Database Users

Wifi Connection Drops

Hello all,
I use a campus-wide wifi network (MAC registered, since the WPA2 Enterprise network requires the phone to keep inputting my password for credentials) while I'm at school, and sometimes the wifi network will drop and not reconnect.
For example, after a random period of standby time, when I turn on the phone and look at it, the wifi will still be happily connected with a proper DHCP-requested IP address, but all efforts at using ping or the Internet browser and so on will time-out.
As far as I can tell, calling reassociate() on the connection is not very effective, as I've tried applications that monitor the connection and try to reassociate().
The problem most often occurs when I leave campus and then come back on.
If I cycle wifi on and off, then the wireless will work again. However, this is annoying since sometimes push Gmail will not get sent in on time. This is also problematic for Voice, since that requires data, and if the phone thinks wifi works, it will not bother connecting to 3G/data to get Voice messages.
Any thoughts? Log-looking suggestions? I'm open to anything! Does anyone have this problem too? (I think my personal wifi router drops similarly so.)
InfX and I looked at the sleep states of the wifi and CPU performance in thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=950655 , but that seemed inconclusive (although it is slimly possible I am not building the kernel correctly).
Thanks muchly,
Jeff
Edit: I am using rafpigna's kernel on a Sense (imilka's mytouch 4g) build.

Looking for a way to block specific WiFi signals.

I live very close to a hotel which has multiple SSID's that keep interfering with my ability to stay connected to my router.
I've tried hard coding a static ip on the phone, adding the mac address to router, even went as far as creating a separate unhidden network just for the phone. So far, nothing has worked.
So i was thinking that maybe there's a way to have the phone ignore certain signals, lock on to a preferred one or use WiFi but turn off the scanning feature. The only problem is that I haven't been able to find any settings or Apps that will allow me to do it.
So, if anyone has any ideas or suggestions as how, or if, I can make this work, I would greatly appreciate it.
I'm using a Droid 2 Rooted with 2.3.3 and have a Netgear N750 router.
BTW - none of the computers in the house are having this issue.
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App

So, are you saying the phone constantly tries to leave your home wifi in favor of attempting to connect to the hotel's?

Yes, unless I'm within about 5 feet of my router, the hotel's signal makes the phone keep dropping and reconnecting over and over again.
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App

Are the hotel's hotspots not WEP secured? That is so odd. If they're unsecured hotspots go over to the hotel and tell them to get their sh*t in order. Otherwise I'm out of ideas, sorry.

No, they are secure. WPA2 as is mine. I don't connect to them. My phone just detects them, drops my connection and tries to connect to them. So that leaves me with no connection and having to use 3G.
But there may be an easier solution to this. After spending a few hours on the Netgear site, it turns out that there is a bug in their firmware that causes signal strength fluctuations. They said a new release should be available in a few weeks.
In the meantime I've changed the channel on the router to auto select which seems to be helping.
I do appreciate you taking the time to assist.
Thanks!
Scott
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App

Glad there's at least some kind of work around, wish I was of more assistance.

Having a similar problem with a samsung galaxy sii - current internet configuration is through AT&T U-Verse with built in Wireless G router in there Gateway. tried adding a Netgear dual band N router to my network and with the netgear's 2 wifi signals on then my phone just constantly goes into scanning mode and keeps trying to connect between the 3 - things work fine with the wifi turned off in the new netgear kind of defeating the purpose of me installing it - was hoping to have the phone use one of the N signals..

Block bt openzone connection pleaseee!
Desperately need an app for this? Is it not going to be possible for a way to block certain wifi signals because I'm actually going to rip next doors BT openzone router out of the wall and get a hammer to it! My HTC desire hd is insistent on connecting to its poor signal over our excellent one and the worst part is that you can't actually access the network unless you pay BT for a user account! Grrrr.... Please help

Try to connect the network you dont want, then go to wifi management in settings. Long press on the network you dont want and hit forget network. Then your phone shouldnt automatically connect to it unless you tell it to.

will android switch to a better wifi if available?

Heyho, i currently have access to my wifi as well as to my neighbors network as my wifi gets weak while i am in the garden. I feel like android isnt awitching to my neighbors wifi automatically. Only when my wifi is completely gone, android will look for a new one.
I thought about making a task with tasker which looks for another wifi as soon as the current wifi strength goes below 25%.
Or is/should android do that aleady on its own?
Thanks

In wifi -> Advanced settings there's an option to avoid poor connection. I have no idea what it actually does, but give it a try.

