• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help White WIFI Signal?

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.
 
Upvote 0
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.
 
Upvote 0
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 :)
 
Upvote 0
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'.
 
Upvote 0
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.
 
Upvote 0
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.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mrmoo
Upvote 0
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! :D
 
Upvote 0
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
 
  • Like
Reactions: ptmarzullo
Upvote 0
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?
 
Upvote 0
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.
 
Upvote 0
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. :)
 
Upvote 0
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.
 
  • Like
Reactions: IOWA
Upvote 0
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?

Real world clarification of the color change for data icons:
Green = Background data ON
White = Background data OFF
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones