Help Wi-Fi Discussion

[Robert7107]

We need more specific information. Sorry, but just saying that it doesn't work right isn't much help in pinning down the trouble.

1. Are you using:
a. 2.4GHz
b. 5GHz
c. either one, doesn't matter or...
d. you don't know what band you're using
...when you have trouble?

2. Have you installed WiFi Overview 360 and taken a look at your WiFi environment? If so, can you give some results? Best channels for each band, signal strength, etc.

3. Do you know how the AT&T tech setup the router? Channels used, SSID names, etc?

4. You said he ran some tests but did he use a WiFi analyzer and really try to diagnose the problem or just blow in, pretty much do a standard setup and blow out?

5. Did the AT&T tech say anything in particular? Give any suggestions or interesting comments?

I am using automatic but have switched back and forth between 2.4 - 5ghz..

Tech set it to Channel 10
I have installed the overview 360. And ran test... According to wifi overview 360 it shows everything is good...

That just tells me they have a very short lease period.



This indicates that there's nothing wrong with your phone.



When you say reconnect, do you mean that it will acknowledge being connected to the router but not connect through to the internet? or that it shows no connection whatsoever?

The next time this happens, instead of rebooting your phone, reboot the router and do nothing to your phone. If your phone connects immediately after the router comes online, then it's the router that's the problem.

What will be happening is i will be using the Internet and lose wifi connection, i will go into settings in wifi to refresh and my wifi will come up saying connecting but not actually connect... I will have to turn off phone then restart in which it immediately connects

 

[NeutralNovice]

So I've been having problems connecting my new Nexus 6 to my home's 5GHz Wifi network.

It can connect to the 2.4GHz without problem. My router is a NETGEAR Nighthawk R6700.

Our SSID is not broadcast/is a hidden network and our router uses Access Control to only allow specific devices. My router does not have an "Auto" setting when trying to select the 5GHz Channel.

I've done some searching and found that the Nexus 6 may have problems connecting to higher channels and switching to a lower channel might make it work. The problem is that others have said that it might interfere with other devices on the network being able to get on that channel or something along those lines. It's a bit confusing.

I did get it to work temporarily though. I enabled the SSID to be broadcast and my phone was able to finally see that network. I connected, entered the password, and it worked just fine. It also showed up, as expected, on the "Allowed Devices" list in the Access Control panel.

When I turned off SSID broadcasting, my Nexus 6 was no longer able to connect to the network.

Anyone have any ideas on what I can do or why the Nexus 6 is unable to connect?

 

[marctronixx]

just so we are not on the same page,

are you rooted?

some thoughts:

some devices will not connect to many 5GHZ freqs as you have mentioned.

get INSSIDER app, http://www.inssider.com/ , and do a network survey around your area. this will help you see which freqs are open/less crowded.

I think if you choose a lower channel on the 5ghz band you will be just fine.

just for record, i have a linksys AC3200 (EA 9200) tri band router and i have SSID broadcasting and disabled MAC filtering.

at the job, the network i use is hidden, and both the nex6 and nex 9 connect each time with no issues, so a hidden SSID is not the issue.

 

[NeutralNovice]

just so we are not on the same page,

are you rooted?

some thoughts:

some devices will not connect to many 5GHZ freqs as you have mentioned.

get INSSIDER app, http://www.inssider.com/ , and do a network survey around your area. this will help you see which freqs are open/less crowded.

I think if you choose a lower channel on the 5ghz band you will be just fine.

just for record, i have a linksys AC3200 (EA 9200) tri band router and i have SSID broadcasting and disabled MAC filtering.

at the job, the network i use is hidden, and both the nex6 and nex 9 connect each time with no issues, so a hidden SSID is not the issue.

I am not rooted.

For now at least, the 2.4GHz works fine so I'll probably just stick with that. I just find it weird that, with the channel unchanged, connecting to 5GHz worked fine when I changed the setting to have SSID broadcasted. My device was then remembered in the "Allowed Devices List" but when I turned it off, I could no longer connect. At least for me, it probably isn't a channel issue since the channel stayed the same (153) when broadcasting.

I worry that switching to a different channel will render a few others' devices to not work and at least since mine works on 2.4, I should be ok for now. Perhaps 5.1 firmware will fix the issue if it even was an issue.