I did the test with my router, which supports 2 frequencies.
Assuming both networks are saved in the phone, it connect automatically to the one with better signal or look for an alternative if signal is lost.

Thats what I mean, it will connect to the other WiFi if the connection is lost. But if the connection is crippled (bad) enough to not handle a music stream, but still "availabe" it will not switch to the other WiFi eventhough that other WiFi has 100% signal strength ?
I activated the "use wlan only if good strength available".. lets see how this works

I have multiple APs in my house and the only way I've ever got it to switch is by toggling wifi off and on (or loosing the first signal completely). This is an Android issue IINM, my GS2 and my N4 both have this issue.

I tried the "do not use weak WiFi".. didnt work.

zakazak said:
I tried the "do not use weak WiFi".. didnt work.
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Click to collapse
It has never worked for me either. Didn't work on my GSM GNex or with the N4.

I think it's how most WiFi clients work, otherwise if you were in the middle of 2 equal signals, it would spend more time disconnecting and reconnecting creating a DOS attack on the 2 AP's and leaving you with no data.
As for 2 home wireless routers, use the same SSID and authentication settings for both, and put one on channel 1 and the other on channel 11.
Make one a AP only (no router, no firewall, no dhcp server) and connect it to a client wired port on the first one. You can roam between them like people in large offices do.

or I try to make a tasker profile
if wifi strenght below 20% and another wifi is available with more than 30%, connect to that one.. then wait 5 minutes ?

[Q] dreaded gray Wi-Fi bar

Hey guys,
My nexus 10 had a gray Wi-Fi bar and is failing to connect any of the Google services such as play store, search app, or gmail. Basically GAPPS. I cannot find a solution to this besides factory resetting, can someone help? My tablet is on stock rooted.
Thanks!
add12364

My N10 either has a grey WiFi bar or it disconnects completely. This happens very often and occurs no matter what rom I have, even stock. I've always felt that the WiFi has always had issues but never got resolved. I've looked around for solutions but not found any. Much appreciated if someone explained or had a solution.
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk HD

I completely cannot use Google play, someone please help.

Toggle the Wifi off and then back on a few seconds later.
If this doesnt fix anything then you need to modify your router settings to be compatible.

Don't use 5g on router.
Sent from my Nexus 10

5GHz networks work fine on this tablet.

trickster2369 said:
Don't use 5g on router.
Sent from my Nexus 10
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No offense meant, but that's a pretty silly claim. The transmission technology involved (2.4GHz/5GHz) or protocol (802.11a/b/g/n/ac) has no bearing on the color of the Wi-Fi indicator, which indicates just one thing: does a request to Google's secure servers work, or not? It's virtually always a problem with the network setup, be it with the ISP or the router blocking a port. OP should try using a public access point (coffee shop or something) or mobile hotspot to see if they're able to connect that way.

EniGmA1987 said:
5GHz networks work fine on this tablet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My apologies. There was a lot of discussion concerning the use of 5ghz when the tablet was released. My comment was more of a suggestion than an absolute, and probably wasn't written the best.
Rirere said:
No offense meant, but that's a pretty silly claim. The transmission technology involved (2.4GHz/5GHz) or protocol (802.11a/b/g/n/ac) has no bearing on the color of the Wi-Fi indicator, which indicates just one thing: does a request to Google's secure servers work, or not? It's virtually always a problem with the network setup, be it with the ISP or the router blocking a port. OP should try using a public access point (coffee shop or something) or mobile hotspot to see if they're able to connect that way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
None taken. I was under the impression that grey/no bars, meant that there was no signal or there was a connection issue. I had no idea that the wifi state on the tablet had anything to do with Googles secure servers. I would like to learn more about that, if you would be so kind.

