We're currently on 6.44.5 and are encountering the "Connection Refused" issue when clients try to load the hotspot URL. A similar report was posted in the Wireless subgroup but this isn't a wireless setup so I wasn't sure it was exactly the same issue.
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=150842
This is a new setup rather than a previously working setup. The clients show up in the Hosts tab. They can't ping the router and show "Connection Refused" when I try to access the router ip address/login URL directly or the DNS alias login page.
If I add web sites to the walled garden, they work, I also setup IP Bindings for MAC addresses and that works (i.e. surfing works without login). Are there any known issues in the 6.44.5 release with hotspots? The thread above indicated that there were some known problems with 6.45.x releases.