Samsung Note 3 WiFi issues

[Anonymous]

Hi im having terrible trouble keeping a connection to wifi on my Note 3.The connection is just so unstable,no other device in my house had this problem,and yes i have tried switching all other devices off as well,but it makes no diffetence,HELP

[Anonymous]

Reading up on the Note 3 - seems it has big problems with WiFi currently.

Seems at the minute there is no fix, yet to see if a software update will resolve it - hopefully it is not a hardware issue.

[aldaweb]

Not had a problem with my Note 2 (4.1.2 DMF2; WPA2) and Wifi except when my router locks everything out, and a reboot of the router (Virgin Superhub) fixes.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Reading up on the Note 3 - seems it has big problems with WiFi currently.

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Hi,

Are there any specifics, i.e. type/make of router being used, security type, and whether the handset is branded..?  A friend and myself both have unbranded GN3s with no wifi problems (since the original MI7 through to the latest MJ3 firmware).  I believe O2 has now made MJ1 available for update and wonder if it might cure the problem..?

In the interests of fault finding I'd be happy to set my router's settings to those that seem to cause folk problems and share my findings.

Jonty.

[Anonymous]

I have switched betweenWPA and WPA2 dual mode. My SSID is not hidden. I have wiped the cache partition. It it branded to O2 but I picked up the stability patch on Friday evening* and am on version UBMJ1, so a bit behind the one you mention. I have tried 4 different channels (11, 1, 6 and 8). The only thing that makes any difference is changing channels. I now appear to have some stability on channel 8 (10 speedtest.net at about 43Mbps without a "network communication issues" mesage and only one noticable dip in the graph). Will test exhaustively tomorrow and let you know. Thank you.

*effectively I've got until Monday to post it back.

[Anonymous]

This same issue has been reported widely: you can find it on Sprint and Verizon forums in the US for instance. It took me a while to understand because apparently they have slightly different phone configuation options.

This is what happens: the if you are connected to WiFi and the phone is set to use mobile data then it will, every couple of minutes, effectively switch over to using mobile data for a short period, before re-detecting WiFi. The interesting thing is that if you switch OFF mobile data then the WiFi never drops. So it's not that it is dropping the WiFi and reverting mobile data as a backup. The mobile data is actually somehow "distracting" the phone from the WiFi connection.

WORK-AROUND: The interuptions are brief, so for normal use you won't notice anything except that there might be a slight delay (ping speed of 100ms instead of 10ms) and it might say "Connected to WiFi" rather often during the day. But if you want to watch a bit of iPlayer or YouTube then it will be clearly noticable, with pauses every couple of minutes. If the switch off mobile data then this won't happen. Of course, this is pretty irritating because you have to remember to switch it on again when you leave the house.

FIXES: to a small degree switching channels may improve things but the problem will still occur eventually. None of switching between AES and TKIP, WPA2 and WPA, unhiding your SSID, or wiping your cache partition will make any difference in my experience. It is possible that a software upgrade will fix the problem in future, but I'm not risking being locked into a two-year contract with this defect so the phone is going back... I can always re-order it if I hear the problem has been addressed by Samsung.

I do not know what exactly is triggering the phone to flip over to mobile data - I guess that is a question for Samsung's engineers.

[Anonymous]

Hi hollanda,

Good info, thanks.  During the next few days (evenings) I'll try and mess around with my router's settings in case I can replicate this.  As mentioned before I have no such issues with wifi reliability or stability so it might be useful to feed anything back to O2 and Sammy if the problem can actually be 'created'.  Aside from that, I sincerely hope the latest (or up-and-coming) fix(es) will cure this issue.

Jonty.

[Anonymous]

Okay. I just wondering what your role is here. Enthusiastic N3 hobbiest or official of O2 / Samsung? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Hi hollanda,

Enthusiastic and many, many years of general IT support. Don't work for O2 or Sammy but the house is beginning to fill up with south Korean kit ;o)

Jonty.

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I regret that due to a lot of things going on at home at the moment I've not had a chance to play around with various settings to see if I'm able to replicate this problem.  I hope to get a chance over the weekend and into next week perhaps.  Whilst I don't want to give myself problems I'm quite happy to help investigate why others seem to be.

Jonty.

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I regret that this is not particularly detailed or definitive 'testing' but hope it goes some way towards helping folk with this Note 3 wifi issue.  Life's been a tad too busy of late and time's not really been available for me to 'play' as much as I've had liked, sorry.

To set the scene, my GN3 is unbranded from CPW (CSC code BTU) and I've had no wifi issues since release, with the stock firmware or the MJ1, MJ2 or MJ3 releases/patches.  My router is/was setup with a B/G mixed 'network mode' on channel 11, using WPA-Personal security mode and 'TKIP or AES' encryption.  The SSID is/was hidden.  Using wifi is fluid and transparent with no drops or switches to mobile data.  Things like YouTube and 'TV' run and run without disruption.

In an attempt to affect reliability, I made the following changes to my router's wireless settings... but service continued as normal with no affect... (remember this is not definitive)...

I tried WEP

I tried WPA2-Personal

I tried WPA2-Mixed

I mixed the various b/g/n/auto combinations (with the above)

I changed channel (with the above)

I switched from available to hidden SSID (with WPA-Personal and WPA2-Mixed, only).

As above, wireless is nothing but stable.  Ironically the only thing I now need to check is that my wife's S2 will still be okay after my fiddling.

Jonty.