trickster2369 said:
None taken. I was under the impression that gray/no bars, meant that there was no signal or there was a connection issue. I had no idea that the wifi state on the tablet had anything to do with Googles secure servers. I would like to learn more about that, if you would be so kind.
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Click to collapse
The Wi-Fi state doesn't depend on the connection to Google's servers-- that's why it's quite possible to get full graybars. You'll also notice that if your Wi-Fi goes to sleep, when you wake up a (stock) Android device, you should basically always see it gray first, then turn blue after a second or so (speed depends on how good your connection is).
It's also not as simple as just going to google.com, because you can (usually) do that regardless of the status reported. That's because going to google.com only relies on basic HTTP/HTTPS web traffic through ports 80 and 443, which on most functioning networks are never going to be blocked (mostly because it would make even basic web browsing more or less impossible without workarounds). All of your "real" transactions with Google (Gmail sync, location reporting, etc.) happen through secured connections that run on different ports.
Some networks will block those ports for security reasons (the more ports you have open, the greater the network's functionality-- and its vulnerability to outside attack). In those situations, you'll see a gray bar indicating that while you've got connectivity, you won't be able to establish the connection to Google needed for some services to run (most importantly, any GCM/C2DM-based push notifications).
And no problem. Unfortunately, many OEMs muck around with the iconography, making this distinction meaningless on a pretty wide range of devices. It's annoying because this is one of the more common reasons that Google services don't work.

Rirere said:
The Wi-Fi state doesn't depend on the connection to Google's servers-- that's why it's quite possible to get full graybars. You'll also notice that if your Wi-Fi goes to sleep, when you wake up a (stock) Android device, you should basically always see it gray first, then turn blue after a second or so (speed depends on how good your connection is).
It's also not as simple as just going to google.com, because you can (usually) do that regardless of the status reported. That's because going to google.com only relies on basic HTTP/HTTPS web traffic through ports 80 and 443, which on most functioning networks are never going to be blocked (mostly because it would make even basic web browsing more or less impossible without workarounds). All of your "real" transactions with Google (Gmail sync, location reporting, etc.) happen through secured connections that run on different ports.
Some networks will block those ports for security reasons (the more ports you have open, the greater the network's functionality-- and its vulnerability to outside attack). In those situations, you'll see a gray bar indicating that while you've got connectivity, you won't be able to establish the connection to Google needed for some services to run (most importantly, any GCM/C2DM-based push notifications).
And no problem. Unfortunately, many OEMs muck around with the iconography, making this distinction meaningless on a pretty wide range of devices. It's annoying because this is one of the more common reasons that Google services don't work.
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Would you happen to know if roms can affect wifi reception?

ikenvape said:
Would you happen to know if roms can affect wifi reception?
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Click to collapse
ROMs and kernels shouldn't affect reception in a technical sense (unless the kernel developer really messes up or something), but they will affect what your device can do with the signal it has. There are also various modes your device can follow that offer compromises (i.e. for CDMA devices, EVRC-B vs. EVRC-C -- one is better for normal usage, the other holds clearer calls with low signal).

Rirere said:
ROMs and kernels shouldn't affect reception in a technical sense (unless the kernel developer really messes up or something), but they will affect what your device can do with the signal it has. There are also various modes your device can follow that offer compromises (i.e. for CDMA devices, EVRC-B vs. EVRC-C -- one is better for normal usage, the other holds clearer calls with low signal).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really appreciate the reply Rirere
I tried several lately. Since day one I have been receiving such poor reception. We have heavy wireless users here ranging from multiple game stations,phones tablets ,PC's etc. All have been receiving full strength except for the N10. From what your saying it seems like I have adjust the router for this one.

ikenvape said:
Really appreciate the reply Rirere
I tried several lately. Since day one I have been receiving such poor reception. We have heavy wireless users here ranging from multiple game stations,phones tablets ,PC's etc. All have been receiving full strength except for the N10. From what your saying it seems like I have adjust the router for this one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you be a little more specific? Android has some nasty Wi-Fi issues (never have as many on my iOS devices), but the situation you describe doesn't sound like it helps. I'm the student manager at a college helpdesk, so we sometimes have this kind of problem in the dorms. If you give some more info about your setup, I might be able to at least point you in the right direction.
Things like what's the make and model of the router, where it's located, how close are neighbors, and so on. You can also use this app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/...SwxLDEsImNvbS5mYXJwcm9jLndpZmkuYW5hbHl6ZXIiXQ) to see if there's channel interference. If your router is new enough, you could also potentially kick it up to use 5GHz only (although that causes lower speeds the further you get much faster than auto 2.4GHz/5GHz).

