anybody else experiencing this? the connection to my wifi was fine up until today, and the signal strength icon in the notification bar turns white the whole time. (meaning zero data, no emails, no facebook, etc)
anybody else experiencing this? the connection to my wifi was fine up until today, and the signal strength icon in the notification bar turns white the whole time. (meaning zero data, no emails, no facebook, etc)
any suggestions on how to fix this?
While reading the Android User's Guide PDF I discovered that green means "connected to Google" and white or gray means not connected to Google. I guess that means logged in to the first Google account that you configure on the phone.
So maybe you need to check your Google account settings?
I have left my Nexus on battery all day to see how long it lasts. It seems that when it goes to sleep it drops the WiFi connection because when I wake it up the WiFi icon pops in the status bar after a second, white, then turns green if I do something that exchanges data.
I have an HTC Hero to experiment with that I think does that also, so I guess that's just an artifact of the phone going to sleep and conserving battery power if it isn't actively using the data connection.
I have left my Nexus on battery all day to see how long it lasts. It seems that when it goes to sleep it drops the WiFi connection because when I wake it up the WiFi icon pops in the status bar after a second, white, then turns green if I do something that exchanges data.
I have an HTC Hero to experiment with that I think does that also, so I guess that's just an artifact of the phone going to sleep and conserving battery power if it isn't actively using the data connection.
right, but it should go back to green once the phone wakes up correct? i believe 4g has the same properties.
at work now, and i connected to the wireless network just fine. now i'm starting to believe something is wrong with my home wireless network which sucks.
I have left my Nexus on battery all day to see how long it lasts. It seems that when it goes to sleep it drops the WiFi connection because when I wake it up the WiFi icon pops in the status bar after a second, white, then turns green if I do something that exchanges data.
I have an HTC Hero to experiment with that I think does that also, so I guess that's just an artifact of the phone going to sleep and conserving battery power if it isn't actively using the data connection.
By default, wifi sleeps when the screen is turned off, hence using 3g or 4g for data. Most of the time this uses more battery. I'd suggest go into wifi advanced settings and setting the wifi sleep policy to never so it will stay on wifi when the screen turns off. With a decent wifi signal, that will save battery life when the phone is on standby.
I have the same problem with a white connection. I could be 3 feet from my access point, the phone sees it but will not connect to it. I then open web apps and they error out with no network connectivity. Then a few minutes later, it turns green. What makes it do that, I do not know. Been a problem since I owned the phone. All other home wireless devices work fine when my Nexus signal is white.
Download an app called 'Wifi Fixer' from the app store. It's free and fixes the dropped wifi issue.
Thx for the suggestion. Google does need to build a fix for this as it is annoying. I suspect that the GPS has a similar issue too. Sometimes the GPS just keeps searching for the sky and never gets a fix. This happens most when it is turned off and an app such as Google Navigation tries to turn it on.
Thx for the suggestion. Google does need to build a fix for this as it is annoying. I suspect that the GPS has a similar issue too. Sometimes the GPS just keeps searching for the sky and never gets a fix. This happens most when it is turned off and an app such as Google Navigation tries to turn it on.
I have this happen every now and then with the GPS, Wifi, and 3G/4G. Usually if I just toggle the wife on and off it seems to kick start it back to green. With the 3G/4G, I just put the phone into airplane mode and then switch back out. That also seems to kick start the network connection back to green. With the GPS, there is an app call GPS Status. In that app if you hit menu/tools/Manage A-GPS state/Reset and then Download, that usually solves the GPS issue. Hope that helps.
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I have this happen every now and then with the GPS, Wifi, and 3G/4G. Usually if I just toggle the wife on and off it seems to kick start it back to green. With the 3G/4G, I just put the phone into airplane mode and then switch back out. That also seems to kick start the network connection back to green. With the GPS, there is an app call GPS Status. In that app if you hit menu/tools/Manage A-GPS state/Reset and then Download, that usually solves the GPS issue. Hope that helps.
I will give that a try and see what happens.
