[Q] losing wifi connectivity- full bars but all gray

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tgeery

Senior Member
Aug 28, 2012
150
17
Herndon
so, I've read around here on the XDA forum about problems with wifi connectivity where we have full bars for wifi but they are gray and you are not getting out. many describe my situation but I've not seen any real solutions...

my problem is that I can connect to my wifi router without issue but then a random amount of time later, sometimes fairly quickly and sometimes it's hours later, I will pick up the phone and see full bars but they are gray and I'm not getting out. I can try opening a terminal window and pinging the gateway/dns servers and can't even reach the gateway.

things I have tried:
- turned off MAC filtering on the wifi AP
- switched from a 5 GHZ wifi on the AP to 2.4 GHZ net on the AP and vice versa
- manually set the phone wifi preference to one or the other (5 or 2.4)
- battery pull on the phone
- delete network settings for my AP and reconfigure

I have not yet tried a static IP config on the phone but I can easily try that... {edited to add} well, I tried static config and that didn't help at all...

one other tidbit of info, I have a work Blackberry with wifi and it never loses wifi connectivity so this is a problem unique to my Nexus.

I'm running Cyanogen 10.0.0-toro and no, I haven't tried a full wipe and reload yet.

thoughts or suggestions?
 
Last edited:

jrmacarthur

Member
Mar 10, 2011
6
0
I'm not trying to threadjack here, but I just wanted to share my experiences.

I've been have the exact same thing happen to my phone (Nexus maguro). I've tried every JB rom I could find, several different kernels and my wifi eventually always goes grey on me. All network activities stop. I'm back on stock everything right now and it still happens.

It happens on my home wifi as well as work wifi.

I'm about to puttstock ICS on my phone and try that out for a couple days.

Anyway, good luck with your problems, i'm going to follow this thread in hopes you'll get a solution that may help me. :)

If I do figure anything out i'll post back.
 

tgeery

Senior Member
Aug 28, 2012
150
17
Herndon
I'm not trying to threadjack here, but I just wanted to share my experiences.

I've been have the exact same thing happen to my phone (Nexus maguro). I've tried every JB rom I could find, several different kernels and my wifi eventually always goes grey on me. All network activities stop. I'm back on stock everything right now and it still happens.

It happens on my home wifi as well as work wifi.

I'm about to puttstock ICS on my phone and try that out for a couple days.

Anyway, good luck with your problems, i'm going to follow this thread in hopes you'll get a solution that may help me. :)

If I do figure anything out i'll post back.

seems that this is a topic that has been posted on a bit over time with no real single culprit or fix. I'll post back if I figure anything out... I know in the Cyanogen thread, I saw info that stated that the MAC address of the phone was changing and I'm going to try and determine if that is happening to mine.
 

M3drvr

Senior Member
Jun 12, 2011
1,060
225
British Columbia
I have the same issue. Sometimes even when i pick up the phone, if i look fast enough i see that the Wi-Fi bars weren't even there! Thats only 1 out of 5 times though. The other time its usually just grey bars. Sometimes it actually will click back and they'll flash to blue and grey 2-3 times and then go solid blue. Then sometimes like you, they'll stay grey. I've tried everything too...reverting to stock, Different kernels, ROMs, routers, static IP, 2.4 or 5ghz, full auto mode. The only fix that makes it a little more reliable, is using Wi-Fi PM Fast. But even that, is not reliable. I'd say its about 50% reliable then, for a huge sacrfice in battery life. For me i've noticed this started to happen with 4.2. Before that i never had a problem. All other devices though no problem. My Nexus 7 is just fine. But the galaxy nexus, no matter what router or where i am, the Wi-Fi is totally unreliable. For me, it happens within 2 minutes that it will disconnect most times. Then 1 in 10 times it'll be fine for 10 hours.

In all honesty, i've given up. Just come to deal with it. Use mobile networks when i'm not needing to download. I can download files and stream music just fine too. If there is traffic going through, it never disconnects. But when its just sitting there without traffic, it disconnects, or, loses connection to google servers i should say.
 

jrmacarthur

Member
Mar 10, 2011
6
0
I installed stock 4.0.4 a couple days ago and have not had my wifi go grey on me yet.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
 

WitchMX

Senior Member
Feb 2, 2011
157
12
Hi all,

Just to say that I have the same problem. I have been upgraded from ICS to 4.2 and nothing had happened but I had to downgrade to 4.1.1 (AOKP Build 4) due to other issues and after that I started notice the WiFi problem.