Rirere said:
Could you be a little more specific? Android has some nasty Wi-Fi issues (never have as many on my iOS devices), but the situation you describe doesn't sound like it helps. I'm the student manager at a college helpdesk, so we sometimes have this kind of problem in the dorms. If you give some more info about your setup, I might be able to at least point you in the right direction.
Things like what's the make and model of the router, where it's located, how close are neighbors, and so on. You can also use this app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/...SwxLDEsImNvbS5mYXJwcm9jLndpZmkuYW5hbHl6ZXIiXQ) to see if there's channel interference. If your router is new enough, you could also potentially kick it up to use 5GHz only (although that causes lower speeds the further you get much faster than auto 2.4GHz/5GHz).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your too kind Reiere Thank you,
I'm using a Media Link MWN-WAPR150N. I see, it doesn't support 5ghz which seems to be a total bummer. I could have sworn that I purchased a dual band model. It's a wonderful device as I'm not having to constantly power cycle it like in the past. We do catch a neighboring facility's wifi here on our devices so I believe this can be causing interference and it would be best to switch up to a 5ghz router? Definitely will check out the app. Thanks allot. I apologize for the ignorance in this area.

ikenvape said:
Your too kind Reiere Thank you,
I'm using a Media Link MWN-WAPR150N. I see, it doesn't support 5ghz which seems to be a total bummer. I could have sworn that I purchased a dual band model. It's a wonderful device as I'm not having to constantly power cycle it like in the past. We do catch a neighboring facility's wifi here on our devices so I believe this can be causing interference and it would be best to switch up to a 5ghz router? Definitely will check out the app. Thanks allot. I apologize for the ignorance in this area.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're almost always going to get some degree of interference from other devices. How bad it is depends on the power of your neighbors' rig and its proximity. Other items, such as microwaves can cause temporary disruptions in wireless power, but it's much more unusual these days than it was in the past.
Given the way other devices in your network seem to be functioning alright, it might be a device-side issue. However, before that I would look into a Wi-Fi analyzing app like I posted earlier and try setting your network to a particular channel. If you pick one clear of your neighbors' wireless network, then if it's set to auto (which it probably is), it should adjust around yours and grant you a clear channel. (two networks on auto can occasionally snarl with one another, and the one with more power is going to win. Since yours is a single-band N home router, there's a good chance you'd lose with the routers out these days).

Galaxy Note 3 Wifi Issues

I have had my new Galaxy Note 3 for about 3 weeks now, and have had an issue with certain apps not connecting to the internet over wifi. All of the google apps (youtube, play store, hangouts, gmail, etc) are not able to connect to the internet over any wifi hotspot, or if they do, they're painfully slow.
I have changed MTU settings on my home router, DNS settings, wifi auto switch is off on the phone.
Here's the kicker. If I enable airplane mode first, then turn wifi on, everything works great. I suspect this to somehow be related to the SIM card? Really should have nothing to do with wifi, but who knows...
I should add that I've owned a couple other android phones that have had this issue, but it seemed to have just "worked itself out" after a day or so. (Droid 4, Stratosphere II)

Have you tried a 30/30/30 hard reset on the router yet?
Does a laptop connected via Wi-Fi also have similar issues?
Sent from my SM-N900V using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

I have hard reset and factory reset the router a few times, even went so far as to buy a brand new router and use it. No difference.
I get 26/8 speeds on two different laptops, and one desktop, all with ping times down to about 18ms (as shown on speedtest.net)

spoke with a helpful rep at verizon today, who supposedly called samsung regarding this fix while I was on hold. My replacement should be here tomorrow. This issue is exactly the same as when older android phones would not connect to google (signal indicators would be white instead of blue). It seems like something to do with ssl traffic.
Anyhow, will post back after i've played with the replacement for a bit.

syntheticexctasy said:
I have hard reset and factory reset the router a few times, even went so far as to buy a brand new router and use it. No difference.
I get 26/8 speeds on two different laptops, and one desktop, all with ping times down to about 18ms (as shown on speedtest.net)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
syntheticexctasy said:
spoke with a helpful rep at verizon today, who supposedly called samsung regarding this fix while I was on hold. My replacement should be here tomorrow. This issue is exactly the same as when older android phones would not connect to google (signal indicators would be white instead of blue). It seems like something to do with ssl traffic.
Anyhow, will post back after i've played with the replacement for a bit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The next most common thing that it would be is the channel that your router is set to. You want to use a frequency that has little interference and there is an app called WiFi Analyzer to help figure it out for your surroundings.
The reason that the laptops might work ok is because the channel can be set within Windows and are most likely set to a different random number between 1-11 than your phone is.