Thx
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All the above answers are wrong, let me fill you all in on the color code here. White means you are connected to the access point but it is in a state where there is no data feed whatsoever to the internet. To test this you can set up an ad-hoc network but do not share a wired internet connection to your router. Once you enable internet sharing the connection will go green. 3G does the same thing if the network is having issues. Happens often where I am.
All the above answers are wrong, let me fill you all in on the color code here. White means you are connected to the access point but it is in a state where there is no data feed whatsoever to the internet. To test this you can set up an ad-hoc network but do not share a wired internet connection to your router. Once you enable internet sharing the connection will go green. 3G does the same thing if the network is having issues. Happens often where I am.
Are you saying this is normal/expected behavior then?
Are you saying this is normal/expected behavior then?
Yes, it is but that answer still isn't right.
This phone uses battery saving techniques to power down the radio to minimal signal strength to maintain a connection.
His answer is sort of right, but not entirely accurate, and not actually in contradiction to what I said above.
Networks have a heartbeat signal that is sent periodically from the access point to the device and vice versa.
If you haven't accessed your phone, either for voice or data, for a period, it may very well be white for a moment until you perform some action to access one of those things.
The heartbeat signal is all that is necessary to maintain a "conversation" between your phone and the network, so it's not going to hit full bars unless you're actually using it. This is intentional and significantly reduces battery drain.
Usually, unless you've left your phone's voice/data functions alone for a LONG time or if you happen to be in a weak coverage area, you will have some green on your signal strength, and probably on the 3G/4G, but not full bars until you actually use one.
I have the same problem with a white connection. I could be 3 feet from my access point, the phone sees it but will not connect to it. I then open web apps and they error out with no network connectivity. Then a few minutes later, it turns green. What makes it do that, I do not know. Been a problem since I owned the phone. All other home wireless devices work fine when my Nexus signal is white.
This specific issue with WiFi is essentially the same thing, however in this case it could happen for another reason: you simply haven't waited for the access point to authorize your phone on the network. It usually takes slightly longer than your normal PC WiFi connection.
If you've already connected, but not used WiFi for a while, the issue might be like I described in the last post, but you might be able to resolve that one:
Your router should have a setting for "time to live" in "hops" (usually, or it might just give a specific period of time). You can adjust this to a higher number.
This is the number of tries your router will give to reconnect with the devices on your network after it stops receiving a signal from them (specifically a call for download/upload). Normally, it's 30 minutes.
Keep in mind, increasing this might actually end up reducing your phone's battery life because it will result in keeping the connection alive for longer after you've stopped using it.
I see no setting on my Linksys router called 'Time to Live' under Wireless.
I feel this is a defect in the phone regardless. When an app needs to use the network, there should be a "Wake the hell up" funtion to start up networking if it is sleeping. Response time is unacceptably slow.
I see no setting on my Linksys router called 'Time to Live' under Wireless.
I feel this is a defect in the phone regardless. When an app needs to use the network, there should be a "Wake the hell up" funtion to start up networking if it is sleeping. Response time is unacceptably slow.
I believe "keep alive" settings are generally going to be available on higher end routers. Your everyday linksys firmware probably wont allow you access to this type of option because is not necessary to the average user. I would also assume that the power saving features that turn off the radio when idle would be built into the kernel directly and would not have an option to modify it either. Please correct me if i'm wrong.
Also, this is a Google Dev phone, they are gonna test all sorts of shit on it. I wouldn't say anything about our phone is a defect, just a working progress. You have to expect a buggy phone to an extent, like my phone reading everyone's RFID cards while i'm in public, have to keep that thing turned off for now.
I believe "keep alive" settings are generally going to be available on higher end routers. Your everyday linksys firmware probably wont allow you access to this type of option because is not necessary to the average user. I would also assume that the power saving features that turn off the radio when idle would be built into the kernel directly and would not have an option to modify it either. Please correct me if i'm wrong.
Also, this is a Google Dev phone, they are gonna test all sorts of shit on it. I wouldn't say anything about our phone is a defect, just a working progress. You have to expect a buggy phone to an extent, like my phone reading everyone's RFID cards while i'm in public, have to keep that thing turned off for now.