At first I thought it was when the screen went off, but I has happened with screen on too. I have to turn WiFi off and the back on to connect properly again, very annoying.

As I said I started noticing this after I downgraded, but then again, I had used AOKP 4.1.1 before without this issue. I think that it is time to change my phone :/
 

jale2ice

Member
Apr 2, 2012
8
0
Philadelphia
so, I've read around here on the XDA forum about problems with wifi connectivity where we have full bars for wifi but they are gray and you are not getting out. many describe my situation but I've not seen any real solutions...

my problem is that I can connect to my wifi router without issue but then a random amount of time later, sometimes fairly quickly and sometimes it's hours later, I will pick up the phone and see full bars but they are gray and I'm not getting out. I can try opening a terminal window and pinging the gateway/dns servers and can't even reach the gateway.

things I have tried:
- turned off MAC filtering on the wifi AP
- switched from a 5 GHZ wifi on the AP to 2.4 GHZ net on the AP and vice versa
- manually set the phone wifi preference to one or the other (5 or 2.4)
- battery pull on the phone
- delete network settings for my AP and reconfigure

I have not yet tried a static IP config on the phone but I can easily try that... {edited to add} well, I tried static config and that didn't help at all...

one other tidbit of info, I have a work Blackberry with wifi and it never loses wifi connectivity so this is a problem unique to my Nexus.

I'm running Cyanogen 10.0.0-toro and no, I haven't tried a full wipe and reload yet.

thoughts or suggestions?

I'm on Muzzy 4.2.2 and I'm currently having the same problem. It's not a new problem since I remember having it months ago (disabled my phone's WiFi because I kept missing emails and other notifications - grew tired of dealing with it). I thought it was my router, so I swapped it with a newer one recently, but it carried forward (old router was TRENDnet Draft N and the new one is ASUS RT-N66U).

I would like to know how to properly troubleshoot this problem.
 
Last edited:

subhramani

Senior Member
Oct 28, 2009
231
37
Bangalore
headbangers.in
I'm glad I didnt have to create a thread for this. I have been facing this problem quite a lot. I can confirm that WiFi works absolutely fine until 4.1.2, whether it is stock or CM10 (I havent tried the other ROMs yet). I have faced this problem only from 4.2. It still exists on 4.2.2. Happens on all the ROMs I have tried till now including CM10.1 nightly as well as the stock factory image.

When the phone is sleeping, it seems to lose WiFi connectivity and when woken up, the WiFi bars is grey though it is full. If I am very lucky, it will turn blue automatically. Most of the times, I have to switch WiFi off and back on for it to connect properly.

Anyone knows the root cause for this? In case this has been discussed in any other thread?
 

tgeery

Senior Member
Aug 28, 2012
150
17
Herndon
I'm glad I didnt have to create a thread for this. I have been facing this problem quite a lot. I can confirm that WiFi works absolutely fine until 4.1.2, whether it is stock or CM10 (I havent tried the other ROMs yet). I have faced this problem only from 4.2. It still exists on 4.2.2. Happens on all the ROMs I have tried till now including CM10.1 nightly as well as the stock factory image.

When the phone is sleeping, it seems to lose WiFi connectivity and when woken up, the WiFi bars is grey though it is full. If I am very lucky, it will turn blue automatically. Most of the times, I have to switch WiFi off and back on for it to connect properly.

Anyone knows the root cause for this? In case this has been discussed in any other thread?

have you posted this information over in any of the threads where the developers are working such as Cyanogen in an effort to bring this issue to the forefront for more visibility?
 

Fabur87

Senior Member
May 26, 2010
51
14
I have had those wifi problems with every android version and rom I had on my GNex as far as I can remember.
Sometimes it will be able to reconnect but sometimes I have to disable and re-enable wifi to get it back.

I too thought that it might have been my crappy router as I have had multiple problems with it over the years (some Linksys router).

