Help Why do I sometimes connect and sometimes not/

[CharlesLewis]

I'm running into a strange problem. Sitting in my living room with both WiFi and 3G, I sometimes discover I can't connect to Gmail, the internet, etc, and then later I can. As far as I can tell, everything is active. I can connect with my computer using WiFi, so the server is up and running, and my wife's iPod can connect using WiFi.

Am I doing something wrong, is there a problem with my Android phone, or is just something that happens with Android?

Right now, for example, I am trying to send an email using Gmail and it's sitting in the outbox. I can send and receive on the computer fine. It's frustrating.

 

[CharlesLewis]

Update: I forgot to mention that if I turn my Droid off and back on, I usually get a connection.

 

[VATriathlete]

I experience the same thing. My wifi will shut down for no reason. I haven't been able to upload a single photo to picasa or video to youtube for over a week now. Even surfing the web is difficult most of the time and I am sitting on top of my router so signal strength isn't an issue. Starting to think these phones are buggy for this?

 

[Jayme]

There was an issue with "N" routers not connecting. Maybe this could be your problem.

 

[CharlesLewis]

Not sure what a "N" router is, but since both the iPod and the computer connect, I wouldn't think the router is the problem. Am I missing something?

 

[Martimus]

The challenge could potentially be with your WiFi. If your phone has a preferred connection defined with the wireless router then it's going to attempt to make a connection to that wireless router and prefer that connection over the 3G.

Understanding that you have other devices that successfully connect to the router, each of these devices has a file on it called an "IP stack" which is specifically written to support the networking hardware on the device. These IP stacks identify the different functions available through the protocol and how to use them. With phones, due to space limitations, smaller and more generic IP stacks were typically written for the phone. It's possible that the IP stack on your phone simply isn't totally compatible with the firmware currently installed on your wireless router.

In other threads it's been pointed out that some wireless routers (access points) seem to work better with the DX than others. This tends to support the theory that the DX seems to play better with specific brands/models of wireless routers/access points.

And the way that most network devices handle routing can also potentially be part of the problem. Most every network device in current manufacture has a very simple form of what's known as a routing table. This routing table provides the device instructions as to where to send data. One of the routes typically found on modern devices is the default route. The default route tells the device where to send the data, by default, if the device does not have a more specific route defined. Each potential network connection (3G and WiFi) provides the device IP addresses and the address of the next device (hop) on the other side of the network connection. When you are connected to 3G your routing table normally states that if it does not specifically know where to send the data, it will send it across the default route to the identified device on the other side of the 3G connection. When WiFi connects it creates a similar rule. These rules aren't cumulative... each successive rule overrides the previous. So if WiFi is connected the device no longer has a default route for connecting to 3G. If the WiFi drops the default route for WiFi gets thrown away and a new default route has to be established for connecting to 3G. If a WiFi connection is established but is not working reliably your device isn't smart enough to fall back to sending the data across the 3G network. It simply tries to send across the WiFi until it times out and fails. This, in a nutshell, is known as static routing.

Did I answer your question? Most likely no... my intent here is to show that routing can be a very complicated process. To determine what is the cause of the problem will require time and access to a lot of information as there are just too darn many variables.

 

[CharlesLewis]

Wow, now that's what I call a thorough post. Thanks so much!

Bottom line, then: If I understand the situation, would turning off WiFi and using 3G solve the problem? I have "Setting Profiles" on my phone, and I could tell it to give priority to 3G; would that be a solution as well?

Again, thanks for helping.

 

[powderkegg]

Try this thread.

 

[CharlesLewis]

Too technical for me, though it seemed more to focus on network security than on the connection problem I've been having.

 

[j_ryan]

Do you have the 3g/Wifi indicator in the status bar? And have you checked your data timeout settings in the battery menu? That sounds like a very frustrating problem.

 

[CharlesLewis]

It's been a couple of days since I last had the problem, but to the best of my memory, 3G and WiFi were both on part of the time and only one on part of the time.

Data timeout is set of 15 minutes and never during peak hours (7AM to 10PM)