Hello all, The wifi connection on my AWE often drops, the wifi icon going gray, and it forces me to reboot the phone or to turn wifi off then back on again. This has happened on three separate wifi connections. The drops seem random, but I most often notice when the phone has been sleeping for some time. I researched a bit and thought it might be related to the following issue: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=42272 But the solution is for a Nexus 4 and those files aren't present on my AWE. I feel like I've tried everything, so maybe someone here can help.
Is there a setting on the ZTE to preserve power on wifi? Or to make it "more efficient"? If there is, and you've enabled it, disable it. "More efficient" means "turn the wifi radio off if it hasn't been used in a while". That can drop a connection.
I don't have any problem with WiFi--been connected without any issue for the last several days now. As Rukbat stated, are you sure that your phone is properly setup to keep WiFi connected when it goes to sleep? You can check and enable by: [Menu] > System settings > Wi-Fi > [Menu] > Advanced > Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep > Always
I have the same problem but only when it has been a sleep for a while. The problem I am more concerned about is the fact that it is always looking for wifi connections even though I have wifi off. To make it worse if my phone connects my computer loses connection.
I have made sure this setting is enabled. It happened again this morning after the phone had been sleeping for some time. The phone is rooted so I wonder if an app might be the culprit. I may flash my router firmware today to see if that makes any difference.
this has happened to me since day one. no clue. would be interested in finding a fix or maybe just a simple change in settings. *shrugs*
I haven't had any problem leaving my phone running in sleep mode overnight, and there's no WiFi connection issue whatsoever when I wake it each morning. If you're concerned, you might try switching off or disabling the 'Connections Optimizer' feature: [Menu] > System settings > Mobile networks > Connection Optimizer > [uncheck box] I'd also enabled the following setting: [Menu] > System settings > Wi-Fi > [Menu] > Advanced > Avoid no internet connections > [check box] This sounds more like an issue with your WiFi router and/or its DHCP server... Power saving apps are notorious for disabling WiFi while in sleep mode...
It's definitely not a question of wifi connectivity as my wifi service itself never becomes disabled - the icon in the status bar will stay there indefinitely and the signal strength will also change if I move around the house. The problem is that it might as well be disconnected. I cannot do anything that requires an internet connection. The phone can also no longer be pinged from a different computer on the network. If it helps, I'm using this mainly as a way to stream music and audio, so I am not using VM's network at all. Airplane mode is on, but turning it off does not appear to have any effect on this bug. Are there any diagnostic tools someone could suggest to research what is going on?
It just happened to me while I was watching a Youtube video. I'm beginning to wonder if it's a hardware problem.
Based on your descriptions of the problem, it sounded like a DHCP issue so I did some digging and found this: Android 2.1 - 4.1.1 Allows DHCP Lease to Expire, Keeps Using IP Address Not sure if it's applicable but FYI... [Edit] The reason why I might not be affected by this issue is that I set my WiFi router to use static IPs for each of the clients on my network. [/Edit]
That relates back to the link in my first post. Pretty ridiculous how long it took Google to even take note of the problem. I have tried setting a static dhcp setting on the phone and it didn't fix the problem, but I will try a static dhcp entry in my router to see if that solves the issue.
I usually like to start debugging with the obvious first... Static setting on the phone won't work since the WiFi router could've reassigned the phone's 'static' IP to another client after its lease expired. Don't make one static entry for just the phone, all clients on the network will need their own static IP assignments or their own dynamic IP range. Otherwise, collisions and conflicts could still occur... FYI.
Well, it was worth a try. Still experiencing the issue. My router firmware may not be setting a static ARP entry with the static dhcp entry, however, so perhaps I will test with a different router firmware sometime soon.
I think you're on the right track... The other trick is to set an exorbitantly long lease time (e.g., years)... Good luck! [Edit] BTW, after making the static IP assignments, make sure to cycle the power to the router and all your network clients so that all devices could start fresh with their newly assigned IPs. [/Edit]
The problem with my wifi seems to be with the usb adapter. When wifi is on my phone my computer losses signal and says there are no connections even though there are about 10 different routers in my area. Some how the phone blocks the signal.
