Help Wifi issues on i7500 - connects to router, not ineternet

[tompee]

I just got an i7500 from France this morning. I like the phone but I didn't mean to bid so much on eBay... oh well, I've got it now!

Anyway, I am not able to use my wifi connection.
Major points as follows:
- I can turn wifi on, connect to my wireless network after being asked for the password (I've got WPA2 security set up on my router),
- I can open my web browser and type in the URL for my router web interface. This works, I can browse that web page.
- I can not connect to the internet, no URL's outside my wireless network work
- I don't have this trouble with any other devices on my network - my Eee PC and friends machines get to the internet without a problem.
- The i7500 I have is still locked to Bouygues telecom in France, and I don't have a SIM card in the mobile.
- Router is a Linksys WRT100

Do I need an active sim card to use wifi? (EDIT- answer = no)
Is there any way I can check what my gateway address is in Android? (EDIT - answer = can't check it, but can set a gateway when setting a static IP in Wifi setup.)

Any help appreciated.

EDIT
Solution post
TL;DR = Linksys router issue, put in an open source firmware if your Linksys router supports it, or buy another wireless router.

OK..... I went out, brought another wireless router for $AU40 (about 20 euro's, $US25), plugged it in, and everything is working fine! It's on the 192.168.0.* subnet, because I left my LAN on 192.168.1.*, so I don't know if that's the difference, but anyway, all's good now!

I am very unimpressed with Linksys.

If anyone out there has a linksys, I highly that you change the firmware to an open source or anything from anyone but Linksys one, such as Tomato or DD-WRT
If I had done this, I am pretty sure I wouldn't have bricked my router just by putting in a wrong TCP/Ip config, and I also strongly suspect that my phone would have worked as easily as it is right now with the DLINK.

I hope other people can learn from this!

 

[KlaymenDK]

Are you using any protection in addition to WPA, such as MAC address filtering?

Otherwise the gateway sounds like a likely culprit; I don't know how to check that tough. Good luck.

 

[coipu]

First thing to try would to be disabling/suspending all security from your router making it an open network, then see if you can connect, if you can bingo something in your routers security settings is the problem.

 

[jwk]

Make sure you have DNS forwarding enabled on your router.

You can check if this is the problem easily by connecting to an IP address rather than a URL.

 

[tompee]

@KlaymenDK - yes, MAC filtering is off. I did have this on at one stage, and I had MAC addresses entered into it, but it's definitely off now, just to be sure

@coipu - thanks for the suggestion, I've tried WPA Personal, WPA2 Personal, and no security whatsoever. In all cases I get the same thing, I can connect to the router web page (and actually change all these router settings from my phone), but it won't connect to the internet.

@jwk - thanks also, I have tried entering IP addresses directly into my browser (eg the address of my ISP - 203.16.214.27) and it still doesn't work, so I don't think it's a DNS issue.

In addition to the above suggestions, I've also tried the following:
- Upgraded to latest router firmware for WRT100 (1.0.05)
- Turned off the internet filters in the router - SPI Firewall protection, filtering of anonymous requests, and "Filter IDENT (Port 113)". None of this made any difference.

I'm sure this is a gateway issue of some sort. If my phone can browse a page on the router, but not go outside, BUT if I know the router itself has a working gateway (because other wireless devices connect), I can only think that my i7500 has some different gateway it's trying to use. The wireless gateway is at 192.168.1.1, as opposed to the traditional gateway address on home networks of 192.168.0.1..... I wonder if it's looking for the latter? My ethernet network is using that.

I'm pretty stumped

 

[Rastaman-FB]

have you got any other wireless products connected to the router ?
make sure these can get full access out.

have you tried giving the device a static ip rather than using router dhcp?

 

[tompee]

have you got any other wireless products connected to the router ?
make sure these can get full access out.

have you tried giving the device a static ip rather than using router dhcp?

Yes, my Eee PC is also on this wireless network and it can access the internet without any problems.

No, I haven't tried static IP, but I'm not sure that will help because the connection from my wireless router to my phone already seems to work... anyway, sometimes you have to try silly things as well, I'll see about doing that. EDIT - I'm sorry, I thought you meant setting up static IP settings on the router. I just found the section in Android to set a static IP and set a gateway (sorry, I've only been using Android a few hours!). And this is strange, I'm setting my own gateway now and it STILL doesn't work. Hrmmmm



EDIT - also, I have turned my Eee PC off (there isn't anything else that's wireless on at the moment) so that my phone is the only wireless device trying to use the internet

 

[Rastaman-FB]

it is indeed very odd
you tried using a different channel?
i found my phone did not like wifi channel 6 (default) and kept dropping connection. i tried 11 like other android people have stated and it would connect but not exchange any data.

i then tried channel 1 and set protocol to 802.11g only rather than b,g,n and its been stable and extrememly quick (i have 20meg bb)

 

[tompee]

Rasta, how do I set the channel to use in Android? I've got to the section where I can set the NUMBER of channels to use under "Regulatory domain", and the options are 11, 13, or 14. I've selected 11...... nothing!

The problem you seem to describe though is where the phone can't hold a connection to the router. I'm not getting that, I can connect to my wireless router no problems, browse the config web page, change settings etc.

 

[tompee]

Sorry for the double post, but I just wanted to say: AAARRRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH

EDIT - OK, just to show how confounding this is. My wireless router (IP address 192.168.1.1) has its gateway set up as 192.168.0.1 (my ADSL modem). From my Eee PC's wireless connection, I can connect to the web interface of both the wireless router (192.168.1.1), and the adsl modem (192.168.0.1), but on my phone I can't even connect to 192.168.0.1. So there is definitely something wrong with my gateway out of the wireless network for the i7500 only, I just can't figure out what it is. I wish there was a "ping" and "tracert" command in Android...

 

[Rastaman-FB]

Rasta, how do I set the channel to use in Android? I've got to the section where I can set the NUMBER of channels to use under "Regulatory domain", and the options are 11, 13, or 14. I've selected 11...... nothing!

The problem you seem to describe though is where the phone can't hold a connection to the router. I'm not getting that, I can connect to my wireless router no problems, browse the config web page, change settings etc.

my initial problems were about not holding a connection but that was resolved.
after that i changed my "router channel to 11" as id seen somewhere on the android dev websites that android devices prefer 1 and 11.
I set my router to 11 and set my android to 11 on "Regulatory domain" and it stayed connected and had no data throughput.

I then went into my router and changed the routers wireless channel to "1" and left the android on its setting

so my setup is this

Router = 802.11g only, wireless channel 1, WPA personal, discoverable
Galaxy = Regulatory domain 11, no sleep, wpa personal, no static ip (dynamic), connected remembered

i now dont have a problem.

the only other thing i can advise as i know how much stuff like this can drive you mad, is to check it with a friends router or a friendly neighbour and see if it works with theirs. if it does then there is some sort of compatability issue with the router and the device

 

[tompee]

so my setup is this

Router = 802.11g only, wireless channel 1, WPA personal, discoverable
Galaxy = Regulatory domain 11, no sleep, wpa personal, no static ip (dynamic), connected remembered

Thanks for the advice Rasta, I set up my router and phone with these exact settings, as well as in combination with leaving the IP's static, and having WPA2 instead of WPA... still the same!!

My firmware is I7500XXIG1.... it seems quite a bit older than the "H7" I've seen discussed here on the forums. Do you think that could cause the issue? Gah, I now have to go through the process of updating.

Android phones don't seem like very consumer oriented things yet, you have to be an enthusiast, in a way, to use them. Grrrr.

 

[Rastaman-FB]

shame that didnt work mate

yeah that firmware is quite old. o2 released it in the uk with h6 so that does tell me the firmware you have is old.
i know people who tested the early firmware and it was flakey to say the least

Android phones don't seem like very consumer oriented things yet, you have to be an enthusiast, in a way, to use them. Grrrr.

thats the fun in adopting something that is still relatively new. im loving playing with android and the galaxy but also it will help in androids development in the future. now other manufacturers are adopting it, it will make people push the boundries

 

[tompee]

OK, down the firmware upgrade path I go ;-)

Can you tell me (if you know!) - my phone was sold with Bouygues Telecom, France. Would that take the H8 firmware that people have put on the 02 UK phone?

 

[Rastaman-FB]

i would presume so, i would just remove the csc if you are concerned by this

 

[tompee]

Well, after stuffing around nearly all the night (it's now 2:30am) wth "gadget serial" drivers refusing to install on multiple machines after having downloaded three different firmware updates just to get Odin, I finally installed that bloated hunk of crap, PC Studio, and downloaded yet another update via there which worked. I'm now on I7500XXIG8.

The phone seems quicker.... but I still have the same issue.

 

[mwardm]

I'm just going to throw this out there because I'm not entirely sure what I'm talking about, but I reckon that normal setup is to have 192.168.x.x addresses used with a 255.255.255.0 net mask.
In that case, 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.0.1 are on different subnets, which means that you wouldn't expect to be able to directly reach one from the other. Depending on the default gateway the Samsung's using, that might be some part of the issue...

 

[tompee]

Yes, mwardm, I'm quite sure it's trying to use some default gateway that's on another subnet (the likely culprit being the ever common 192.168.0.* subnet, and therefore the likely gateway being 192.168.0.1)

Because I have my wireless network on the 192.168.1.* subnet, and gateway 192.168.1.1, it's not talking.

