Wifi phones won't always connect. Various error messages.

[#1]

Hi. This issue has been driving us crazy for past few months. There are no issues with my PC or computer - full, stable wifi. However my wife and I both have Sony phones (different models). The phones are both premium, recent models, fully updated. I'm using the standard Plusnet hub- current model.

Completely randomly, we either get 'authentication error' or 'connected, no internet', or 'not in range' (with phones next to the router), or the phones just fail to connect at all. Then we can go days and it's all fine. Restarting the phone and/or the router usually fixes the issue temporarily, but the issue always reoccurs.

I have tried *every* channel on both 5g and 2.4 bands. Same issues. I have a wifi scanner app and live in a fairly sparseley populated area. The app confirms that there are no other wifi devices using the same channel as me. I have factory reset the router- no change.

I can't find anyone else with this exact issue on the forums- that is to say, it works sometimes and not other times.

Another related issue is that I can't stream music on my phone with the wifi- just constantly buffers and stutters. As soon as I switch off the wifi and go to mobile data, no problems at all. So it's definately a wifi issue.

 Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Post released from Spam Filter.

[#2]

Moderators Note

Thread moved from Broadband to My Router.

[#3]

Have you tried separating the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands and trying each in turn before selecting the best, see https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Router/2-4ghz-and-or-5ghz-best-practice/m-p/1351966#M840?

[#4]

Thanks for your response. I'll try that later. Would that setting impact the speed/quality too? As per my final paragraph, i also have a major issues at all times with streaming music on my phone. As soon as i switch off the WiFi and use data, the music loads faultlessly.

[#5]

It could, you just need to try it. The problem with the default set up seems to be that some devices get confused with seeing the same SSID being transmitted from the two frequencies at the same time and flip flop between the two, causing all sorts of performance issues. Only separating them will determine if this is your problem.

[#6]

Very early indications are good that this may have worked/helped, but then again, sometimes things work OK for a few hours or even days, so I'll hold off on the celebrations and post back when I have evidence that it definately has or has not worked. Thankyou very much for the help so far though.

[#7]

OK, so it looks like the one of my two wifi problems are solved- the suggested solution above has fixed the connectivity issue, but I still appear to get sub-dial-up speeds on my phone using wifi!

This may be an issue for Sony (phone) support as other wifi devices are working fine, but if anyone has suggestions on here it would be appreciated.

Even though the phone now appears to have a stable connection, it struggles to even load graphics on websites, and fails to load more than a few seconds of music at a time. The very second I switch off wifi and return to mobile data, everything loads. I don't have any anti-virus apps on my phone. Any ideas ?

[#8]

Is it tha same on both the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands?

[#9]

I checked my phone and it is using the 2.4 hGhz band. Not sure how to make the phone use either band but I'll play around with it and see if one band works better than the other. I'm still using a channel that has no other nearby users.

[#10]

What you do is search for a new wifi network on your phone and select the one to which you've added -5 to the SSID.

[#11]

OK, so my phone only appears to work with the 2.4 band. When I switch to the 5ghz band I get all the aforementioned error messages and it doesn't connect. I'm on channel 52. It's an Sony XZ premium phone and should work with the 5ghz band. So current situation is that wifi is stable in 2.4.ghz band, but still very slow. PC and laptop remain happy with high speed wifi connection.

[#12]

I think that I have read that only a restricted 5GHz range around 38 to 44 is supported.

[#13]

OK, so current situation is that I changed 5ghz to 'smart wireless' so it chooses the appropriate channel. Now both phone and computers say 'connected, no internet' when the 5ghz SSD is selected!

[#14]

I’m getting totally confused. Earlier I thought that your computers were connected on the 2.4 GHz band and you were having trouble connecting your phone to the 5GHz one. Are you connecting your computers to the 5GHz band as well or are you saying that your computers connected to the 2.4 GHz band stop working when you switch the 5GHz band to the smart setting?

It might help your computer problem if you reboot the computer.

You do realise that you can use the 2.4 GHz band on your computers and connect your phone to the 5GHz one at the same time?

If you have an Android phone then download the WiFi  Analyser app. This will allow you to see the router transmissions and the channels being used.

[#15]

Hi Baldrick1,

Yes, earlier, after un-syncing the bands, both computers and phones were using the 2.4ghz band. I wanted to force a connect to the 5ghz band to see if the speed issue also existed on that band. However having tried that, I get the 'connected, no internet' message.

I have used the app you suggest, thanks. That's how I'm fairly sure that interference isn't an issue. As previously mentioned I'm in a fairly sparsley populated area and the app shows the channels I'm using are not being used by any other wifi. I think we can now discount channel interference as the issue.

I'm trying to rule out causes. I'm now back to thinking the issue may be to do with the router rather than the phone, because today I tried to stream musinc using my work phone- also an android, but a low-end Samsung. It displayed the same start/stop behaviour when streaming music via wifi, but not via its data signal.