Wifi problems since lockdown

DoaM

Probably the cold boot (power cycle) ... that will have completely flushed the routing tables etc.

bobblebob

Yea i suspect so. Would a reboot via the web browser page not do the same tho?

DoaM

No, that's a soft reboot ... depending on the device then what gets done can be very different.

bobblebob

Right its happened again, but managed to get 9 days out of it before i needed to reboot the router. Been trying to think whats changed during lockdown for this issue to start all of a sudden

Out of the handful of times its happened, at least 3 of those occasions (possibly more i wasnt in for the rest of them) my Dad was on Facetime to my sister. Because she cant visit as much, shes been Facetiming alot more frequently during lockdown. She doesnt Facetime long (10 mins or so once a day), so for the wifi to completely die at least 3 times during a Facetime call seems a big coincidence. I Googled it and also managed to find an old Apple forum post of someone with similar issues, namely their wifi dying during Facetime calls. It doesnt everytime, but is beginning to make me wonder if its that. 

Technically tho ive no idea how that is possible?

arciere

Technically it is like saying 'my car doesn't work, can you tell me what's wrong with it?'.
'WiFi doesn't work' is the same thing: WHAT doesn't work? Is it the DHCP server? Is it the authentication process? Is it routing? Is it the gateway? Is it the speed?
If you want to understand what the problem is, you need to be methodical and check everything when it stops working, rather than just rebooting the router.
If you know how to do it, the way to approach this is to establish first of all which part of the 'wireless infrastructure' stops working when you experience the problem. Back to the car example, it would be like saying 'my car doesn't work. When I turn on the key I can hear this noise and the ignition won't start'.
Until you reach that stage, it could be literally anything.
EDIT: to elaborate further, when you see the problem, are you able to answer these questions:
- Does the WiFi adaptor show as connected?
- Does the WiFi adaptor show internet connection?
- Am I getting an IP address?
- Am I able to ping the router?
- Am I able to ping an external site?
- Does the router say that my device is connected?
- Can I access the router with the cable?
- What happens if I forget the network and try to connect again? Does it connect? If not, where does it actually fail? What error message do I get?

bobblebob

arciere said:

Technically it is like saying 'my car doesn't work, can you tell me what's wrong with it?'.
'WiFi doesn't work' is the same thing: WHAT doesn't work? Is it the DHCP server? Is it the authentication process? Is it routing? Is it the gateway? Is it the speed?
If you want to understand what the problem is, you need to be methodical and check everything when it stops working, rather than just rebooting the router.
If you know how to do it, the way to approach this is to establish first of all which part of the 'wireless infrastructure' stops working when you experience the problem. Back to the car example, it would be like saying 'my car doesn't work. When I turn on the key I can hear this noise and the ignition won't start'.
Until you reach that stage, it could be literally anything.
EDIT: to elaborate further, when you see the problem, are you able to answer these questions:
- Does the WiFi adaptor show as connected?
- Does the WiFi adaptor show internet connection?
- Am I getting an IP address?
- Am I able to ping the router?
- Am I able to ping an external site?
- Does the router say that my device is connected?
- Can I access the router with the cable?
- What happens if I forget the network and try to connect again? Does it connect? If not, where does it actually fail? What error message do I get?

- Does the WiFi adaptor show as connected? No it disconnects
- Does the WiFi adaptor show internet connection? No, it will either show "limited connection" with an exclamation mark then revert to mobile data on phone, or no connection on other devices. Wired connections work tho
- Am I getting an IP address? On the wifi devices no, but i can still access everything wired.
- Am I able to ping the router? On a wired device yes.
- Am I able to ping an external site? On a wired device yes.
- Does the router say that my device is connected? No
- Can I access the router with the cable? Yes

- What happens if I forget the network and try to connect again? Does it connect? If not, where does it actually fail? What error message do I get? Depending on device, it will either say cannot obtain IP address or authentication error

Everything remains working from a wired device, its only the wifi devices having issues. And at least 75% of the time its happened its been during a brief Facetime call

arciere

Do you know what encryption you are using? i.e. WPA2-AES/TKIP, etc...

bobblebob

arciere said:

Do you know what encryption you are using? i.e. WPA2-AES/TKIP, etc...

Yea its WPA2-PSK(Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 with Pre-Shared Key)

arciere

TKIP or AES?

bobblebob

arciere said:

TKIP or AES?

Doesnt say, and not sure. Although looking online

If your router doesn't specify TKIP or AES, the WPA2 option will probably just use AES.