Playbook losing internet over wifi
Hi all,
Apologies if this overlaps some thread already there. I did a quick look and not sure if what I found exactly covers my issue.
Firstly, with the previous OS 1710, this problem did NOT happen. I was using it for a good week or two on 1710 on the exact same setup at home, with no issues.
Since updating to this 1868 OS, I've been having an issue where my Playbook will seemingly lose its internet connection. There's no visible indication of this, and my wifi indicator shows everything is fine. I simply stop being able to browse, do AppWorld - or pretty much anything.
I can resolve the problem temporarily by toggling wifi off and back on again. Then, everything will be fine again, for a period of time. This period of time has so far ranged from a few seconds to 2-3 minutes.
Until 1710 I was using the Playbook as my main web browsing device. Unless I can get this issue resolved somehow, it is pretty much a useless piece of plastic :-( I am so disappointed and frustrated. Was absolutely loving the Playbook until this. Incidentally, it is my first experience with any RIM product. I'm tempted to check out some of the Blackberry phones after being so impressed with the Playbook (until this issue hit).
I performed a wipe, and this did not help. However, after the wipe, I'm not sure if everything reinstalled correctly, and not sure how to fix that. (For example, my Need for Speed game has vanished).
I found a post on the Blackberry support forums which looked like the same issue, and the poster suggested turning on Wifi sharing - the thought being it should keep the connection alive. This, also, did not help.
In addition to the wipe, I have restarted several times.
I am using Wifi only, BT is off, and I am not bridged, as I have no blackberry to bridge to :-(
My router is a Cisco/Linksys E4200 with WPA2. I have several other devices on this router (iPhone, Android, couple of Macs) none of which have any problems.
I would very much appreciate any help and suggestions you might have.
Thanks so much!
PS I was also having the battery drain issue noted by several people on 1868 (again, no such problem on 1710) and after being in my bag at work, and mostly untouched, the battery would be around 40% and it would be alarmingly warm to the touch. Wifi on or off, made no difference. I have tried the fix suggested on the boards here - go into the Video Chat app and accept the terms of service. I will see if that helps for that issue, and thanks to all the posters here!
Playbook losing internet over wifi
I had the same problem. I thought I'd share my experiences to save you waiting 20 mins on hold for assistance!
To recap my problem:
- I've got a wireless router (D-Link DI-625) at home with 5+ wired & wireless devices attached to it, WPA2 encryption, reserved IP address configured on the router for the Playbook (not necessary, but I'm kinda funny that way). I have no issues with PC, laptop, iPod, Wii, etc. connecting to router and staying connected.
- new PB worked great out of the box, connected to the network fine, performed OS upgrade successfully, and worked for the most part afterwards. (I later learned the OS upgrade this is what caused the problem). I don't know my prior OS version, but my current OS version is 1.0.8.6067 (most recent).
- after the OS upgrade, the PB would no longer automatically connect to the network. Full strength green bars suggested it was connected, but web browsing would not work. Touching the wifi icon and "Save & Connect" button without making any changes would usually connect back to the network fine, but it would only last a minute or two.
Corrective actions attempted:
- tried turning off auto-configuration (DHCP) for network settings and manually keyed in IP address, DNS, gateway, etc. options. Behaviour was the same.
- checked the router time and it was a few hours off. Fixed it to match, behaviour was the same.
- tried clearing the browser cache. Behaviour was the same.
- I read a suggestion about downgrading the router speed from N to G, I wasn't terribly excited about slowing my network down, so I left this option until later (I never did end up trying this).
- I read a suggestion about changing the network security from WPA2 Personal to WEP. That was gonna be alot of work for me to change all my other devices, so I left this option for later (I never did end up trying this).
- I read a suggestion regarding a secure wipe and how it had adverse effects for some people -- not even gonna try that.
- I read somewhere about doing a hard reset, but I didn't know how to do that. (This ultimately was the solution, read detailed solution below).
Solution:
- touch wifi icon, go to saved networks, tap on edit (pencil) and delete your network connection
- initiate hard reset by holding down power and + buttons together for 5 sec until PB shuts off and red light goes on. PB will reboot and come back on by itself after a few moments.
- launch web browser, swipe top to bottom, select Options, then Privacy & Security. Select then to "Clear All".
- touch wifi icon, select desired network and re-enter configuration information and it should connect and stay connected!
Commentary:
- the hard reset somehow solves the problem, not sure why.
- RIM acknowledges that the latest OS build introduced this problem. They are including a fix to this problem in their 2.0 build coming out in Feb 2012.
- I discussed some of the above suggestions with the agent on the phone. She said the WPA2 Personal security shouldn't be an issue, so that shouldn't need to be changed to WEP. She did say sometimes switching from N to G helps in certain circumstances, but usually the hard reset does the trick.
- Note the key here to this solution is that the PB worked fine connecting to wifi prior to the OS upgrade. If it never connected to wifi at all, then it is probably a different issue.