Constant Random WiFi Disconnects

[GRINEYFASE]

I have been losing WiFi connection on my DROID 2 at random intervals since I purchased it yesterday.

This is a router (D-LINK DIR-655) at home which is less than 10 ft away from my phone, with full bars. I am able to use laptops, desktops, and other wireless devices with no interruption.

Any application which actively uses an Internet connection, such as Youtube, Pandora, or various games will start to hang in their respective manners. Depending on the application, things will just stop working or I'll get a message indicating my connection has been lost. About 10 seconds later I'm connected again, no problems. Unfortunately if I'm using something like Pandora, it won't recover automatically and I have do some playing around to get it working again.

I have actually seen it happen while looking at the wireless networks settings on the Settings menu, where the network will disappear, be re-discovered, and finally re-connected to. These random disconnects can happen at any time; I haven't noticed a pattern. The time between them can be 2 minutes, or it can be 2 hours.

I've also read on other websites that 3G connections have been very inconsistent and the number of bars displayed at the top of the screen fluctuate quite a bit. I haven't had the experience, but I'm wondering if this (WiFi issue) is an antenna-related issue, or something fixable on my end.

Has anyone else been experiencing this problem, and/or found a workaround/solution?

[ksbuchanan]

Same here, but if I enable "Airplane mode", it connects to Wi-Fi.  

Wi-Fi doesn't seem to work if my phone/data connection is enabled.

[tracecar00]

Mine just keeps turning on and off

[GRINEYFASE]

I've noticed the same problem with my 3G service now, too.

[mobilecad]

I have had very similar experiences. The WIFI seems to cycle repeatedly on and off. I speculate this is occurring when I leave the area of my WIFI coverage and then return. To correct it I have had to select one of the manage WIFI options/settings and then it seems to break the cycle. Sorry for being vague, I just haven't nailed it down yet.

[sdpk]

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mobilecad wrote:

I have had very similar experiences. The WIFI seems to cycle repeatedly on and off. I speculate this is occurring when I leave the area of my WIFI coverage and then return. To correct it I have had to select one of the manage WIFI options/settings and then it seems to break the cycle. Sorry for being vague, I just haven't nailed it down yet.

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For me it happened this morning mid-task - meaning I was browsing a resource using wifi finem then it suddenly stopped working for around 5 seconds, then went back to working.  I was siting in the same locaiton the whole time.

[sdpk]

I continue to experience the problem.  I had sent e-mail to VzW support and got a thought-free generic response encouraging me to do a hard reset of the device (**bleep** on a device less than a week ld) and to do *228 and 2 (helpful if the issue was with cell service connections, and anyway I had done that last Friday as part of generally makign sure the device was up to date).  So, I will continue to post my experiences here to encourage others to post their experience and hope that this will encourage whomever VzW has monitoring these boards will double check the wifi quality on the device.

My experience this morning was I turned on wifi, got a successful connection and left it siting on my kitchen table as I worked on the computer (yes, I mostly work from home).  The spot in the kitchen is one where all my laptops consistantly report signal strength of "Very Good".  After 15 or so minutes I was notified by the phone I had new mail - I picked up the phone and unlocked it.  Amidst the notices of new mail, I saw an message that I needed to check my wifi connection.  I went back to the home screen, looked at signal strength (it showed no connection) and suddenly the signal strength indicator went up and the message about checking connection went away.  I put the phone back where it had been on the table and checked its signal strength - it shows the strength as "fair".

Perhaps the antenna for wifi is just less capable that for my other connected devices - iTouch, Mac laptop, various windows based laptops and desktops.

Any other experience out there?

[mobilecad]

Well, now I can be more specific. While my WIFI was looping on and off. I went to Settings--> Wireless & Networks--->WIFI Settings--->Manage Networks and suddenly it jumped right to obtaining IP address, then connected.

I hope that this issue is fixed before you need to use this, but good luck with it anyway.

Thanks,

-Roger

[GRINEYFASE]

I've had good luck in maintaining my Wi-Fi (not 3G) service with the "Wi-Fi Keep Alive" app in the Market. 

For settings, I selected "Always On," and enabled Workaround 1, 3, and 4. It may just be a coincidence, but it has seemed to work for me over the past couple of days.

[sdpk]

I experienced the same issue on wi-fi this morning.  Does VzW monitor these boards?  I think there's an issue here on which they need to work.

[ksbuchanan]

If I turn off the phone service, then the wifi works well. Not that this is a good work around but that is the only well for me to keep the wifi working.

[sdpk]

I'm seeing more mention of wifi cycling on other posts - I hope this is somethin they can fix by a software change.

[john5152]

got droid2 and i have this problem too. only way to stop the cycle is to restart.  I found OS update 2.2.20 and just installed and it did not fix

john5152

[everettjte]

under wireless & networks

     Wi-Fi settings

       you should see the SSID of your network listed there ...

        press menu then touch Advanced

         ensure the MAC address is being stored in your router, if the router does not store it you will not get an IP address and will have poor connectivity.

[john5152]

just checked settings are ok. I can reproduce this cycle.  happens on phone when i mistakenly push wifi on and then push off. that sets the on/off cycle of the phone wifi.  then i restart the phone. as far as the rest of the time i use wifi,  i dont have a problem, unless i hit the wifi button by accident again.

[Unhappy_Droid_O]

Same situation here with my Droid 2. Spoke with Verizon about this a few weeks ago and Tech said it was a known problem and may be fixed in the next release. They did the *228 and it worked fine for a few hours and then went back to connecting and disconnecting. The phone worked fine for the first week it connected to any WiFi with the exception of my home network. My home network is in an area of extremely poor service. Seems like the 3G has to be available to use wireless and voice commands. Anyone else have this same issue?