wi-fi issues

[Mrhelper]

Turn OFF the BT and see the difference.

It must have something to do with the coding for the wifi/BT chip. Sorry it must be software related.

The cause of what you describe seems more likely to be interference in the 2.4 Ghz band, and that can be hard to pin down.

I wrote a post to respond to a similar topic here: http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/acer-iconia-tab-a500-forum/39890-wifi-bluetooth.html#post214883

 

[gerryex]

I noticed this also a few times, but likely only because I was scrutinizing the device more closely after the ICS update. I typically shut my wifi down manually before powering off, because I prefer the control. I keep the builtin ICS power control widget on the home screen and have found it to be very handy. Having the wifi refrain from connecting at power on until I can choose what I prefer appeals to me. I have rock solid performance with the wifi, and have noticed no significant differences in it relative to HC, with one exception: the wifi controls are simpler and it connects 3-5 times faster when turned on than it did with HC.

. . . .

Hi Mrhelper,

I wonder if this could have caused my problem. A few days ago when I turned on my PC the wired internet connection would not come up. Win 7 showed a network connection but said "No Internet." I have Verizon FiOS which uses one of their ActionTec routers. So I rebooted the PC but still no internet. Then I pulled the AC power from the router, waited a few seconds and powered the router back up. This was while the PC was off. I then waited for all the status LEDs on the router to turn green including an indicator for Internet. Then I powered the PC back on and the internet came up with no problem.

In summary, this was a wired connection and during all of the above the A500 had nothing to do with it and was sitting quitetly on my desk powered off. But what I'm thinking is maybe something changed in the router like the IP address that was usually sent to the tablet when it was being used. HOWEVER I am 99 44/100% sure I have the tablet's Wi Fi set to DHCP so whatever IP the router assigned to the tablet should work, even if its different each time. At least that's the theory!

Next time I power the table on I will doouble check the DHCP setting. And I guess I could try "forgetting" my Wi Fi and then re-acquiring it again, but I'm always afraid something else will get screwed up and I may have problems getting back to my Wi Fi. Also, when I explicitely tell the tablet to connect to my Wi Fi it does so very quickly and with a strong signal, so its really no big deal to manually re-connect, but I wanted to post it here as it definitely has been working differently the last few days. And, again, it WAS working fine auto connecting after the ICS update, and only stoped auto connecting within the last few days!!

Gerry

 

[Mrhelper]

Hi Mrhelper,

I wonder if this could have caused my problem. A few days ago when I turned on my PC the wired internet connection would not come up. Win 7 showed a network connection but said "No Internet." I have Verizon FiOS which uses one of their ActionTec routers. So I rebooted the PC but still no internet. Then I pulled the AC power from the router, waited a few seconds and powered the router back up. This was while the PC was off. I then waited for all the status LEDs on the router to turn green including an indicator for Internet. Then I powered the PC back on and the internet came up with no problem.

In summary, this was a wired connection and during all of the above the A500 had nothing to do with it and was sitting quitetly on my desk powered off. But what I'm thinking is maybe something changed in the router like the IP address that was usually sent to the tablet when it was being used. HOWEVER I am 99 44/100% sure I have the tablet's Wi Fi set to DHCP so whatever IP the router assigned to the tablet should work, even if its different each time. At least that's the theory!

Next time I power the table on I will doouble check the DHCP setting. And I guess I could try "forgetting" my Wi Fi and then re-acquiring it again, but I'm always afraid something else will get screwed up and I may have problems getting back to my Wi Fi. Also, when I explicitely tell the tablet to connect to my Wi Fi it does so very quickly and with a strong signal, so its really no big deal to manually re-connect, but I wanted to post it here as it definitely has been working differently the last few days. And, again, it WAS working fine auto connecting after the ICS update, and only stoped auto connecting within the last few days!!I

Gerry

I'm fairly certain that your router boot activity has nothing to do with this. It is interesting that you mention DHCP though. I analyzed the system and kernel logs and noticed that the dhcpcd process does not start when this happens. This apparently has nothing to do with the state of the router, but DHCP functionality (or lack thereof) is involved in this issue from the a500 side only.