 

[marctronixx]

if the clients on the 5ghz channel will connect to a lower freq. its the higher freqs in the 5ghz band that gets iffy.

as for the ssid being visible or no, that could be a characteristic of your router possibly. sure, if you stroll around the internets, you will find cases of devices not properly connecting to a non visibile ssid, so anything is possible, but in my case i dont have an issue connecting to a non broadcasting ssid.

if you are not willing to troubleshoot and change the 5ghz channel, its not much anyone can do to help you. if you DO change it ad things go wrong (im not saying it would,) you can safely change it back.

maybe for now just turn ON broadcasting of your ssid and see if the nex will connect and stay connected for a day or so. then if it does, you may have found your culprit.

 

[Crashdamage]

I have to differ with marctronixx a little. Usually the 5GHz band works best when using channels well over 100, especially over 150.

I've had no problem with the Nexus 6 connecting to 5GHz and I'm using channel 153. It's quite a bit faster than 2.4GHz so I prefer it when possible but of course penetration and range are poorer. Possibly that's your problem with using 5GHz.

Do the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands have different SSID names? If not, they should. That might have something to do with the broadcast visibility thing.

You should be able to leave MAC filtering on.

You may have interference on the 5GHz band. Try installing WiFi Overview 360 and find the best channels to use. It's used by the Google Fiber guys to do setups. The free version should be good enough.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.android.wifioverviewpro

 

[marctronixx]

The point is not to confuse the op. I didn't mean for my post to suggest only lower freqs are better. My post is meant to encourage the op to try different settings.

Environmental conditions play a part in any wireless network, so grabbing that app I suggested will help the op do a sight survey and choose the best freqs in his /her environment.

I have success on low and high 5ghz freqs and I'm in an area that I'm nearly the only one on the 5ghz band so I have many options.

Just know 5ghz has less penetrating power than 2.4.

 

[yourgaelness]

I don't have a clue what you guys are talking about. I'm not very tecky

But here's one of my issues, which is really annoying me. Just got my verizon n6 2 days ago. Not rooted, android 5.1.

Beginning last night my phone was lagging. It took over a minute to load facebook pics, and each time I'd scroll down a bit, it'd take another minute to load. It wasn't only fb, because a couple auction sites I went to did the same thing.

Today it's not doing that, but at several websites and even in some apps I am getting a message that I have no connection and to retry, which I did repeatedly.

I usually keep my data turned off and only use wifi unless an app calls for it specifically. 4 of us share data and it can get crazy expensive. But I was trying to guess how to make it stop losing connection and one thing I tried was putting the data on, but that didn't help. The wifi icon in the notification bar looks the same when connection is lost.

Is this a nexus thing or a 5.1 thing? Or user error?

Help?
Gael

 

[marctronixx]

sometimes ota updates can tangle up thing on the phone. sometimes its advisable to factory reset after major updates such as this.

no your issues are NOT normal but it can happen. i have had a goog purchased nex 6 since the first launch and have not had any issues with it. zero.

not seeing your phone in person makes it a challenge to fully diagnose over the internet. could be a rogue program causing your issues, a couple of programs, out of date program that has not been optimized for 5.1.. just any number of things.

you can either remove apps one by one and test

or

take it to a carrier corp store and have them look at it

or

factory reset

or exchange.

 

[lunatic59]

I'm going to suggest that it's not your phone at all. It could very well be your router.

But I was trying to guess how to make it stop losing connection and one thing I tried was putting the data on, but that didn't help. The wifi icon in the notification bar looks the same when connection is lost.

This is the part that stuck out for me. Because the WiFi icon stays the same (and I am assuming is shows a strong signal) then your phone is indeed connecting to your router, but that's really only the WiFi handshake. You see there are several things that go on with a typical home WiFi router connection. Your phone uses a radio signal to communicate with the network. That's obviously working. But then it must route the traffic to and from your phone to your ISP, along with everything else on your network. I think that's your bottleneck. The reason why turning mobile data on didn't help is because you have a strong wifi connection and your phone will always use that first. Try shutting off wifi and turning on mobile data to see if that makes a difference. I'll bet it does.

Depending on the type of broadband connection you have there, it could simply be not having enough bandwidth for the traffic in your house (or neighborhood) with the phone being the low man on the totem pole and exhibiting the worst latency.

 

[TexasBadger]

I agree with Lunatic59, the problem is likely your router. Reboot it. Just turn it off, count to 20, then turn it back on and wait about a minute for it to boot up. If the router has no on/off switch, just unplug the power cord for 20 seconds.

