[shirokuro]

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!

[Wbrian]

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

I'm seeing the same issue...

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[superbaneling]

I'm in pretty much the exact same position. I'm not sure what the heck is wrong with this thing... I was eagerly looking forward to using my new PB (just bought it yesterday) but the thing is so buggy as **** it's almost a chore to use it. The browser often just kinda stops working, as you mention somewhere else, 1/4 through loading. Or sometimes it just crashes the browser continuously. Or, my favorite, it streams the ad for the youtube vid i'm loading, and then gives me an exclamation mark after the ad has run

I have no idea how to fix this. I'm contemplating returning my PB and just buying a new one in a couple months after this has been sorted out. Real bummer

[sandmanfvr]

I pulled up the podcast app, didn't see the net. Closed it and reopened, worked fine. Sometime the browser acts like it can't load web pages. 1.0.3.1868 is bugged it seems.

[darrenleomiller]

I've had some very similar experiences. My experience with 1868 is actually a bit better than with 1710, but it isn't flawless. There are a decent number of posts about wifi issues, but most of what people are saying sounds like superstition (except the one about the guy stealing wifi from his neighbor, which is just funny!).

I made some adjustments to my home wifi and now have a good strong signal everywhere. This seems to have helped a lot. I had consistently seen weak reception on the playbook even when I had good reception on a laptop sitting right next to it. Boosting the signal overall feels like it has made a difference, but I do see some amount of dropout. There is a way to see the signal level in the wifi control panel (under wifi troubleshooting). I was surprised at how much the signal strength varied throughout the house and even sitting in one place.

[stantonian]

yeah, i had the same problem. it appears to have been cured with consecutive restarts. (sighs)

[shirokuro]

So I tested today on a different router (actually a Clearwire 4G dongle shared over a Cradlepoint router) and I had no problems with that. I went back to my normal home router and started investigating it. I noticed I had set a very narrow range (14 IPs - ie a 16 range subnet) for DHCP allocation. I had done this on purpose - just to make things a tiny bit more annoying for anyone who might hack in to my network. Anyway, I noticed that all my DHCP IPs were assigned. I guess I have more devices than I thought. The Playbook WAS assigned an IP, and I checked, and it was the IP it indeed had. However, just in case anything was getting screwed up somewhere with IP address congestion/conflict or something kooky, I changed the Playbook setting to a static IP. Famous last words, but so far it is now working fine.......

[kariakoo]

same issue here... i thought something is wrong with my internet connection.

[algor]

and not so happy again. today first day i have it and wifi stability abd signal level below my win 7 focus phone, they are sitting on the table next to each other. funny i have to retype it cause lost connection again while was submittins this post. Also at work compared browser load/speed to ipad2. ipad somewhat 20 % faster

[algor]

another not like: when it browser freeze in between, why i have to kill it, arrow back not working

[anon(1035135)]

I had the exact same problem with the exact same router. We had a bunch of storms come through the past two weeks and it started acting flaky after the power flickered a few times during one of them. It also started happening with my laptop as well. So I spent 200 on a Mikrotik router and Ubiquiti access point and now both my playbook and laptop stay connected with more signal at a much longer distance with no problems whatsoever. The transfer rate with the cisco was considerably slower than what I'm experiencing now. I wouldn't have known that had I never switched networking equipment.

[Frosty_Power]

I had a similar issue and read a post on here regarding this and it mentioned to check your router settings and add 8.8.8.8 on your primary DNS. I did this and I have not had any issues of wifi cutting in and out. I didn't think it would work but it's been over a week and no wifi cut outs and has been running perfect. Give that a try. Worked for me.

[myzackberry]

i have same problem with OPEN (hotspot) wifi... WEP 2 seen all in good connection...

[algor]

trying bb in the pool area, meaning different router. i have my laptop, win phone 7 - focus and playbook. Have open wifi. My observation: in general playbook has shorter range of reliable wifi connection. This also explain why in wifi settings all of the sudden playbook while refreshing list of networks intermittantly loosing most from the list, while other two devices still show them. Getting 50 feet closer to the router, ln pool open space, make connection stable. I had similar behavior with nook color which is retired for this reason. Regards

[sh2sg]

it is related to wireless N... change to wireless G or create a separate SSID if your router supports guest zone.
Wireless N issue on PlayBook - BlackBerry Support Community Forums

[XPEH]

So I had the same exact problem. And it was only limited to my home wifi, but gave me no issues at work. At home, I noticed that the connection would disappear often times when my wife would start browsing on her iPhone on our wifi network. I turned her wifi off and had not had a single dropped connection once ever since. I am convinced it has to do with the router and multiple connections. Try disabling wifi on all your other devices. That's not a great permanent solution but it works for me. Hopefully it'll work for you too.

[davidjlewis78]

it is related to wireless N... change to wireless G or create a separate SSID if your router supports guest zone.
Wireless N issue on PlayBook - BlackBerry Support Community Forums

Switched my wireless network to G mode and have had no problems since.

[ROZZMAN]

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.

[kbz1960]

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.

Nice if it works. Might have went better in more recent thread.

[teresa81]

I've been having this issue too. Have followed ROZZMANs instructions and seems to have worked so far, fingers crossed! was getting so frustrated!

[xKrNMBoYx]

Wait so I haven't read the link you gave but will they fix this if it is a wide issue?

My router can change the signal to be Wireless G only but I'm afraid wifi speeds will be slow at home.

[teresa81]

hmm didn't worked. connection was ok, then put it in standby and woke it up again, browser only opened a third then stopped, and this was just google homepage, nothing else open. turn wifi off and on again and it works, but only until it goes into standby again. back to frustrated.

we've got good wifi, with other devices connected with no issues.

[FreeBSD]

I have a D-Link DIR-655 router. Switched to Wireless-G only and that seems to be working for now. Hopefully BB10 will fix these little Playbook quirks (or a patch in advance of BB10). Otherwise, the Playbook is a dead tablet surfing.