I have found open channels and used those, which made no difference. I believe this may be a google issue as evidenced here (granted these guys are talking about the nexus 5, the issue is very much the same)
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/nexus/SN03aclu7B8[1-25-false]
I received my replacement today, no dice. I also bought a new router today, no dice. I've tried every channel 1-12, no dice.
The only thing that works is to enable airplane mode, then turn wifi on. I then see full speeds on play store, youtube, gmail, and hangouts. Interestingly enough, the facebook app is affected by this, as well as all push notifications.
It should be noted that the replacement note 3 exhibits the exact same behavior. This leads me to believe there is a modem issue causing the phone to switch back and forth between LTE and wifi, or something along those lines (if the cell radio is off, wifi works great)

syntheticexctasy said:
I received my replacement today, no dice. I also bought a new router today, no dice. I've tried every channel 1-12, no dice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
syntheticexctasy said:
The only thing that works is to enable airplane mode, then turn wifi on. I then see full speeds on play store, youtube, gmail, and hangouts. Interestingly enough, the facebook app is affected by this, as well as all push notifications.
It should be noted that the replacement note 3 exhibits the exact same behavior. This leads me to believe there is a modem issue causing the phone to switch back and forth between LTE and wifi, or something along those lines (if the cell radio is off, wifi works great)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is truly odd. I suppose it could be believable that an ISP throttled traffic to specific blocks (net neutrality anyone?), but I don't know why that would cause an interface change on the handset.
There are some apps which are network interface aware - e.g. as an example carriers will use split DNS and inbound IP firewalling so only people on their own network can resolve the IPs of MMS (APN) servers or *send* data to them. That prevents them from being DDOS'ed and I suppose other attacks from anything but their own network - which they have well instrumented. But that means that the MMS apps can not use whatever IP interface happens to be up - either for DNS service or for IP routing - so they need to be able to bring up a specific IP interface, use DNS that is bound through that interface, and route through that interface as well.
I was going through the apps on my phone the other night with a package browser (Package Explorer (Ribo), btw) and I was stunned at how many apps have "CHANGE_NETWORK_STATE" privileges.
What I'm wondering is if you have an app installed that has gone nuts and is toggling on/off your cell I/F. Something like that would be consistent with your observations.
Is there anything relevant happening in your device logcat when this is going on?
.

bftb0 said:
That is truly odd. I suppose it could be believable that an ISP throttled traffic to specific blocks (net neutrality anyone?), but I don't know why that would cause an interface change on the handset.
There are some apps which are network interface aware - e.g. as an example carriers will use split DNS and inbound IP firewalling so only people on their own network can resolve the IPs of MMS (APN) servers or *send* data to them. That prevents them from being DDOS'ed and I suppose other attacks from anything but their own network - which they have well instrumented. But that means that the MMS apps can not use whatever IP interface happens to be up - either for DNS service or for IP routing - so they need to be able to bring up a specific IP interface, use DNS that is bound through that interface, and route through that interface as well.
I was going through the apps on my phone the other night with a package browser (Package Explorer (Ribo), btw) and I was stunned at how many apps have "CHANGE_NETWORK_STATE" privileges.
What I'm wondering is if you have an app installed that has gone nuts and is toggling on/off your cell I/F. Something like that would be consistent with your observations.
Is there anything relevant happening in your device logcat when this is going on?
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are no apps installed other than the stock verizon/samsung apps. I have reset to factory in preparation for sending this unit back to vz, however it appears i'll be keeping it since the replacement didn't work any better.
Nothing interesting from logcat. Just a lot of IRListener messages, and DalvikVM occasionally clearing ram.

