) and then click "Wi-Fi". That will display all the networks that are available in that location. Select one of them and then return to the main menu and it should work.

Note that if the Wi-Fi network has a small "Padlock" symbol next to it, the network is locked and you'll need a Password to access it.

If there are a number of networks available and these are different than the last one accessed, the IPod Touch needs to "know" which one to access.

Hopefully this will work for you.

Cheers!

To add to Ken, many unsecured networks still have a login page or terms and conditions page. As a result, you often can't just connect to a network and then hit send and receive on your email. You need to open Safari, try to connect to a page like Google and then if you successfully hit it you can then check your email.

Pete

If you need to put in a password on web page to log in (like what happens at Starbucks or many hotels) you need to launch Safari at first, it will default to the networks log in page, and from there you can use your email and everything else.

The new iPhone software makes this process a lot easier, popping up the log in screen at Starbucks (and lots of Euro hotels) automatically in many cases.

My Touch was my constant companion in Croatia this spring, should be great in Spain. Found lots of unsecured hot spots roaming around town. Keep that "Settings" icon handy, you'll be using it a lot to find wifi (called "wireless internet" in Europe).

Um, yeah.. not to be rude but with statements like ¨they call it wireless internet¨ i´m not sure if i´m being made fun of here...it isn´t like i´ve never used internet before. I´m assuming the problem has something to do with the actual network settings I just didn´t know if they had to be set up a particular way over here. Has anyone brought their itouch to spain and not had to change anything and it worked¿ thing is my laptop works just fine where I am so I really have no idea what the issue might be.

Elijah: I thought Steve was being helpful, not making fun. Did the previous suggestions work?

The suggestions offered so far are good ones. To reiterate:

1) Make sure that you FIRST open the Safari app and try to visit a common website BEFORE you attempt to use other Internet apps such as Mail, Weather, etc. This should cause the screen to display whatever login information is required by that wi-fi network. Of course it may be in tiny print, so stretch your browser window larger to read it. Also note that some wi-fi hotspots won't require a login, but they will still require you to press an "OK" button (or similar) on the browser to confirm that you accept their terms of service. After you clear their browser login, all other apps like Mail should start working.

2) Open the Settings app, then touch the word "Wi-fi" to see your Wi-fi settings. First, make sure that the Wifi switch is set to "ON"! Then look below that to see which networks are available and make sure that you're actually connecting to the correct network.

Good luck!

Elijah:

I reread the posts and I don't think you were being patronized. Sometimes comments made in writing just come across differently, though, so I can also understand how you could take it that way.

I guess pointing out that the "wireless internet" is the same as "wifi" could be seen as being somewhat akin to telling someone that "cell phones" are called "mobiles" overseas. You could probably figure it out, but still, it is helpful to know in advance. That's why I wouldn't take offense. Telling someone what a "handy" is. Now that would be helpful. (It's a cell phone in Germany . . . as I understand it.)

I have had trouble connecting my mobile phone to wifi before. I never could see the sign-on screen but I didn't know what I was doing wrong. I appreciate the tip and I can't wait to try it.

elijah,

sometimes where you're located makes a difference. i find i must "connect" closer to the router than maybe a laptop. for some hotels in the Uk i had to go to the lobby area to connect even though it was supposed to cover the whole hotel. try moving around. i also have an app called WifiTrak that senses more wifi hotspots than your ipod settings will and automatically connects to the strongest signal.

i agree with the other advice on going to safari and taking care of the login or "agreement" first.

ok iºm guessing this is justa generation gap thing, so hopefully apple will emailme back eventually lol. iºm hoping its just specific to spain and portugal and once i get somewhere with better infrastructure it wont be a problem anymore. the last place i stayed at said they specifically have network problem with apple devices and even had a password just in case you had an apple instead of a pc. I imagine there is something that can be changed in the network settings to fix this but I donºt know anything about that stuff.

that bitabout the wifitrack app however sounds very helpful, thanks

I had no trouble connecting my iPhone in Spain or lots of other places.

Try rebooting it -- I am not kidding, sometimes this helps.

I have a Touch and am also having trouble connecting at a location like the Birmingham, AL airport. Most places it works great though. Also trouble logging into some websites. Just upgraded to the latest software 3.1 but haven't tried it at the airport though. Before I upgraded to 3.0 I didn't have any trouble at that airport, so something changed with 3.0. I don't think Elijah is doing anything wrong, I think the problem is something other than operator error. Unfortunately I don't have a solution yet. I am seriously rethinking my idea to travel with only a Touch and no laptop next trip.

