Phone not connecting to home Wifi

B0bbyEwing

So my phone (S24+) randomly stopped connecting. No settings altered on phone or router & I'm the only one who has access to do that.

Problem is, I didn't know..... Because for some reason the WiFi symbol on my phone was still displaying, so I thought it was connected. 
Set my phone up to download various files while asleep last night & it's gone & done it all on mobile data. My new billing month started yesterday & I've now used virtually all of my allowance on day 1 of the month - because the WiFi symbol was showing, making it look like it was connected. 

When messing around with the app & other apps I came across a not connected to WiFi message. 
Not knowing why, because clearly I must be if the symbol is showing, I clicked on WiFi on my phone to see that it wasn't connected at all. 

Why would it not only randomly disconnect (&this has been the case for about 3 days now) but not re-connect itself? 

ballyblack

switch off mobile data first

Browntoa

My phone , stock android not Samsung's "improved" version has an option in settings to reset WiFi , mobile and Bluetooth 

B0bbyEwing

I must have explained poorly then because neither of those actually answer what I was getting at. 

I could turn off mobile data and I possibly will now but 1) I shouldn't have to and 2) I've not had to in the 15yrs or so I've been using a smartphone. 

I could reset the wifi but that's a little too late. I'm more interested in how this actually happened. Why is it that my phone suddenly stopped connecting to the home WiFi once I was within range? When it had never happened before. 

So that I can hopefully prevent it happening again. 

glennevis

Quote "Why would it not only randomly disconnect (&this has been the case for about 3 days now) but not re-connect itself?"

Here's a possible scenario to explain such behaviour. If Google Play Store is set to install updates automatically then IMHO a Google update could possibly have been the culprit.

When manufacturers design their phones they curate a carefully selected group of apps and all the required system processes and thoroughly test on their own hardware before release. They burn all the required software into the phone's memory (i.e. firmware).

Over the past 2-3 years Google policy has changed and they now update and improve some system-level services independently, without having to wait for full OS updates from the device manufacturer (IMHO this is asking for trouble because there's no way Google can test every phone on the market will work with every update). So Google roll out system process updates as  'app' updates via the Play Store. Most users have auto update option switched on by default, so app updates can happen at any time.

One such system process update for example is called 'Google WiFi Provisioner'

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.carrier.carrierwifi

I'm not claiming that this is definitely the cause of the OP's problem, but it could have been. If the cap fits...

Let's say the service was updated, so the OS would need to halt the processes during the update. It could be entirely possible that the process may not restart automatically after the update and requires intervention. So it may require a reboot to correctly restart WiFi after the update. And even if the process did restart automatically, the feature that auto connects to saved WiFi SSIDs may fail until a reboot (assuming that feature wasn't broken by the update).

The OS may (or may not) have notified you, and you may (or may not) have either seen or acted upon the notification. It's difficult to say as there are so many ways Android users can configure notifications. Of course none of this is the OP's fault, IMHO it's simply Google's poorly designed or tested  deployment.

It's more than a little annoying that this has happened. If your problem was due to this scenario then switching off auto update in Play Store would help, as you can review pending updates and decide which services might be affected and choose a convenient time to apply updates. Followed by a reboot.

As your phone is probably a year old, you should also check that you have installed Samsung's OS updates if available. You never know, a Samsung update may fix some problematical Google 'app' system updates.

Sorry about the long explanation.

B0bbyEwing

glennevis said:

Quote "Why would it not only randomly disconnect (&this has been the case for about 3 days now) but not re-connect itself?"

Here's a possible scenario to explain such behaviour. If Google Play Store is set to install updates automatically then IMHO a Google update could possibly have been the culprit.

When manufacturers design their phones they curate a carefully selected group of apps and all the required system processes and thoroughly test on their own hardware before release. They burn all the required software into the phone's memory (i.e. firmware).

Over the past 2-3 years Google policy has changed and they now update and improve some system-level services independently, without having to wait for full OS updates from the device manufacturer (IMHO this is asking for trouble because there's no way Google can test every phone on the market will work with every update). So Google roll out system process updates as  'app' updates via the Play Store. Most users have auto update option switched on by default, so app updates can happen at any time.

One such system process update for example is called 'Google WiFi Provisioner'

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.carrier.carrierwifi

I'm not claiming that this is definitely the cause of the OP's problem, but it could have been. If the cap fits...

Let's say the service was updated, so the OS would need to halt the processes during the update. It could be entirely possible that the process may not restart automatically after the update and requires intervention. So it may require a reboot to correctly restart WiFi after the update. And even if the process did restart automatically, the feature that auto connects to saved WiFi SSIDs may fail until a reboot (assuming that feature wasn't broken by the update).

The OS may (or may not) have notified you, and you may (or may not) have either seen or acted upon the notification. It's difficult to say as there are so many ways Android users can configure notifications. Of course none of this is the OP's fault, IMHO it's simply Google's poorly designed or tested  deployment.

It's more than a little annoying that this has happened. If your problem was due to this scenario then switching off auto update in Play Store would help, as you can review pending updates and decide which services might be affected and choose a convenient time to apply updates. Followed by a reboot.

As your phone is probably a year old, you should also check that you have installed Samsung's OS updates if available. You never know, a Samsung update may fix some problematical Google 'app' system updates.

Sorry about the long explanation.

Well you may apologise for the long explanation but I thank you for it. 

I do indeed have auto app updates turned on. I actually went in to the Play Store to update the apps on the morning I realised what had gone on. I did this because I went to open an app and it said that it needed to be the latest version.

Now this isn't entirely unusual. There's been a few occasions where I've gone to use an app to sign in at my local gym for example & it's needed updating so when I go to the Play Store I see a few stragglers that didn't get updated (or their update came out after the nightly update).

But on this particular morning I saw a ton of app updates, which WAS unusual. 

I also have auto-restart turned on so that in the early hours of Sunday morning my phone restarts itself, but this obviously didn't help me during the week. 

Once I'd clocked what was going on I restarted the phone and the WiFi then connected.

I don't know what the additional data costs with o2 but this is going to be a frustrating month. It had to happen on day 1 didn't it. Couldn't have been middle of the month. I was out on my bike today & I have tracking set up so my wife can know where I'm at at any given moment, just in case say I get wiped out by a car & I can't get to the phone. If she sees me stationary for a while then she knows there's an issue. So today I had to go without that because I've no idea how much data that uses up. Normally it's not an issue but this month it is, same with anything else that uses data. I'm having to turn mobile data on when I need to do something & then turn it off once that something is done.