Why is the Internet suddenly not working on my phone?

[RhinoCan]

I have a Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017) and it's worked very well for the year and a half that I've had it. This evening, it won't access the internet any more. I'm baffled.

I've probably messed it up myself. I was fiddling with various settings to try to troubleshoot a problem earlier today and may have turned something off that needs to be on or vice versa but I'm at a loss to figure out what.

When I try to reach websites I've never visited with my browsers, I get told I'm "not online" or "this site cannot be reached". I get advice like "turn off flight mode" and "turn on WiFi". (I can see a few pages in the browser that I have visited recently but I believe those are all cached pages.)

When I check my settings, my WiFi is turned on and it has my network name. (The laptop I'm using to send this is on the same network, which is my home, and the laptop works completely normally.) Bluetooth is on. Flight Mode is Off. Do Not Disturb is Off.

What have I done to mess up my internet on my phone and what do I need to do to fix it?

 

[ocnbrze]

Have you tried and rebooting your phone as well as your router?

 

[RhinoCan]

Have you tried and rebooting your phone as well as your router?

I rebooted the router this morning when I was having an apparent routing issue on all my devices but this laptop is on the same WiFi network as the phone and connects fine to the internet so I don't see why rebooting the router again today would help the situation.

I have tried rebooting the phone and it's a little better but definitely not 100%.
Now I can go to websites I've never visited before. For instance, I just tried searching for shoelaces and found a list of companies that sell shoelaces and clicked on a site I'd never heard of before; it came up fine. Same for sailboats.

But I created a page on my own website a few minutes ago and I can't see *it*. Also, I had started a download on the Google Play Store a while back but the download won't budge past 0% even after the reboot.

Things are definitely messed up but I don't know how to fix it.

 

[Dannydet]

A factory reset is in order

 

[RhinoCan]

How do I do that? And what will I lose if I do?

 

[svim]

What kind of problem where you having with your router?
Given that you previously had some kind of network issue it's hard to determine if you're having a home LAN problem or a phone problem. And regarding your laptop not having a connectivity problem, that's more or less irrelevant. Focus instead on your phone's connectivity problem.

 

[ocnbrze]

correct. my laptop connects fine, but my phone one time did not. rebooted my router and boom i'm connected again......it happens. does not hurt to try it......just takes a couple of minutes to find out if that worked or not.

 

[RhinoCan]

I'm sorry if I sounded argumentative, I was just trying to understand the logic you were using to suggest a reboot of the modem. As it turns out, that worked. Phone was working just fine at breakfast, then stopped again. I noticed an exclamation beside the WiFi symbol, rebooted the modem and now it seems fine.

Thank you all!

 

[ocnbrze]

I'm sorry if I sounded argumentative, I was just trying to understand the logic you were using to suggest a reboot of the modem. As it turns out, that worked. Phone was working just fine at breakfast, then stopped again. I noticed an exclamation beside the WiFi symbol, rebooted the modem and now it seems fine.

Thank you all!

It's all good. It's a common reaction about wifi issues on the phone. You're not the first to ask "why the modem?" as far as rebooting the modern when every other device is connected fine.

 

[RhinoCan]

It still doesn't make a lot of sense to me that rebooting the modem fixed my problem when other devices on the same WiFi were fine. But I've got biggeer priorities than solving that little mystery today ;-)