Dropping wifi with multiple APs - Nexus 10 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hopefully this is another known bug in 4.2 but on my N10 the wifi frequently drops from my router if I connect to a SSID with multiple access points.
Basically I have 3 x 2.4Ghz and 1 x 5Ghz access points around my house. All APs are on the same subnet, have the same network name (SSID) and same security settings. All my other devices (laptops, ipad, android gingerbread, android ICS, etc) all play nice with this and move seamlessly from one AP to the other when moving around the house. My new Nexus 10, on the other hand, does not. Even sitting in one room, right next to one of the APs it will randomly drop and reconnect to the network. Wifi analyser shows that the signal to all APs is fine. I'm guessing its flicking between APs.
As a workaround I changed the SSID on one of the APs to be unique and told it to connect to that - its been fine since but obviously this isnt the ideal solution.
Another 4.2 bug?

I've never had any luck with Android and multiple WAPs with the same SSID. At least for handoffs so I was forced to use mutliple SSIDs. Wish Google would get this taken care of! One of my only real complaints with Android...

I just found and installed this...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.heleron.wifistrongestsignal&hl=en
Not sure if it works yet.
Theres also an open bug:
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=12649
I'll report back...

Related

Wierd Wifi issue

Hello all,
I have a nexus s 9020t with stock 2.3.4.
I have been in an office building that has 2 Wifi networks, one for each company.
With my PC I can see both networks, the one for the company I am visiting is a very strong signal and I can connect to it without a problem, the second company is a weak signal.
With my nexus s however, I can only see the weak Wifi, it won't even show the strong signal in the Wifi networks list (and one of the access points for it is right on top of me), I tried both with the stock Wifi setting and with Wifinder.
Other smartphones such as the iPhone have no problem in seeing both networks and connecting to the one with the strong signal.
Any idea why is that?
And do you think we will ever get a fix that boosts the phone's Wifi strengh? (or is there one?) kinda annoying having poor reception when people with iPhones etc... have a good recepotion to the same network.
I had some issues with wpa encryption and networks not showing up on my nexus. Changed the network to wep and the issue went away.
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk
This was an open network on which you need to login via the browser after you connect.
What ROM are you on. CM7 has many legacy wifi support built in. It would be that if you're on stock is missing proper support for certain channel/frequency (wifi is not all exactly 2.4mhz).
Also, CM7 you can set up to 14 channels that you can use.

wifi channel problem

In my house I have set up 2 wiress routers. One of them is the main router assigning dhcp and is on channel 1. The other is acting as an access point and is broadcasting on channel 6. Both are using the same ssid, and all of the security settings are the same. Anyway the network works fine. All devices flip to the strongest channel while roaming throughout the house, except this one. This one is locked on the weaker router (further away). I have tried forgetting the network and re-adding it. Any ideas? Is there a way to force the wifi on this to a specific channel?
I use a free app called Wifi Analyzer. You might install the app and look through the various screens to see what is going on in your network (they are easy to use). This will allow you to confirm the actual signal strength at various points in your home. It is possible that one of your neighbors might be using a channel that is interfering with yours. The app will help you understand what is happening.
thanks for the speedy reply! I actually have that app also and love it. that is basically how I know that it's using the weaker channel. I don't have nieghbors so that is not a problem. the biggest thing going to point me in the direction of something wrong on the Samsung is that I have a couple of thunderbolts, an incredible, and 2 wifi laptops that under testing all switch channels correctly.
So I just took another look at wifi analyzer. One of the sceens asked me to instal wifi connector. After I installed that I was able to connect to the specific channel. So thanks again !