I am used to seeing keep alive settings on things such as SSH clients which hold the session open during periods of inactivity. I think these disconnected sessions is the reason for my weather widget not refreshing itself when it should.
Are OS patches available thru google mkt place or is there another way we get them? I have not see a single os update since I got my phone a month ago. I figured something had to be out there was fixed by google.
Menu - Settings - Wireless & networks - Wifi Settings -> Menu button -> advanced
That'll stop the Wifi from sleeping
We have a winner here. I set my phone up to never wifi sleep when plugged in. Seems to solve the problem.
It would be nice if they would make the wifi wake up faster when it is needed. Many of my apps timeout when waiting on the wifi to wake up. Apps such as the default widget which tells me the current weather. It is supposed to refresh every 30 min but it does not since it cannot get a wifi signal before it times out.
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I am dragging up an older post, but for the record, when my signal bars were white, I was able to surf and still get data, regardless if wifi or provider's network. It is merely Google connection, and I have proven that by not using Google Talk, but as soon as I open Google Talk, it syncs and the bars turned back to green.
The NS4G does have a software problem with the "white" signal indicators... wifi, 3G & 4G. Some phones seem to be worse than others. I had to get rid of mine due to this. GRJ90 update was supposed to fix it but failed. Don't let rely on signal indicators to be true either... just as full bars (or many bars) does not equate to a strong signal (check signal strength under status in settings some time) neither do "white"signal or "green" bars mean data is flowing correctly.
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Oh yeah, by far I understand that. I wish the WiFi signal quality was increased though, I used to be able to do everything in my bedroom off my Vibrant with WiFi, without being consistently reminded of a poor signal or no connection on this device. Now I have to sit in odd places compared to before to get the "right" signal to work.
It seems that Google Talk gets in a mode where on the client it thinks it is still connected, but it really isn't until you initiate signing off and back on which I have had to do several times now. It is like any other device I have, a few problems here and there. The exception is that I expect now updates to be more readily available than one from Samsung
We have a winner here. I set my phone up to never wifi sleep when plugged in. Seems to solve the problem.
It would be nice if they would make the wifi wake up faster when it is needed. Many of my apps timeout when waiting on the wifi to wake up. Apps such as the default widget which tells me the current weather. It is supposed to refresh every 30 min but it does not since it cannot get a wifi signal before it times out.
You do realize the comment I made about "time to live" (which is common network terminology, though sometimes described only as "hops") is exactly what you've addressed here?
The time to live essentially sets the amount of time that the wifi device maintains a heartbeat with the access point, after which it drops the connection.
So congrats, I already gave you the solution. Just sayin'.
I am dragging up an older post, but for the record, when my signal bars were white, I was able to surf and still get data, regardless if wifi or provider's network. It is merely Google connection, and I have proven that by not using Google Talk, but as soon as I open Google Talk, it syncs and the bars turned back to green.
I see this is an older post but it came up in my google search so I will respond. I am running cm7.1 on my EVO Shift and this is exactly the behavior of my icons. I know because at work their Wifi internet policy will not allow me to connect to Google Talk but I can still use the internet for gmail or any other web activities(many websites are blocked). As soon as I switch to 3G it turns green again and the Wifi is also green at home where I can connect to Google Talk.
white/green wifi on andriod hp touchpad cyn. 7 alpha 3
Well i had hard time looking for this answer, people said all sort of stuff the lead me to my gmail (which wasn't working but browser was market wasn't) which showed me it was on the wrong date and time for some reason when it was previously on correct time and date. So i went to settings date and time took of the automatic update and manually entered correct information and the quickly changed the white wifi into green allowing all my apps that use internet to work again.
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Googled "Wifi signal not going green" and saw this post
Thanks Drewspher for your very helpful post....i had a problem on a rooted Desire running Data2ext script. Wifi stuck on white. Internet working but not market, phone date was wrong. Corrected the date and time after reading your post, then accessed the market, at it works! ive reflashed more than once without realising there was a simple fix!