I guess I could try changing my entire network.... gah.

 

[tompee]

Well, I'm still nowhere and now I've bricked my wireless router. I have wasted the whole weekend with this ****ing phone and I still don't have anything that works (can't use it as a phone as the prick unlocking company took my money but gave me no unlock codes, can't use it via wifi on my network).

I tried changing my LAN over to a Subnet of 192.168.1.*, and my Wireless subnet to 192.168.0.*. to see if the i7500 liked that any better.

Well, as opposed to every other router config change where you have to hit "save" or "apply" down the bottom after you've finished doing what you're doing, my wireless router just went stupid and applied changes when I was halfway though. All I'd done was change the DHCP ranges to hand out from 192.168.1.2-10, to 192.168.0.2-10, but I hadn't changed my LAN details from 192.168.1 back to 192.168.0, when for some reason it applied my changes.... so basically, the wireless router has both my broadband modem, and its own wireless network on the same subnet and of course will not work (when doing an "ipconfig /renew" I'm told that the DHCP address assigned is already in use). Tried setting static addresses, tried connecting to my wireless router over wireless and via the local LAN so that I could change setting back, and I can't do it either way.

So, I've tried doing a factory reset on the router, and it won't reset! I can hold the reset button in for 30 secs, shut the router down, restart it, and it still has the old wireless network name and the screwed IP config!

What a joke, why the hell does NOTHING ever work the way it's meant to. The phone, "serial gadget" drivers, network equipment, unlock codes. I'm so pissed off with it all right now, I wish I never went near this phone.

 

[mwardm]

That doesn't sound much like progress :-(
[While we're ranting, it always infuriates me how much of a backwards usability step DVDs were over videos.]

It's not quite apples for apples, but (without trying to rub it in) I can confirm that a German i7500 is working very nicely on a linksys router (set up on a 10.0.0.0 (/24, I think they say) LAN using 128bit WEP.

You don't say what exactly your router is, but (assuming you're not just going to throw the lot in the bin) I suggest you have a search for similar issues.
As far as I know it's pretty unusual for factory resets not to work, though you often have to plug in (rather than use wireless) to get connected afterwards. The most common issue (assuming you've disconnected the ADSL modem if it might be conflicting) is having some static / old settings configured on whatever it is you're trying to connect with.

Good luck!

 

[tompee]

The router is a Linksys WRT100. If you do a search on google for "linksys router won't reset" there are many, many responses with people experiencing the same thing on lots of different Linksys models.
It seems the factory reset button doesn't work in some, or the firmware doesn't do factory resets, I don't know... but the symptoms are the same, people try to do factory resets yet their SSID, usernames, passwords etc all stay the same.

It's bricked! Which is very annoying when I know that all that's wrong with it is conflicting IP settings, but I can't log on to change them!

I've tried connecting directly via ethernet port 1 with a static IP. (Asking the router to assign an IP results in error as per above - "Address assigned by DHCP already in use".) I've also tried to connecting to it's "internet port" (the one that my ADSL plugged into).
When you plug into that port, it doesn't give out IP addresses with DHCP, it expects to receive one. So I plug it back into my LAN router and try to see if it gets an IP.... it doesn't..... bah.

At least I don't have to worry about the i7500 wireless for while!

 

[Rastaman-FB]

oh thats bad news man.
i dont really know what to say as i know youll be spitting flames at everything right now and rightly so.

personally though i dont think is the phones fault in this instance however i would never buy a phone that is locked to another network when its so new. unlockers probably dont know how to unlock it

 

[mwardm]

...and a few complaints on your particular model too.
I tend to have problems where things *do* reset to the factory settings when I didn't ask them to. I think it might have happened previously on my Linksys (wag354g).

I don't suppose there's a little lithium cell sitting inside - keeping those settings alive - that you might try disconnecting for a while? [Given that it's bricked, of course. And goes-without-saying: power disconnected!]

 

[tompee]

OK..... I went out, brought another wireless router for $AU40 (about 20 euro's, $US25), plugged it in, and everything is working fine! It's on the 192.168.0.* subnet, because I left my LAN on 192.168.1.*, so I don't know if that's the difference, but anyway, all's good now!

I am very unimpressed with Linksys.

If anyone out there has a linksys, I highly that you change the firmware to an open source or anything from anyone but Linksys one, such as Tomato or DD-WRT
If I had done this, I am pretty sure I wouldn't have bricked my router just by putting in a wrong TCP/Ip config, and I also strongly suspect that my phone would have worked as easily as it is right now with the DLINK.

I hope other people can learn from this!