Thursday, September 22, 2016

wifi disconnects for unknown reasons

My SM-N900A has been working great for a few years now and is running Android 5.0 from an OTA update (maybe a year ago). A few weeks ago I started having trouble with the wifi. Sliding the wifi control to "on" will sometimes work, but more often it can't find any networks. Often rebooting will fix it, and the wifi will connect (showing a strong wifi signal). Sometimes I see it rescanning several times when I don't think it should be scanning. Then after a few minutes or occasionally up to an hour it will disconnect from the wifi entirely and refuse to show any networks as before. Sometimes I have thought that disconnecting the battery is a surer way to restart the wifi than just rebooting, but it is hard to be sure. This happens with my home wifi, as well as with several other wifi networks I have tried. I haven't dropped or damaged my phone, so I'm wondering if this could be a software problem. I have tried rebooting in safe mode, but the problem persists so I don't think this is caused by an errant application. I have also tried swapping in my spare battery, but that didn't change the problem (although neither battery is a genuine Samsung). If I leave wifi off and just stick to the cellular connection, the phone seems to work as it should. Would there be any logic to trying one of the alternate ROMs on this forum to see if this could fix the wifi problem? One reason I haven't tried this already is that the directions I've seen for installing these ROMs seem to be written for people who have done this dozens of times (which I have not). If this is a reasonable tack, is one of these ROMs known for its ease of installation, or perhaps for the quality and detail of its installation instructions? Are there any less drastic things I should be trying first (other than buying a new phone of course)?


from xda-developers http://ift.tt/2dbEsMI
via IFTTT

No comments:

Post a Comment