Problem: Wifi connects to router, but not to internet

[Nilsnsn]

Hej Hej,


got my pandora almost a week ago, but haven't been able to get the wifi running.


The pandora establishs connection to the router, but i can get only very few times through to the internet and if, only for a short period of time. One time it worked almost 5 minutes, but mostly it's just a few seconds - just enough to load the entire frontpage of a website, but nothing more. Pinging domains resolves in "nknown host", while pinging ips will return "Destination Host Unreachable".


I haven't tried another router yet, but i tried to route the connection through an internet sharing via my windows-pc, which resulted the same. I also have a linux laptop with xfce working properly in this network, don't know how much that says about the capabilities of the router, but i think both devices SHOULD be able to get along. It's one of those Easyboxes from the german provider Vodafone (Link to German Datasheet).


The whole problem sounds similar to this post:

I'm having problems with the wifi. The wifi connects to my router, and it shows as connected, but none of the applications work. Meaning, no pages load, no connections to the im servers, unknown host for ping, etc. What do you guys think is the issue here?

At that time it was suggested to update to Hotfix 5, but as mine already shipped with SZ Beta 3 that seemed deprecated. Unfortunately both Beta 4 and 5a haven't made a difference. Am I wrong with my assumption that HF 5 is a downgrade? Or does anyone know another solution? Couldn't find anything else related in the Wiki and Board.


Hope to hear from someone soon Thanks!


Nils

 

[slaeshjag]

This is a known problem with the current WiFi-driver. I wouldn't be surprised if it works fine in kernel 2.6 (hold right shoulder button when you power it on and you'll be able to select it.)


This varies with access points, and there really isn't nothing you can do about it. I got one of these, it seems to do the job.

 

[PowerGod]

I wouldn't be surprised if it works fine in kernel 2.6

I'm using that kernel and I have the same issue, I resolved turning OFF my other PC wifi... there seems to be some interference or maybe the router is not powerful enougth... I connected the other PC to the router via cable ethernet, and my Pandora is the only one using wifi, and doesn't disconnect anymore

 

[slaeshjag]

I had WiFi working like a dream in 2.6, 600+ kB/s transfer speed, ping lower than 100 ms etc.. As of kernel 3.2, I can barely get 4 icmp packages away before it dies.

 

[patnik]

Nilsnsn, what is the exact model number of your WiFi router?


Nevermind, I should have clicked on the datasheet you linked to. Now to search for an english version of said manual, or at least try to decipher to the best of my abilities.

 

[mcobit]

Try to deactivate the powersavingfeatures for the wifichips maybe?

 

[Zink]

Just today I received my Pandora (yay!), and I have the same problem. Tried two routers (one at work and one at home). It connects fine, but cannot open any pages. It doesn't seem like a power issue, because I can walk up to the router and it's still the same (the icon shows the highest signal strength). On the kernel 3.2 it sometimes works for like 15 seconds after connecting, but for most of times it doesn't work at all (or works for such a short period of time that I don't notice).


On the old kernel it works perfectly fine (haven't tried for more than 3 minutes though).

 

[WizardStan]

Two things to try: disable security on your router, and turn off power saving on the Pandora (open a terminal and type "sudo iwconfig wlan0 power off")


That completely eliminates two of the most common issues and we can build up from there.


Also to test, try ping: in a terminal window again, type "ping www.google.com". Maybe it works and gives things that look like responses every second, or maybe it doesn't work and it gives an error that will help lead to a solution. CTRL-C stops a ping, in case you didn't know.

 

[Zink]

Forgot to say: I already tried ping (I saw it waiting too long for answer from DNS and cancelled before it returned any messages), and disabling power saving on WiFi - also no improvement. The only thing left to try is the router security, which I cannot change easily. Today I will be at my parents' house, they have a router with no security enabled, so I will try it there. But I don't see how security could be an issue when it works fine on the old kernel - any Ideas?


Strange thing though: today I came to work and turned on WiFi, at the same time issuing ping to see how long it would stay, and it didn't broke up this time. The internet was working fine for a couple of minutes (tested 5 minutes).


Then I rebooted Pandora (leaving it in a completely turned-off state for a couple of seconds), and tried the same again - this time the ping stopped after 30 seconds and started showing "Destination Host Unreachable".


I have no idea what caused the WiFi to wortk fine once. Yesterday evening I was browsing the internet on the old kernel for some time, then switched to the new kernel and put it in the suspend mode. Today it has been woke up and suspended about two times (before first WiFi use). I tried to recreate this path today, but no avail. The max time of working internet I've got was 44 seconds.

 

[Zink]

I checked with the parents' router, and Pandora works flawlessly there, regardless whether the security is enabled or disabled. I have tried setting the same security mode - WPA/WPA2 - personal.


Also one thing comes to my mind: at my parents there is only one wireless network in the area (they live in a village), but at my home and at work there are at least 3 of them. Maybe Pandora's WiFi mixes something up when it has to deal with such noise from other networks. Still I think this is something that can and should be fixed in the firmware, as with the older kernel there are no such problems.

 

[WizardStan]

Are you using non-overlapping channels with your neighbours when at home? That can cause problems.


Some routers are just really weird and I have no idea how to really help. I had one router, my Pandora would top out at about 300KB/s but otherwise worked fine. That one died and I got a new router which gives me a consistent 600KB/s but after a week or so it starts misbehaving: first I can't connect to other wifi devices on the network; then it won't let me connect to wired devices on the network; eventually all wifi devices lose the ability to communicate with the internet. I only let it get that far once, usually I just reboot the router once a week when it starts causing problems between wifi devices. The point of this rambling anecdote is that routers are weird and even though they claim to follow a standard they can behave in strangely arbitrary ways and the only thing you can do sometimes is keep experimenting until you get that perfect combination of magic that just works.

 

[slaeshjag]

As said, it works fine in kernel 2.6, but not in 3.2. This must be a bug in the WiFi driver.


I wish I could play around with encryption settings, by my AP only give me the option "Encryption on/off". And turning encryption off is not an option.

 

[steveway]

As said, it works fine in kernel 2.6, but not in 3.2. This must be a bug in the WiFi driver.


I wish I could play around with encryption settings, by my AP only give me the option "Encryption on/off". And turning encryption off is not an option.

I have that exact same problem. There is definately a regression in the driver for the 3.2 Kernel. Hope Notaz finds out what is wrong with it because switching to 2.6 just for wifi is annoying.

 

[Nilsnsn]

sorry for haven't answering so far, the old-kernel-thing did the trick. in the meantime i got a cheap usb wifi which works well under 3.2 too.


so thank you very much for your help and effort. it's apprciated!

 

[WizardStan]

And turning encryption off is not an option.

Why not? Testing with encryption off is a standard network troubleshooting process, even outside of the Pandora. It's not permanent, it's just to see if that makes a difference to help narrow down what could be the problem.

 

[slaeshjag]

It's known encryption makes a difference in these cases so it didn't feel worth it. Also; I can't test this anymore anyway since my pandora is broken, and might be beyond repair.

 

[PowerGod]

This is not a solution to the disconnection problem, but it can help:


http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php?/topic/8690-wifi-reconnector/#entry155790

 

[notaz]

Try this:

 

[Neelix]

My initial testing of the adjusted wifi drivers Notaz linked to in the above post looks promising and seems to have solved the issue for me. I'd encourage you all to see if they fix the problem for you.


- Neelix

 

[Zink]

In my case it got somewhat strange. After the weekend my Wifi started to work fine in both my home and work (tried several times and no failure). No router settings has changed. Only today it stopped working once. So I can't even test Notaz' fix