Bought ipod touch for emailing while in France. Got a router at home and it worked fine. Even the Starbucks people had difficulty making it work. Took it many times to electronic stores and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. Finally got it to work very slowly in a Paris hotel and after that we used McDonalds. Again from time to time it would not work. Early in the trip I got a double keyboard and another tourist used his iphone and did troubleshooting and we ended up rebooting. At least then it would work, but it was still very frustrating and slow to use the wifi that a hotel supplied.

I had the same problem in Germany. I just got back, even when I found a wifi signal, and added it, I was not able to connect to the web at all.

I even found an Apple store in Germany ---free wifi, but my iphone would not connect at all. I learned when I returned home that there is a different "signal" in Europe in some places and our American technology won't connect....now that sounds weird, I'd think it would be the same everywhere, but perhaps not.

I tried Starbucks as well, but that was T-mobile, so unable to use with AT &T.

All this being said, I had no problem in May in Italy with my phone, I used it several times when I found a signal--- Who knows!

If you reconnect the Data roaming, you'll be able to use wifi, but you will be charged, and I'm sure you don't want to do that.

I resorted to internet cafes in Germany...used 20 min for 1Euro, in the end it was worth it.

Good luck!

There's no "different signal" in Europe. But at the router, WiFi signals can be configured with different radio bands, and security protocols. Not all hand-held devices can handle the more "exotic" settings.

Also, when I used to bring my PDA with me in my travels I used to have a similar problem with not being able to connect properly over time. I finally figured out that every time I connected the PDA to a signal, the settings for the individual WiFi hotspots were stored in the units memory. So eventually it would get overloaded and would have problems connecting. By going into the WiFi settings there was an option to remove all those stored hotpots, and after I did that the problems would go away. Another issue...when in a big city my PDA would sometimes be completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of signals, usually rebooting solved this one. As I don't own an Itouch I don't know if any of this is relevant, but it's worth looking into.

I arrived in Barcelona 22nd of Sept. and am now in Madrid and so far I have no problems with wifi connections. I bought my iPod touch last year and have used it in Turkey, Greece, Qatar, Southeast Asia, France and now here in Spain. It had served all my basic Internet needs. I have not updated anything since I bought it.

I took my ipod touch on a Rick Steves GAS tour last year and was able to connect at all of the hotels we stayed in except one, which didn't offer wifi. Only one of the hotels (Murren) charged. Great, small and lightweight travel accessory.

We have had no luck whatsoever connecting an iTouch or and iPhone while in Barcelona Spain. Even at the hotel with kubi networks and a password, we got an initial connect for some apps like the NY Times, but could never get email and such plain vanilla things like the weather would never update. Tech support at Kubi suggested we needed to open the browser and configure network settings but since they had never seen an iTouch (honestly - that´s what they said) they were unable to help us. No luck with the Safari browser. We even went to a Telefonica store where they advertise Movistar (their wifi provider) and where they sell the iPhone and the people were clueless. Attempts to connect at McDonalds where they offer free wifi were unsuccessful also. So we´ve given up on being able to connect in this city. In Madrid and in the La Rioja region we had no problems and all of the apps worked just fine.

HI there! I just bought an ipod touch this year in america. I now live in Greece. I cannot connect to any wifi. when i get on safari each time the pop up screen says "Cannot open page/ The error was: Operation could not be completed.Invalid argument." is anyone out there familiar with this problem and know how to resolve it? thanks in advance

Rick, no one here was able to come up with a definitive answer for this problem when this original question was asked. You might be better off contacting Apple.

This may not directly apply to eligah's problem but we encountered a strange problem. Lst month we were carrying a netbook, Asus, through that area -- Spain, Italy, Greece. The first time we tried to connect, it appeared to fail. After a delay, we would get a message box saying, "Connection Failed" Could not figure out why so we put it away and tried later at another location. Same results. About the fourth or fifth time, I noticed that the little tiny icon in the bottom right hand corner of the screen that indicated that a connection had been established was active even though the message screen said that the connect had failed. And the icon was correct, we had a connection and everything worked fine. But all through Europe we continued to get the message screen that the connection had failed when in fact it had not. Works fine now that we are home. Anyone have a thought?

Possibly when your netbook said "Connection Failed" it was referring to your operating system attempting to connect via your LAN jack. With nothing plugged in the connection would obviously fail.

I use a Touch all over Europe, some places with log-ins like Starbucks and hotels you have to wait for the log in screen (new in software 3.0) to appear. Before 3.0 you had to log in using Safari. When you were at the Apple Store a genius there should be able to help you.