I can see why you would be pulling your hair out.
And the fact that you observe the same behavior with two different units (completely different hardware) and two different routers means one of two things:
- the problem is the handset/software
- the problem is not the handset/software.
Not trying to be funny there. What I mean by the above is that for you to pull two devices out of Samsung's production line at random (unless you happened to get two devices from a single batch of defective units), then the problem couldn't possibly be a low-probability defect thing: either it happens on a very large fraction of all N3 handsets, or the problem actually has nothing to do with the handset at all.
e.g. suppose Sammy shipped handsets where 1 out of 100 had the problem you observe. For you to end up with two of them in a row, the odds of that happening would be 1 in 10,000. If affected half of all handsets, then your odds would be more reasonable - 1 out of 4.
But it sure seems like if it affected half of all owners... or even 10% of all owners, people would be piling in in droves to complain.
I haven't noticed it on my N3, but I have other devices so I'm not sure how much I have used it for e.g. Youtube streaming. I do leave both WiFi and the cell on, and haven't noticed what is happening to you, but I am on MJ7 instead of MJE, and my WiFi is older (802.11g), so maybe if it is a bug it that wouldn't even show up with my setup even if it were the N3's fault.
(BTW, that offers a suggestion - because the N3 is so new it has 802.11ac capabilities - and I suppose your new router does too - if you turn off some capabilities, does the problem disappear? For instance turn off 802.11ac or 802.11n or 5Ghz band usage on the router, does that change anything?)
The other alternatives? Some kind of burst RF noise in your local environment? You earlier said
are not able to connect to the internet over any wifi hotspot, or if they do, they're painfully slow.
Click to expand...
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were the "any wifi hotspot" APs that were all relatively close to a single location, or were they widely dispersed (miles apart)? If they were miles apart, then the problem isn't ISM-band interference. Even if it were, interference from non 802.11 devices (bluetooth devices, baby monitors, microwaves, some wireless cameras, etc) isn't going to show up using a scanning app. Relatively sophisticated equipment would be needed to make that determination. Or a search and destroy mission.
I will say that I had a similar problem a few weeks back (using completely different gear) - I was tethering to a different Android phone (USB tether), and Web browsing on the client device (N7 tab) was fine except the Google Play store app - data would only come dribbling out of it. I couldn't even complete a single app listing, much less begin an app download. At the time I just chalked it up to a temporary problem with Google's Play store. But now it makes me wonder if it isn't something more subtle - as you noted, Google servers seem to be a commonality you are observing. Maybe some ridiculous bug involving Google's single credential efforts?
Well, now I'm rambling and I really haven't given you a suggestion. Maybe something I said will jog you in a different direction and you'll figure it out. If it really is something generic to the current Note 3, it seems like Google would want to know about it. I wonder if it is even possible to get telephone support from Google - they don't really have a reputation as being a consumer-oriented business.
good luck
.

Thank you for all of your help. I am sort of an amateur RF "enthusiast" myself. This happens in more than one location, literally every wifi location i've connected to.
I do believe on past handsets a new sim card sorted this out for some reason, however the vz rep that I spoke with activated a new one that I had gotten with the note 3, but not activated at the time, since my droid 4's sim card was "current enough".
I am lead to believe that this is a modem firmware issue, due to the fact that when the cell radio is off (doesn't matter if mobile data is on or off) the wifi works great. I am running MJE, and would be willing to try and downgrade to the previous radio to see if it makes a difference, but I don't know if that's even possible without causing some damage.
edit: I just realized that the replacement phone is running MJ7...so not sure it would matter.

Resolved
Ok guys, I figured this out, sort of.
I went into an angry router swapping/resetting frenzy when I figured out that the replacement acted the same.
My original setup consisted of: (I have a lot of wired devices in my house)
Comcast Gateway (set up as a normal cable modem, wifi/firewall/dhcp disabled) ----> Linksys WRT54G w/ DD-WRT (wifi off, using for firewall/routing) -----> Zonet N router (no dhcp, using as a switch, wifi off) --------> Linksys BEFW11S4 (used as a switch) ------> Netgear WNR1000V2 (used as a switch and second wifi access point occasionally)
During this frenzy, I eliminated the Zonet unit, and the BEFW11s4. My network now looks like this:
Comcast Gateway ----> Netgear WNR1000V2 (router/firewall/dhcp/wifi access point) -----> WRT54G (as a switch)
This seems to have solved my problem. I noticed while troubleshooting that if I disconnected the segment between the Zonet and the BEFW11S4, my phone would work perfectly fine. I believe that taking the BEFW11S4 out of the picture solved my problem, even though my data was not riding on that segment of the network.
Still, I am perplexed as to why the airplane mode trick fixed the issue.

LOL. I have a pile of Cisco routers if you want to buy them - and I'll throw in some token ring gear and another BEFW11S4 for free.
But seriously - you did the right thing by (experimentally) simplifying; the more complex an environment is, the more opportunities there are for bug expression.
Glad everything worked out - and I await your PM inquiring about my Cisco pile

I never wanted to upgrade from my WRT54G V1! What an awesome, rock solid router! However, need faster wireless speeds nowadays.
I was trying to keep that as my firewall, since the dd-wrt firewall is so much more robust than that of the netgear, also the netgear does not support nat loopback (something I really would like to have)