After I rooted my Samsung Transform Ultra, the first program I installed was Droid Wall to stop all of the advertisements that come with the free apps.
The program in itself is great, but I made a minor mistake....
When I first started using Droid Wall, I used its "Black List" and I check-marked several different programs... (Angry Birds, Convert Pad, Apps 2 SD, etc) to block internet access so advertisements would not load. As I added new free apps, I would open up Droid Wall and check-mark programs as needed.
My mistake is that last time, I opened up "Droid Wall", I accidentally hit the banner and changed the list from "Black List (block)" to "White List (Allow)". Therefore everything that was previously checked-marked to be blocked was now check-marked to be allowed. And everything else that was not checked, wasn't allowed. Anyway my wifi and 3G icons turned white, and I could not get on the internet.
So instead of figuring out what needed to be checked or unchecked, I quickly cleared all of the check-marks off of the "Black List". Then the WiFi & 3G icons turned green again.
Now I need to go back and recheck those apps I want to block.
By the way (if not mentioned yet already), white icons mean access to the internet, but not to Google related apps/processes. Green means google apps are actively connected to the internet (Navigation, Earth, google internet, market, gmail, etc). Even Netflix utilizes google software to access the internet.
One remedy, to allow access to the internet, when the WiFi or 3G icons are white is to use non-google apps. A good non-google browser is "Dolphin". This is a good back-up browser that will allow you to download other solutions when these icons are white.
Fulcrum
Last edited by fulcrum; January 19th, 2012 at 08:34 PM.
Reason: grammer
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After downloading FXR Wifi Fix and Rescue, I still had the white wifi icon. I decided to reset my router and set up my network again and I now how have a blue wifi icon. Yay.
On another note, I have a really odd issue with when I turn on my wifi. If I have a good phone signal when the wifi is off, as soon as I turn the wifi on, I lose the good phone signal. Turn the wifi off again and voila! Good phone signal again. Any ideas on that?
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I will say for the record, both IMM26 radios and IMM76 radios have been a lot better when it comes to the WiFi being dropped. I would get intermittent connections so I couldn't stream a video without it having to reconnect to buffer in certain corners of my house. But the new ICS that should be coming to everyone else here soon if they don't want to root and flash, is a big improvement I have to say. I haven't done anything except flash the stock roms, now I can continually do stuff on the web without having to reacquire WiFi. I thought I'd report on that, something I'd say is definitely worth getting here soon if you haven't done anything to your phone.
Let me clear this up for everyone once and for all.
White -> Connected to wifi, but not Google's servers.
Blue/Green/Any Color -> In sync with Google's servers.
Your connection will go 'white' for any number of reasons. One of them is as someone already mentioned, default wifi is set to sleep after a period of inactivity. This basically powers down the wifi radio to a minimal state, and the connection to Google's servers is lost. Without the connection to Google's servers, all sync is gone. All of it. Email, facebook, you name it. You can change this using advanced wifi settings and setting it to never sleep.
Sometimes, when you wake your device it won't sync to Google's servers right away. A simple fix for this is to open the Talk application, as it is what Google uses for user authentication for the whole device. Even the market won't work if you're not authenticated through Google Talk.
Let me know if any of you have any other questions.
Device(s): 3 Nexus S 4G's,
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Ex-MyTouch Slide,
Ex-Motorola Cliq,
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I am writing to report on the battery that I said I would in my last post with the WiFi. I use WiFi all day, I never turn it off. It helps instead of using the cellular network which drains my battery in my limited coverage at the airport I work at. Anyways, the battery life is greatly improved in my day of experience today. I went from 50-60% by 5PM after 9 hours of use, to 9PM today with 13 hours of use at 60%. That's a great improvement for me and my uses. Thought I'd share and let everyone know.
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Take Google's second specially made Android Phone (Nexus S) and add a 4G radio on Sprint and what do you have? The Nexus S 4G. The phone officially launched on May 9th, 2011 and gives Sprint customers a great opportunity to enjoy the full Andro... Read More
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White WIFI Signal?
Had the same problem.
