Picked up a 'bargain' HTC Desire C from Tesco a couple of weeks ago to bring the boss into the smartphone era. ''Free' and £7.50 a month on a 24m contract with 100 mins, ,000s of texts and 500GB data.
It's a bit slow, no front camera, and no LED for the back camera, but pretty good considering the pricing.
Seemed OK but she hardly uses it so it's hard to be sure - until this week when I made a couple of tweaks and had a play, and noticed the wifi wasn't working despite full signal and an internet connection evidenced on other devices.
Switching wifi off and on, airplane mode, phone off/on, hard reset all made no difference. Only 'cured' by rebooting the router. This has since happened repeatedly, whenever the phone has been unused for a few hours it refuses to load pages or refresh email until the router has been restarted.
Looking for a fix it seems that it's not an unknown problem. I'm hoping it's nothing to do with the router - a BT Voyager 2110, the only one I have that my Lenovo laptop likes. This is getting silly.
The phone is on 4.0.something IIRC, Ice Cream Sandwich if that means anything - she's gone off with it to Newmarket races today so I can't check. Any ideas or experiences?
(or a good tip I can text her)
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>>Ice Cream Sandwich if that means anything
Known as a wafer in my day Shirley.
:}
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Try turning off security on your router temporarily and see if it works? Maybe a red herring but worth a try maybe...
Last edited by: smokie on Sat 5 Oct 13 at 16:33
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Suppose you can check somewhere whether it is getting an IP address, or if it is losing it along the way - somewhere in the setup menus it will tell you your address.
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Thanks for the suggestions. I haven't tried turning the security off. I didn't get round to checking the IPs either, I wondered about conflicts too, I'll get back to that when management comes back tomorrow evening.
I just checked the router MTU which was 1500 so I dropped that to 1392 which is what I 'optimised' the PCs to a while back when I was trying to solve another problem, to see if it makes a difference. I had never given that a thought when I substituted the router for my problem TT one; TT's recommended max for its network is 1432. A google suggests android phones use 1480 so it might be worth a punt, though I can't see why, it doesn't cause a problem with my son's Samsung something-or-other.
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The MTU is for the WAN side of the router, it makes no difference to the LAN side of the router. Have you checked the router logs to see what events are shown for the disconnect time?
could be the DHCP lease expiring and refusing to give it back.
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 5 Oct 13 at 20:10
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>>The MTU is for the WAN side of the router, it makes no difference to the LAN side of the router.
I figured that, but the router was at the default 1500 and the phone is unknown (to me) so I could be firing >1432 byte packets at the WAN. Said to cause problems with some sites and https.
I can't see how to access router logs for the Voyager 2110.
The DHCP lease table still shows two android devices, IPs allocated this morning before boss and son left at about 8am, so not apparently expired. What I can do is check it is still there when the problem occurs again, thanks.
I might say I understand all this in the same sort of way way I understood the several clocks I dismantled confidently as a child. None ever worked properly, or at all to be honest, afterwards.
Last edited by: Manatee on Sat 5 Oct 13 at 20:45
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Do you hide the SSID of the router ?
It's a waste of time anyway and any analyser can "see" your SSID whether it's hidden or not.
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>>Do you hide the SSID of the router ?
No, I'd be worried I might never find it again!
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What does the phone tell you when it can't connect ?
Have you looked in the Wi-Fi menu in the settings ? Does it tell you if the SSID is in range or not ?
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>> What does the phone tell you when it can't connect ?
Either that sync is not available of it times out on a web page.
>> Have you looked in the Wi-Fi menu in the settings ? Does it tell you
>> if the SSID is in range or not ?
It shows as connected to wifi with a good signal, with the correct SSID, but it doesn't download data (or does it so slowly it times out).
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Is it connected to the right router? Not connecting to a BT Open Wifi instead is it?
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That's a good question. I don't think so, the only SSID I've seen it connected to is BTVOYAGER2110-C5 which is mine.
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Assuming you only have the one router in your home, are you on the same channel as a neighbour? Is it possible there is some interference from a neighbouring network causing this issue?
Do you have a DECT phone near the router ?
Download WiFi Analyzer or similar and have a look at the noise in your area if there are number of properties with Wi-Fi.
I know it does not explain why other devices are fine but it may be the Desire C is at the bottom end of capability and having issues the others do not see.
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Given the usual recommendation to use channels 1-6-11 and that I can see 4 access points most of the time, there's every chance of some interference. Mine's set to 11 IIRC. DECT phones too but not particularly near the router.
I'll check the visible SSID channels.
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Also, in the Wi-Fi menu in Android 4 try going into the advanced menu and switching on Best Wi-Fi performance. It'll shorten battery life between charges but will give you an idea if it's the phone or not if the performance suddenly improves.
Last edited by: gmac on Sat 5 Oct 13 at 21:39
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>> Do you hide the SSID of the router ?
>> It's a waste of time anyway and any analyser can "see" your SSID whether it's
>> hidden or not.
Hiding my router SSID sends Android and some Apple devices into a tailspin. WAP is also problematic with our eclectic mix of devices, OS's etc. MAC address filtering by device provides a degree of security. Under no illusions that it's 100% but up a back jigger in a village its an adequate response to risk.
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I'm not familiar with the BT Voyager but most routers allow you to reserve an IP address for a particular device.
Try assigning the phone a fixed IP on the router, reboot the router and phone and see if that cures the problem.
BTW. You mess with MTUs at your peril. Fragmentation can reduce bandwidth by more than 50%.
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>> I'm not familiar with the BT Voyager but most routers allow you to reserve an
>> IP address for a particular device.
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>> Try assigning the phone a fixed IP on the router, reboot the router and phone
>> and see if that cures the problem.
yes that a good idea, you may have to enter the ip addy on the phone manually (ie turn off DHCP on the phone)
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Yes I might try the fixed IP option if I can figure out how to do it, thanks.
There is a another device nearby using ch.11, one on ch.6 and 3 on ch.1. Can't be unusual. The Voyager has the best signal strength by a decent margin, the others come and go.
I have a few things to try now, assuming the MTU change has had no effect which I won't know until later tomorrow when the peccant device and its owner return.
I've done quite a bit of reading on MTU, much of which I don't understand. The main consideration for TT users is to have no more than 1432 set on the router (their advice) and that is what the routers they supply have as a default. Unfortunately my TT D-Link and the identical replacement they sent me don't work properly with my Lenovo laptop, hence the dusting off of the Voyager a year or so back, which I forgot was set at 1500 (now 1392). That hasn't previously caused any problems that I have been aware of, possibly because all PCs here are set to 1392 which when I tested a while back gave slightly better speed than 1432. The reason for all that messing about was that the basic line speed here is poor and every little helps.
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FWIW I haven't had any wifi problems with my Desire C, not that I've noticed anyway. It's on Talkmobile, O2 router at home and God knows what at work.
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>> FWIW I haven't had any wifi problems with my Desire C
...although TBH I tend to use the (work) iPhone for everything except calls. I'll try to give the HTC more of a workout today. (Android 4.0.3, HTC Sense v4.0.)
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4.0.3 that's the one. What's HTC sense I wonder. Must read instructions again. She's off out today so I'll have to tinker later.
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HTC Sense is sort of the GUI as I understand it; Settings / About / Software information.
Baseband version might be significant if it's hardware related; mine is (deep breath...) 10.11.98.09H_1.06.98.13M2.
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Android problem, or HTC? - Dog
