DROID 2 doesn't do wifi

GhettoFi
Enthusiast - Level 2
Wifi does not work as advertised on Motorola Droid 2

Sources:
http://community.vzw.com/t5/DROID-2-by-Motorola/Constant-Random-WiFi-Disconnects/m-p/250643/highligh...
https://supportforums.motorola.com/message/256942

Symptom:  Wifi constantly connects (obtains a valid IP address) and disconnects to Netgear WNDR3700 router with WPA2-PSK [AES] security enabled.

Reproducible:  Yes.

Steps to troubleshoot:  Reset the router, adjusted the speed and security settings on the router, adjusted the channel on the router multiple times, stood right next to the router, erased/reconfigured network in settings on phone, factory reset phone multiple times, exchanged phone once.

No other devices that connect to this router display the above-mentioned symptom.  No drops whatsoever when using the following devices that also connect to the same router:
Sony Playstation 3
PC Computer running Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.10.
MacMini running OS X 10.6.5
lenovo ThinkPad T61 running Ubuntu 10.04
iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone
Kindle 3

Again, none of the above drop their connections.  At all.

After digging through some forums, I’ve found that this is a fairly widespread issue.

Motorola even knows of this issue, offering the following “solution”:
Thanks  for reaching out to Motorola. I have reviewed your e-mail and I am ready to help. I apologize for any issues that you are experiencing at  this time. I would recommend you to reduce the security setting  on the  router to  WEP or WPA or even completely disable it. “
(source: https://supportforums.motorola.com/message/256942 )

Things that are not an option for me:
  1. Getting a new router.
  2. Reducing the security settings on my existing router.
  3. Never using the phone’s built-in wifi.
  4. Waiting for Motorola or Verizon to send a fix.

Things that are an option for me:
  1. Returning my phone for a full refund.
  2. (If the above is not provided) Paying the early termination fee, vowing to never use a Motorola product or Verizon service ever again, and tell as many people who will listen about my horrid “Droid Doesn’t” experience.
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1 Solution
GhettoFi
Enthusiast - Level 2

I FIXED IT!

 

well.. with a little help from user vvn53 on the Motorola forums, anyway.

(source: https://supportforums.motorola.com/thread/16191?start=1350&tstart=0 )

He posted the following yesterday:

 

"""

DroidX WiFi connection problem solved for Netgear WPN824v3.

In my case the solution is as follows:

 

Disable WMM (WiFi Multimedia) in your router.   
   a. Login to your NETGEAR router.   
   b. Go to QoS setup menu.   
   c. Uncheck 'Enable WMM' option to disable.   
   d. Click 'Apply' button. 
  e. Log out and cycle router's power.

 

This solution was originally posted for Blackberry phone (http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/15943 ), but is works perfectly for my DroidX.

 

WMM is an enhancement on this Netgear router to prioritize media streams over other requiests. Switching this option off did not affect 3 laptops in my house (neither video streams nor on-line games). With WMM turned on, the only way for DroidX to connect was to set router to "open" mode.

"""

 

Worked perfectly w/ my Droid 2!

View solution in original post

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4 Replies
reallyniceguy
Contributor - Level 2
Strange, I just ordered a droid 2 for my brother and connected it to out linksys router and works fine.
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GhettoFi
Enthusiast - Level 2

Mine was fine for the first couple months.  It's possible that this may be an issue between the wireless chipset in this specific router (which no other devices seem to have a problem with) and the Droid 2 wifi chip.  Forums I've seen seem to confirm this, as only people w/ certain routers are affected.  Moreover, the symptoms only present themselves when WPA2-PSK encryption is enforced on the router.

 

The wifi chip in the phone also seems to need to "warm up" before it starts freaking out.  For instance, when I wake up in the morning, all is well.  It's only after about an hour of wifi use that it goes into the connect/disconnect cycle and I'm eff'd for the rest of the day.

 

Here's some other interesting info:

 

After installing the OSMonitor app, I decided to take a look at what the system logs are saying...

 

Every few seconds, the following messages appear in the "Message" tab in OSMonitor:

 

12/09/2010 07:11:34 [INFORMATION]

TIWLAN: 2802.711978:

TrafficMonitor_ChangeDownTimerStatus: Going to

active, set wake_lock!!

 

Which I suspect is supposed to keep the wifi awake but, for some reason, is not.  Connect/disconnect events can also be seen in the logs, between the constant posting of the above "TIWLAN" event.

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GhettoFi
Enthusiast - Level 2

OK, so.. running adb logcat (source: http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/adb.html ) for a couple minutes, through multiple wifi flaps, I've found a couple interesting things:

 

"tiwlan is useless"

 