Major WiFi connection issue

Hi
I've had a search in the forums but haven't seen any other posts re. this but wondered if anyone had any ideas?!
Basically I'm having problems connecting to some networks with my Tab 10.1 (stock, updated OTA to the latest TouchWiz UX last week).
I first had a problem last week when I took the device into work - there's an 802.1x EAP network there but it wouldn't even show up in the network list. My SGS2 connects to it without an issue.
Then when I got home tonight (after happily using it at my parents' house during the day) I found it wouldn't connect to my home WiFi (hidden SSID, WPA2). It had connected to this network fine in the past, but now was just sitting showing it as 'not in range' network. At first I thought it might be a router issue (it used to be a little flaky), but then I saw that my iPod and SGS2 were both connecting and working on it without a hitch.
I couldn't see the network at all in WiFi Analyzer (similarly to at work), although it was showing my neighbours' WiFi networks fine. I tried deleting the saved entry and telling the router to broadcast the SSID but it still wouldn't work.
I then put on my WiFi hotspot on my SGS2 (also a previously remembered connection) and it worked absolutely fine!
Does anyone have any ideas where to go next apart from doing a full reset? (which although not the end of the world would be quite a pain).
Thanks for any suggestions/tips!
OK, bit the bullet and restore my device to factory settings - it STILL can't see my home WiFi, despite my SGS2, laptop and iPod all connecting to it fine. It is however showing up two networks belonging to neighbours and also my SGS2 if I put it in WiFi hotspot mode!
Any suggestions folks??
Sounds like a route issue, did you reboot the router? Is the router on a channel below 12?
Hi thanks for the reply!
I actually just spotted a post at http://www.thegalaxytabforum.com/index.php?/topic/5511-my-wifi-no-longer-works/ with the same issue.
It looks like Samsung have mucked something up when they made the Touchwiz UX update - it now blocks WiFi channels 12 upwards, when the old stock Honeycomb firmware didn't do this. I'd moved my router onto 13 to reduce congestion and I guess the work one must be on 12/13 too.
I can see from the table at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels that 12/13 are only allowed under low-power conditions in the USA, but this isn't the case elsewhere so they shouldn't have locked it down outside of the USA.
This also happend to me
pwhooftman said:
Sounds like a route issue, did you reboot the router? Is the router on a channel below 12?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I had setup an additional router in my house (with assigned a high numbered -or so i thought- fixed IP address) for some reason my main router tryied unseccesfully to assign the same IP to my SGT as the router. This had obviously conflicts and could not log in.
Went into the router eliminated the fixed IP address and voilá! it got working again, all IP a dinamic!!
Regards

[Q] Is there any solution for WiFi not connecting to certain networks

My Nexus 10 works fine on most WiFi networks, but there are a few places where it fails. The N10 sees the network which has fine signal strength. It goes to the "Connecting" state, waits 30 seconds or so, and then drops back to "Saved".
I would think the network had non-functional DHCP, but I can connect with a Lenovo notebook instantly from the same place to the same network and AP.
The router that causes the problem is a Cisco 1200 series AP, operating vanilla 802.11g, with an open network, in the 2.4 GHz band.
I have tried all the Wi-Fi-related options in the N10, and removed and recreated the connection. I have found nothing that helps.
Has anyone that has seen this issue found a solution?
timg11 said:
My Nexus 10 works fine on most WiFi networks, but there are a few places where it fails. The N10 sees the network which has fine signal strength. It goes to the "Connecting" state, waits 30 seconds or so, and then drops back to "Saved".
I would think the network had non-functional DHCP, but I can connect with a Lenovo notebook instantly from the same place to the same network and AP.
The router that causes the problem is a Cisco 1200 series AP, operating vanilla 802.11g, with an open network, in the 2.4 GHz band.
I have tried all the Wi-Fi-related options in the N10, and removed and recreated the connection. I have found nothing that helps.
Has anyone that has seen this issue found a solution?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seen this a million times, and it's one of my lingering dislikes about Android (although to be fair, I've seen the analogue -- much less -- on my iPad as well). Toggling the Wi-Fi state on and off like mad (or Airplane Mode) usually does the trick for me...eventually. Have you tried rebooting the router (relatively sure you've have, sorry) or using an app like Wi-Fi Analyzer from the Play Store to see if there's any channel interference? Mobile devices don't always deal well with overlapping channel use.
Rirere said:
Seen this a million times, and it's one of my lingering dislikes about Android (although to be fair, I've seen the analogue -- much less -- on my iPad as well). Toggling the Wi-Fi state on and off like mad (or Airplane Mode) usually does the trick for me...eventually. Have you tried rebooting the router (relatively sure you've have, sorry) or using an app like Wi-Fi Analyzer from the Play Store to see if there's any channel interference? Mobile devices don't always deal well with overlapping channel use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I cannot reboot the router because I have the problem in a public place (an airport). I do not have the problem with my own router.
I do use a WiFi analyzer, and there is no interference issue. The AP is on a clear channel, and the signal is very strong.
So the only and best solution it to turn Wi-Fi on an off rapidly until it works? Really?????
timg11 said:
I cannot reboot the router because I have the problem in a public place (an airport). I do not have the problem with my own router.
I do use a WiFi analyzer, and there is no interference issue. The AP is on a clear channel, and the signal is very strong.
So the only and best solution it to turn Wi-Fi on an off rapidly until it works? Really?????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Never said it wasn't stupid. It's possible that the airport is using a network hack to facilitate its captive portal (I assume it uses some kind of gateway?), and Android is really bad about network "misconfigurations."

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...
Click to collapse
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)

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