Changed my firmware and made sure static arp entries were being added. It still doesn't fix the problem. From that I can assume that it is most likely my particular phone, but maybe someone else can reproduce the problem with the following steps: 1) turn on airplane mode 2) connect to your wifi (no mobile data whatsoever) 3) let your phone go to sleep and leave it for a while 4) turn it on and see if you have received any notifications or can access webpages / the play store
Followed your steps and tried multiple times, but I just couldn't reproduce the problem as described. Upon each attempt, with varying sleep durations, the WiFi Internet connection stayed accessible without any issue after waking out of the sleep mode. Sorry I can't be of any further help... I checked the settings on my WiFi router which is running DD-WRT firmware v24-sp2 mini. I'd simply configured static IPs for each of my WiFi network clients through the 'Services' tab, and under the 'Static Leases' section. I'd left the 'Client Lease Time' field blanked for each of the designated static IP entries. From my laptop, its WiFi connection status indicates: Lease Obtained 12/4/2013 9:33:55 AM Lease Expires 1/18/2038 10:14:07 PM FYI...
Flashing the phone with stock firmware from the ZTE website and following it up with a factory data reset has eliminated the issue as far as I can tell. No drops yet.
I think I have narrowed the problem down to a GPS bug, which would explain the random behavior. I will do more testing sometime tomorrow.
I have successfully reproduced the bug by checking all options in Android's Location services settings menu after allowing many Google apps to use the service and following the steps in one of my posts above. After waking the phone and unchecking these items, wifi connectivity returns.
I have this same issue, and turning off those settings does indeed resolve it. Happy for this temporary fix, hopefully eventually we'll have a solution that doesnt require these settings being disabled since it does mess with google maps' ability to locate you if they are off.
I think I finally understand all the issues - they are very hardware-depended quality issues and less likely to be software. I usually get my mother a new phone every year around holiday time to replace hers on the prepaid account. This year, I went with the ZTE Awe. While I think the phone's performance, design and pricing are very attractive, ZTE Awe is plagued with a large range of manufacturing and quality issues that aren't so common these days. I work in consumer electronics, and it's shocking to me how poor the qualities have been, by today's standard. I've exchanged the phone for at least 7 times that I can remember of and here are the major issues on each phone, in some combinations: 1) WiFi randomly dropping connection - this issue occurs on specific batch of devices, with stock and updated system software. I had 3 phones that are in the similar range of ESN and they ALL have WiFi issue. The tell-tale sign is the initial WiFi setup seems to take a long time to get an IP address. I sniffed the traffic and the phone suddenly stops sending frames or sending partial frames. It has nothing to do with GPS or Google Location services as other have suggested. This issue is so severe that it renders the phone useless on WiFi. Phone from an un-effective ESN range has NO issues whatsoever, as many have reported. 2) Ambient light sensor defective or crazily over-sensitive - I have had 3 phones with such problem that the sensor is probably putting out very jumpy/non-smooth values and very rapidly, so the brightness algorithm attempts to change brightness way too frequently, which causes a very visible flickering on the phone. I talked to a friend that develops such algorithm and the sensor values are either running average or weighted before the brightness is changed. To get this kind of flickering effect, it means the sensor spits out values all over the places and the normal algorithm is not able to smooth the values out. 3) Buttons on some phones, in similar ESN range, do not have enough travel and/or is very sticky and can get stuck. This is particularly true for the top on/off button and side camera button. There appears to be 2 makes of button switch used, they are either great or majorly sucks. You will get either a button with perfect travel and tactile response (snappy click sound), without any specific finger positioning, or you will get a mushy button with uneven and very little travel. In the case of latter, a slight wrong positioning of your finger tip can lead to no response, or stucked response (calling up the reboot/shutoff menu), or a response with no tactile feedback. To me, this is one of the worst critical issue, given the on/off button is the most used button. I am shocked at the horrid state they can be. Overall, it really shows me ZTE's quality control is horrendous. These 3 issues appear in some combination depend on the ESN number range, which indicate a poor quality control or they substitute parts during manufacturing without fully qualify those components. I am doing one more exchange and would give up after that, if I still cannot get a phone without any of the 3 issues.
4. Random phone reboots Handful of threads on this forum discussing that, and had to exchange my girlfriend's phone due to it.