$ cat 2010-12-09_droid2_adb_logcat.txt | grep useless
12-09 19:21:26.623 20195 20222 W ConnectivityService: interface tiwlan0 is useless
12-09 19:21:48.974 20195 20222 W ConnectivityService: interface ppp0 is useless
12-09 19:21:56.302 20195 20222 W ConnectivityService: interface tiwlan0 is useless
12-09 19:22:16.849 20195 20222 W ConnectivityService: interface ppp0 is useless
12-09 19:22:52.208 20195 20222 W ConnectivityService: interface tiwlan0 is useless
12-09 19:23:01.474 20195 20222 W ConnectivityService: interface ppp0 is useless
12-09 19:23:53.029 20195 20222 W ConnectivityService: interface tiwlan0 is useless
12-09 19:24:02.201 20195 20222 W ConnectivityService: interface ppp0 is useless
12-09 19:24:11.084 20195 20222 W ConnectivityService: interface tiwlan0 is useless
12-09 19:24:31.833 20195 20222 W ConnectivityService: interface ppp0 is useless
12-09 19:24:38.326 20195 20222 W ConnectivityService: interface tiwlan0 is useless
12-09 19:24:58.896 20195 20222 W ConnectivityService: interface ppp0 is useless
12-09 19:25:04.748 20195 20222 W ConnectivityService: interface tiwlan0 is useless
12-09 19:25:25.482 20195 20222 W ConnectivityService: interface ppp0 is useless
12-09 19:26:26.240 20195 20222 W ConnectivityService: interface tiwlan0 is useless
12-09 19:26:35.888 20195 20222 W ConnectivityService: interface ppp0 is useless
12-09 19:27:15.630 20195 20222 W ConnectivityService: interface tiwlan0 is useless
12-09 19:27:36.349 20195 20222 W ConnectivityService: interface ppp0 is useless

 

 

Why yes, adb logcat, it certainly is...

 

 

Here's a full circle -- from connected to disconnect:

 

12-09 19:27:35.169 25288 14781 V TransactionService: Event info: NetworkInfo: type: WIFI[], state: CONNECTED/CONNECTED, reason: (unspecified), extra: (none), roaming: false, failover: false, isAvailable: true

12-09 19:27:35.169 13867 13867 D NetStatUtils: This APN is active now. name: internet interface: ppp0

12-09 19:27:35.177 13867 13867 E NetStatUtils: The file is not exist, can't fetch the number from it!

12-09 19:27:35.177 13867 13867 D NetStatUtils: The file abs path is: /sys/class/net/ppp0/statistics/tx_bytes

12-09 19:27:35.177 13867 13867 E NetStatUtils: The file is not exist, can't fetch the number from it!

12-09 19:27:35.177 13867 13867 D NetStatUtils: The file abs path is: /sys/class/net/ppp0/statistics/rx_bytes

12-09 19:27:35.193 20195 20315 E ConnectivityService: connected default network is not mActiveDefaultNetwork!

12-09 19:27:35.263 20195 20200 E ConnectivityService: connected default network is not mActiveDefaultNetwork!

12-09 19:27:35.287 20195 11677 E ConnectivityService: connected default network is not mActiveDefaultNetwork!

12-09 19:27:35.349 20195 11677 E ConnectivityService: connected default network is not mActiveDefaultNetwork!

12-09 19:27:35.357 20195 20761 E ConnectivityService: connected default network is not mActiveDefaultNetwork!

12-09 19:27:35.490 20195 20760 E ConnectivityService: connected default network is not mActiveDefaultNetwork!

12-09 19:27:35.576 20195 20329 E ConnectivityService: connected default network is not mActiveDefaultNetwork!

12-09 19:27:36.318 13867 13867 D NetStatUtils: Receive a broadcast: android.intent.action.ANY_DATA_STATE

12-09 19:27:36.326 13867 13867 D NetStatUtils: Received android.intent.action.ANY_DATA_STATE broadcast - state = DISCONNECTED, unavailable = false

12-09 19:27:36.341 13867 13867 D NetStatUtils: This APN: internet is down now.

12-09 19:27:36.341 13867 13867 D NetStatUtils: The related interface is: ppp0

12-09 19:27:36.341 13867 13867 E NetStatUtils: The file is not exist, can't fetch the number from it!

12-09 19:27:36.349 13867 13867 D NetStatUtils: The file abs path is: /sys/class/net/ppp0/statistics/tx_bytes

12-09 19:27:36.349 13867 13867 E NetStatUtils: The file is not exist, can't fetch the number from it!

12-09 19:27:36.349 13867 13867 D NetStatUtils: The file abs path is: /sys/class/net/ppp0/statistics/rx_bytes

12-09 19:27:36.349 20195 20203 D NetworkStateTracker: setTeardownRequested: false

12-09 19:27:36.349 20195 20203 D NetworkStateTracker: setDetailed state, old =CONNECTED and new state=DISCONNECTED

12-09 19:27:36.349 20195 20222 D NetworkStateTracker: setTeardownRequested: false

12-09 19:27:36.349 20195 20222 D ConnectivityService: ConnectivityChange for mobile: DISCONNECTED/DISCONNECTED

 

Connect/disconnect events can be separated by a few minutes or as little as 1 second (as above).
If anyone sees anything out of the ordinary here, please post your thoughts.
Thanks!

 

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GhettoFi
Enthusiast - Level 2

I FIXED IT!

 

well.. with a little help from user vvn53 on the Motorola forums, anyway.

(source: https://supportforums.motorola.com/thread/16191?start=1350&tstart=0 )

He posted the following yesterday:

 

"""

DroidX WiFi connection problem solved for Netgear WPN824v3.

In my case the solution is as follows:

 

Disable WMM (WiFi Multimedia) in your router.   
   a. Login to your NETGEAR router.   
   b. Go to QoS setup menu.   
   c. Uncheck 'Enable WMM' option to disable.   
   d. Click 'Apply' button. 
  e. Log out and cycle router's power.

 

This solution was originally posted for Blackberry phone (http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/15943 ), but is works perfectly for my DroidX.

 

WMM is an enhancement on this Netgear router to prioritize media streams over other requiests. Switching this option off did not affect 3 laptops in my house (neither video streams nor on-line games). With WMM turned on, the only way for DroidX to connect was to set router to "open" mode.

"""

 

Worked perfectly w/ my Droid 2!

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