Acer Iconia A500 - Forced closes, some apps not opening, wireless security

[Manfred]

Hi I hope someone can help me.

We have installed Circus which started off quite well, but now we experience forced closes without warning.
Smiley Pops started off very well, but now it doesn't open at all.
My biggest problem however is that every time I want to access the internet I have to disable the security of my router so that the A500 has internet access.
I have a Billion BiPAC 7800GZ, and my security is set to WPA/WPA2, my notebook accesses fine with security on, the A500 does not, it did so in the beginning and I did not change anything.
With security on it still recognises the connection and is being recognised but no access, what can I do.
I do not wish to reset the A500 as I will lose various apps which have been purchased, or games that I have purchased in game currency for.
My next question is how do I backup all these games that we have purchased?
Thank you for anyone who can assist

 

[Douvie]

Hi I hope someone can help me.

We have installed Circus which started off quite well, but now we experience forced closes without warning.
Smiley Pops started off very well, but now it doesn't open at all.
My biggest problem however is that every time I want to access the internet I have to disable the security of my router so that the A500 has internet access.
I have a Billion BiPAC 7800GZ, and my security is set to WPA/WPA2, my notebook accesses fine with security on, the A500 does not, it did so in the beginning and I did not change anything.
With security on it still recognises the connection and is being recognised but no access, what can I do.
I do not wish to reset the A500 as I will lose various apps which have been purchased, or games that I have purchased in game currency for.
My next question is how do I backup all these games that we have purchased?
Thank you for anyone who can assist

Manfred, doing a reset will not causes you to lose your apps. If you have a google account you can see what apps you have downloaded and paid for. It is suggested that you clear the cache by pressing and holding the VOLUME UP button and powering on your tablet. The reset button just clears RAM not your storage sd memory on the ltablet.


M

 

[Manfred]

Thank you Douvie, appreciated, I'm rather new to Android so please tell me, how do I access the Google account, I know I have Gmail, does that mean I have a Google account?

 

[Manfred]

Thank you Douvie, much appreciated, now excuse my questions please, I'm rather new to Android.
Do first hold the VOLUME UP-button and then power up my tablet, or do I hold the button same time as powering up.
I did notice that in Settings there is a Privacy Tab where I can backup and restore data, as well as do a Factory Reset. Does all my data get backed up, and will it again be restored as it was or do I first have to download the applications before my data will be available.
Not all my apps are on the SD-storage either, as a matter of fact I don't know where some of them are stored.
Please let me know, because I'm not doing anything before I am certain about it.

Manfred

 

[Icebike]

For the record, I don't believe a reset is necessary or the source of the problem.

This whole thread is devoid of any mention of which version of Android you are running, It would be helpful if you posted that information.
Getting to 3.2 (if you are not already there) should be your focus.

Some routers will let you create a password for WPA/WPA2 that is technically too short. Some windows machines will accept this as well, and fill the remainder with spaces. But that violates the standard.

You should force your router to WPA2. Don't let it run in dual mode, which might be what it means when it says wpa/wpa2. (There are precious few industry standards for terminology in routers, so nobody except the manufacture can really say what that means). Your router gets less than glowing reviews as far as the manual and the on-screen setup is concerned.

WPA2 is secure, but requires at LEAST 13 bytes of password information. It works strictly at the hardware level (for encryption operations) and therefore tends to be implemented correctly, whereas wep and wpa are software implementations, and as such are anybody's guess.

I would recommend you double check your router settings and password length, AND tell the tablet to forget this network.
Then re-boot BOTH the router And the tablet (in that order), let the tablet scan for new Access points, and pick yours from
the list. Don't try to enter it manually, the only thing you want to enter is the password.

Manual setup is the reason for most failure. Manual setup is used by people because they turn off SSID broadcasting in the
mistaken assumption it makes them more secure. (False).

Also make sure you don't have any Mac Address filtering set in the router. And make sure it is not set up to use a secondary sign on from a web browser.

 

[Manfred]

Thank you Icebike, for your time to answer, I will in the mean time see whether I can apply this info. We have Honeycomb ver.3.2 installed, at least we have that right
Will get back to you on this post, hopefully with positive results.

Manfred

 

[Manfred]

Icebike, once again thank you, just to inform you that I have managed to access the internet without having to unsecure my router.

 

[Icebike]

Icebike, once again thank you, just to inform you that I have managed to access the internet without having to unsecure my router.

Inquiring minds would be interested in knowing what the problem turned out to be....?

 

[Manfred]

Hehe, I would have Inquiring minds know that after changing some router settings the connection & security problem was solved.
However, it seems that certain apps may have to be re-installed, to solve the problem with forced closes.

 

[Manfred]

OK, it seems unfair to everyone if I do not mention the settings that were changed, as a matter of fact, initially I did not know what I did because I just started changing settings randomly. Then I went and actually checked what the settings are...

Router:-
DHCP - Disabled
ESSID - Enabled (determine your own name)
Security Mode - WPA2
WPA Algorithms - AES
WPA Shared key - any alpha/numerical comination longer than 13 characters
WPS - Disabled
VRRP - Disabled

Tablet:-
Manual config
DHCP - disabled
Enter ESSID
Proxy hostname
Proxy port - most probably 8080
Bypass proxy for (most probably same as Proxy hostname)
IP settings - Static
IP address - first 3 sets same as router, last set different
Gateway - same as router IP
Network prefix length - I set mine to 13 (default is 24)
DNS Server 1 set to router IP
DNS Server 2 set to IPv4 alternate

Well, please don't ask me why I set it this way, I would not be able to give you the exact reason, but it works for me

Hope this helps for someone who may also have difficulties, and thank you to Icebike for pointing me the right direction.

Regards

 

[Icebike]

@Manfred - and anybody else using Manfred's settings.

I really can't recommend your settings to anyone.
They are very error prone, very "fiddley" requiring a lot of user setup, where one misstep leads to frustration.


What you should set on a router is what it had out of the box, changing only your ESSID and passphrase to something unique.

DHCP should always be enabled. (Other wise you have to manually assign IP numbers).
Security WPA2/AES
WPA-PSK mode (aka Pre-Shared Key or WPA-Personal) See Note...
Passphrase of thirteen or more characters. Don't get crazy.

Note: unless you have some really old computers hanging around the house
disable WPA all together. Its insecure. Wse only WPA2 if possible. Never use WEP.

If you make those settings on your router then your tablet will find the router and the ONLY thing you will
be asked for is the passphrase, no proxy, no port no DNS, no Gateway no prefix None of that stuff.

Manfred's big mistake was turning off DHCP. That forced him into making all those other settings
and made network setup a nightmare for the tablet and every other device in the house.

There is never a situation where manual ip assignment is needed in the modern world.

 

[Manfred]

Icebike, I really tried doing this with DHCP enabled, our notebooks Asus K52J & Acer 5740G, Windows 7 64b, have no problem connecting with out the box settings of the router, I just entered my personal settings that I received from our ISP as well as my ESSID and passphrase.
This, however, did not work for the A500, which is why I posted in the first place. It seems the DHCP-lease for some reason expires after a couple of days, that's why it worked initially but not recently. This I cannot explain, if someone could I would be glad to hear! I know the lease expiry also gave headaches with XP as well, since Vista that has changed.
My notebooks I have also manually allocated the IP's now and they still work fine.
I can also now securely allow only these IP-addresses in my router and block all unknowns.
Crazy passphrase, well I guess it's a matter of personal preference, and maybe over the top, but it works for me...

 

[Adelamarc]

If its a dhcp lease issue, why not set the router so that dhcp leases never expire?

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

 

[Icebike]

If its a dhcp lease issue, why not set the router so that dhcp leases never expire?

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

Leases are supposed to expire. That's how DHCP works

The Acer handles expiring leases just fine. As does everything else in the world.
Manfred even reported XP having trouble with expiring leases, which is simply unheard of.

So there are other problems with his router that are causing trouble here.

He got it working in a very non-standard way, and I posted my warning to others not
to go that way, because it is simply un-necessary if your router is working normally.
Apparently his isn't.

If you have an odd-ball router that is misbehaving you do what you have to do, but
for my money $25 for a working router is a better bet than struggling along with
a totally screwed up one.

 

[Manfred]

Point made, note taken. I guess every one at some time or another experiences "non-standard"-ness and deals with it in their own way untill someone comes along who questions the way and makes one re-think the way.