 

[bjacks12]

I've had my phone for about a month now. I've noticed it seems to be very aggressive in switching from WiFi to LTE(and I have that setting disabled in dev. options). It's very frustrating when it sees my office WiFi and doesn't immediately connect to it. I'll tell it to connect, it will say 'Connected', but it's still on LTE. Other times i'll be connected to the WiFi and it randomly kicks over to LTE, typically while sleeping. I'm starting to use about 50 mb a day just on passive background data from this.

Any ideas? Did they just put a shitty WiFi radio in this phone?

 

[EarlyMon]

I've had my phone for about a month now. I've noticed it seems to be very aggressive in switching from WiFi to LTE(and I have that setting disabled in dev. options). It's very frustrating when it sees my office WiFi and doesn't immediately connect to it. I'll tell it to connect, it will say 'Connected', but it's still on LTE. Other times i'll be connected to the WiFi and it randomly kicks over to LTE, typically while sleeping. I'm starting to use about 50 mb a day just on passive background data from this.

Any ideas? Did they just put a shitty WiFi radio in this phone?

Maybe look at http://androidforums.com/threads/help-connecting-to-home-wifi-that-uses-static-ip.935343/

 

[bjacks12]

Hmm, looks like most of those things are router/server side diagnostics and changes, which I can't touch at work. Was hoping it was something I could change on my phone(as my 4 didn't have this problem on the same network). I might just have to suck it up and use LTE instead at the office.

 

[EarlyMon]

Hmm, looks like most of those things are router/server side diagnostics and changes, which I can't touch at work. Was hoping it was something I could change on my phone(as my 4 didn't have this problem on the same network). I might just have to suck it up and use LTE instead at the office.

My second post has 5 pictures on just phone settings but ok.

 

[bjacks12]

Oh wow, I don't know how I scrolled past that post without seeing it. I'll give those settings a try tomorrow when I arrive at work.

 

[EarlyMon]

Oh wow, I don't know how I scrolled past that post without seeing it. I'll give those settings a try tomorrow when I arrive at work.

The key is -

If the first value of the router (gateway) address is LESS THAN 128, then you want to be sure that the network prefix length is 16.

 

[bjacks12]

Gateway address starts with 192, prefix length of 24.

 

[EarlyMon]

Gateway address starts with 192, prefix length of 24.

That's perfectly OK then.

I take it that was at work? Be sure to check at home as well.

Check out "Wifi Analyzer"

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer

If you're on a crowded wifi channel at home that could explain the constant switching to wifi.

Also verify in your advanced wifi settings that the wifi is not set to turn off when the phone sleeps.

 

[bjacks12]

Home usually has no problems, I checked it with Wifi Overview 360 and it was on Channel 6, and it was the only router on channel 6 in the vicinity, so it was good there. Ironically, while the wifi signal is good, we have terrible service from our ISP that causes us to lose connectivity with great frequency, but that's another complaint for another thread.

The office is where I primarily experience the wifi connectivity problems.

WiFi is set not to sleep.


Network is SAB.

 

[EarlyMon]

Your office is using bridged wifi routers, that's why you see it on more than one channel.

On a lark, have you tried switching to 5 GHz and seeing if they had that working?
That's in advanced wifi settings, and if you tap the frequency square in the upper left in Wifi Analyzer, it'll switch to test.

 

[bjacks12]

Tried 5 GHz. There was another SAB access point that appeared on Ch 36. Couldn't connect to it though, wouldn't authenticate.

 

[EarlyMon]

Probably infrastructure.

Well - sorry, that's all I had.

 

[bjacks12]

No worries. Thanks for the help.

My Straight Talk service expires on the 28th, so I'll be activating my MetroPCS sim shortly before then. With unlimited data I won't care about the WiFi issue so much.

 

[lunatic59]

I just saw the HP printer listed. Does your office use the printer wirelessly for print jobs? We have a couple of HP's in our office and they were wreaking havoc on our guest network with high gain broadcasts to the point that if you were in the conference room you'd lose WiFi intermittently.

If those printers only broadcast for the HP web services (or whatever they call it) we found the only way to disable it was to enable it, change the default SSID name to *anything* else and then disable it again. It will stop broadcasting at that point. Solved our problem.

Just a thought.