I have been able to reliably reproduce the condition you describe as follows:

When I do not toggle wifi off and on between power up and power down, I don't see the condition occur. Every test that I have done in this way results in wifi connecting immediately after the subsequent power up. The logs show the a500 associate with the AP, and then successfully lease an IP address via the dhcpcd process.

When I do toggle wifi off and on after power up, when I subsequently power down and then back up, the a500 associates with the AP, but does not try to lease an IP address via DHCP. When I check the logs and list all of the active processes, I can see that dhcpcd has never started. This leaves the AP associated, so all you have to do is press connect under wifi settings to lease the IP address. If you toggle wifi off/on via the power control widget, you also get an instant connection.

What I don't know is whether this is a feature or a mistake. The logs do not show any associated errors, in either case. This could lead one to conclude that the code was written this way on purpose. Such a conclusion might be based on an assumption that if you were manually controlling the wifi, that you did not want it to auto connect the next time without consent... a treatment I might prefer if I was using a hotel wifi service vs. my home service. I realize that this is probably a stretch though, and I would be assuming way too much about the intentions of the developer. This seems more likely to be the result of an incomplete implementation, where the developer merely forgot to preserve the most recent connection state after an interim wifi toggle activity.

I did not test to see if the same thing happens when wifi disconnects automatically when going to sleep. It would be interesting to learn if that is so.

 

[gerryex]

I'm fairly certain that your router boot activity has nothing to do with this. It is interesting that you mention DHCP though. I analyzed the system and kernel logs and noticed that the dhcpcd process does not start when this happens. This apparently has nothing to do with the state of the router, but DHCP functionality (or lack thereof) is involved in this issue from the a500 side only.

. . . .

Hi Mrhelper,

Well, its definite - the A500 with ICS has a mind of its own!! I saw your post and I was going to play around with it and try turning Wi Fi off and on and see what happens. But this time as I powered on (from total power off as I never use the sleep mode) even before I keyed in the PIN to unlock the tablet it reported that it had already connected to my Wi Fi. This is the way it had always worked even after the update to ICS. The last few times I powered up it would not connect to my Wi Fi unless I first unlocked the tablet and then went into the Wi Fi settings and explicitely told it to connect. But today it did connect all by itself!!!

So for now I'm just going to leave it alone and if I have to take an extra step to specifically tell it to connect to my Wi Fi than so be it!!!

Gerry

 

[Mrhelper]

Hi Mrhelper,

Well, its definite - the A500 with ICS has a mind of its own!! I saw your post and I was going to play around with it and try turning Wi Fi off and on and see what happens. But this time as I powered on (from total power off as I never use the sleep mode) even before I keyed in the PIN to unlock the tablet it reported that it had already connected to my Wi Fi. This is the way it had always worked even after the update to ICS. The last few times I powered up it would not connect to my Wi Fi unless I first unlocked the tablet and then went into the Wi Fi settings and explicitely told it to connect. But today it did connect all by itself!!!

So for now I'm just going to leave it alone and if I have to take an extra step to specifically tell it to connect to my Wi Fi than so be it!!!

Gerry

I agree. This particular behavior is not even what I would consider inconvenient... amusing is what comes to mind for me. If I were seeing any problems where it disconnected unexpectedly or refused to connect at all... now that would be inconvenient, and I'd be chasing that kind of problem until I found the root cause.

 

[Douvie]

Just to add another thorn in the side. Besides the WIFI being more stable now with BT turned OFF, I've noticed that I haven't had any time outs lately when trying to update web page. This has settled down as well.

 

[davea]

Folks,
Don't forget that when you update to ICS the WI-FI default changes to "keep WI-FI on during sleep" to "never". You need to go into the advanced settings for this and change to always. Also, for good measure, don't allow it to sleep.

 

[Douvie]

I've found that makes matters worse. Regardless of what anyone says, my A500's WiFi signal is rock solid in the whole house and to the fence (64m away from router) facing the study. The proof is in the pudding - as they say.