This is really annoying because it won't receive any e-mails until I randomly decide to have a look at my phone. :/
 

tgeery

Senior Member
Aug 28, 2012
150
17
Herndon
I have had those wifi problems with every android version and rom I had on my GNex as far as I can remember.
Sometimes it will be able to reconnect but sometimes I have to disable and re-enable wifi to get it back.

I too thought that it might have been my crappy router as I have had multiple problems with it over the years (some Linksys router).

This is really annoying because it won't receive any e-mails until I randomly decide to have a look at my phone. :/

trust me, I understand your frustration... some days, I can go almost all day without loosing wifi data throughput and other days it won't last 10 minutes without going to gray bars.

unfortunately, no one is sharing any fixes which tells me that no one has a good handle on the problem.
 

msavic6

Senior Member
Jun 28, 2010
2,007
575
Vancouver
Same issue for me on stock Android 4.2.2. Leave WiFi on overnight and when I wake up its connected to WiFi but gray bars...

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
 

M3drvr

Senior Member
Jun 12, 2011
1,060
225
British Columbia
The update to 4.2.2 drivers have fixed all WiFi issues for me. For the first time since 4.1 I can now use WiFi optimization now. And WiFi is fully reliable.
 

chasew83

Senior Member
Nov 13, 2007
709
158
Tampa Bay, FL
so, I've read around here on the XDA forum about problems with wifi connectivity where we have full bars for wifi but they are gray and you are not getting out. many describe my situation but I've not seen any real solutions...

my problem is that I can connect to my wifi router without issue but then a random amount of time later, sometimes fairly quickly and sometimes it's hours later, I will pick up the phone and see full bars but they are gray and I'm not getting out. I can try opening a terminal window and pinging the gateway/dns servers and can't even reach the gateway.

things I have tried:
- turned off MAC filtering on the wifi AP
- switched from a 5 GHZ wifi on the AP to 2.4 GHZ net on the AP and vice versa
- manually set the phone wifi preference to one or the other (5 or 2.4)
- battery pull on the phone
- delete network settings for my AP and reconfigure

I have not yet tried a static IP config on the phone but I can easily try that... {edited to add} well, I tried static config and that didn't help at all...

one other tidbit of info, I have a work Blackberry with wifi and it never loses wifi connectivity so this is a problem unique to my Nexus.

I'm running Cyanogen 10.0.0-toro and no, I haven't tried a full wipe and reload yet.

thoughts or suggestions?

same thing happened to me on toroplus sourcery 5.1, after trying everything i could think of and talking to one of the devs, i finally did a fresh download of rom and gapps. wiped cache,wiped dalvik, factory reset, wipe system, deleted android folder off of storage then installed the fresh download of rom and gapps and its been working great for me since. hope this helps.
 

aqcon

Member
Jan 21, 2011
9
0
The update to 4.2.2 drivers have fixed all WiFi issues for me. For the first time since 4.1 I can now use WiFi optimization now. And WiFi is fully reliable.

Can you elaborate on this? I've flashed 5 different modems and still get this problem... it happens to my cell service bars, as well. Would love to know what the cause is.
 

M3drvr

Senior Member
Jun 12, 2011
1,060
225
British Columbia
Can you elaborate on this? I've flashed 5 different modems and still get this problem... it happens to my cell service bars, as well. Would love to know what the cause is.

i just know ever since moving to a 4.2.2 kernel that has the 4.2.2 drivers my wifi has been stable. I know there was a post in the anarkia thread with the ak kernel that had the drivers. but i believe most any 4.2.2 kernel would have them implemented. i do have the newest bootloader and radio too. but i know as soon add i got the 4.2.2 drivers all issues were resolved wifi wise. of course i think if you have a 4.2.2 kennel you'll have them.
 

tgeery

Senior Member
Aug 28, 2012
150
17
Herndon
The update to 4.2.2 drivers have fixed all WiFi issues for me. For the first time since 4.1 I can now use WiFi optimization now. And WiFi is fully reliable.

I'm looking forward to that update - I've been watching the Cyanogen threads for when I think the 10.1 has matured enough to become my daily driver... good to know you've had positive results!
 

ashupulse

Senior Member
Oct 21, 2009
53
29
Delhi
Temporary solution

me facing same issues , Solution would be to use an app called wifi fixer by zanish-g1 from the play store ...

it worked for me !! :good: