When devices no longer connect to a WIFI router

[mraikes]

Back when I used to do residential work, I had issues like this frequently, with various makes and models of home routers.

One 'solution' I found was to use Belkin routers, not because they were good routers but because the had a built-in work-around for their buggyness. Belkin listed it as a router "Health" feature. It was in fact simply a reboot scheduler that allowed the router to be restarted every night...snipped....

I love this idea. I wish all routers had something like that.

 

[fencepost]

I went looking, and while the Mikrotik routers (including WiFi-enabled ones) don't have an automatic reboot option, you can schedule it via script. The only thing I'd want to maybe be cautious about or monitor for a month or two is that the repeat interval is treated as a repeat of the start time not as a "wait this long after the previous time finishes" just to be sure there's no drift.

Of course, the other response to the person who was looking for how to do this when WiFi was hanging up was "What? Reboot? If you have to do that, something is broken and needs to be fixed. Turn on wireless debug logging and generate a supout.rif ASAP after a hang (including immediately after a reboot) and send it to us. You can also script generation of that file to happen immediately when the router is restarted."

 

[allanc]

I've researched this all over the net and of course found answers ranging from the logical to the stupid but nothing has fully resolved this issue.

Sometimes a wifi capable device will stop connecting to an access point (router, hotspot, whatever) where before it connected flawlessly. Other devices will connect perfectly and nothing you try with the "bad" devices can get them to work. Every time the only solution for me was to reset/power cycle the router.

I had a similar situation happen twice within 24 hours last week to two different devices.
One of the cases was with this device which had been in a residential client's home for about a week.
They have <5 'I' devices in their house..
A power reset did not resolve the issue.
I upgraded the firmware and will monitor.

 

[HCHTech]

I wish all routers had something like that.

Amen. Just as a side, I put an Engenius WAP in a small business customer's office last month, and was surprised to find an automatic reboot setting. I set it to reboot every Sunday at 2am. It's only been a month, but no callbacks yet!

 

[NYJimbo]

Jimbo,

Are you saying that you've tried adding a different NIC, such as a USB wifi dongle or something, and the device still will not connect until the router is rebooted?

Absolutely. I even used wifi tools to check mac addresses to be sure we were seeing them.

 

[TAPtech]

Absolutely. I even used wifi tools to check mac addresses to be sure we were seeing them.

That's really odd. I wonder what information the router is getting to identify the machine, other than the MAC. Have you tried booting to a live CD to see if that connects, with no hardware changes?

 

[NYJimbo]

I forgot about this thread. I just put a lengthy post on another thread but I figured mentioning it here
might help someone with this issue.

https://www.technibble.com/forums/threads/wifi-usb-sticks-dont-last.70128/#post-551175