Weird WiFi problems

Less · 15-05-2016, 15:49

What a frustrating way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

I've just spent around three and a half hours fault finding my lappy and the darned thing has cured itself so I have no idea what the cause was!

Firstly my internet dropped out, not my wifi just internet, couldn't get online or log in to any site, though I could talk to other devices e.g. printer.

Did the usual reset router, made no difference.

Connected my mobile to wifi all sites connected immediately.

Tethered my lappy to my mobile my browser immediately started working.

I came to the conclusion it must be the router or perhaps firewall settings? Switched off fire wall still no internet.

Got my old tower out and connected straight through!

Connected my lappy by lan cable still no internet, started to suspect lappy, after all, it's the only thing unresponsive via my wifi even though it works through tethering.

So I decided to do a restore, checked for dates available and noticed that a couple of days ago windows had done an update, I chose a date before that working on the theory if all went well, then if the update installed again causing problems I'd know the culprit.

restore wouldn't work everything just sat there as the little circle went around and around and the prompt showed, 'restore is initializing'.

After an hour I decided it had had plenty of time to initialize. So turned it off to start again with yet another date, same problem. Turned off booted up pondering whether to go for a restore in 'safe mode', I'm always reluctant to go down this road as strangely rather than being 'safe' if you do a restore in 'safe mode' you can't undo it which could create it's own problems.

So deep in consternation and concentration I decided to check for other peoples solutions to the same problem, I was 10 minutes sorting the wheat from the chaff, useful advice from the idiotic, when I realised, I'm doing this search on my lappy! For some reason, whatever had caused my problem had gone, I have no idea what it was and so long as it doesn't appear again I don't care, it could be my router it could be my lappy, but what the hey if I'm really going to bother with a scapegoat I'm gonna blame Windows, after all everyone else does!

Margaret Pilkington · 15-05-2016, 16:36

Glad you are sorted Less.
Isn't it a bind when you know something is wrong, but don't quite know what it is....and by that token can't find a solution?
I consider you computer savvy so if that had been me I think I would have been in headless chicken panic mode...but once that had passed I think I would have blamed Windows updates too!

Less · 15-05-2016, 16:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

Glad you are sorted Less.
Isn't it a bind when you know something is wrong, but don't quite know what it is....and by that token can't find a solution?
I consider you computer savvy so if that had been me I think I would have been in headless chicken panic mode...but once that had passed I think I would have blamed Windows updates too!

Haven't sorted it, have no idea what it was so can't prevent it happening again.

I was a headless chicken, typically my lappy had come out of guarantee just a few days ago, so I had visions of some expensive piece of hardware being the problem.

Margaret Pilkington · 15-05-2016, 17:22

Well, it is up and running.....thank goodness. It probably wanted Sunday off

Restless · 21-09-2016, 14:09

I cant figure out why the power line adapters go offline every couple of days until I moved socket across room now it goes off once a week or so

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

gpick24 · 21-09-2016, 14:15

Most wifi problems i`ve encountered are due to someone else in the area using the same channel. If you download a scanner ( I use acrylic - https://www.acrylicwifi.com/en/wlan-...lic-wifi-free/ ) you can see what channel others in your area are using, just change yours to one thats not being used.

Restless · 22-09-2016, 16:49

I've had that one before me and a neighbour was both on Channel 1. Spend a lot of time pc gaming(most of spare my time) so WiFi isn't an option for me.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

entwisi · 28-09-2016, 10:46

sounds like a potential DNS issue, most internal stuff is using IP address so doesn't need to do any dns resolution. your phone and other machine would have initialised their DNS config when you connected whilst your laptop probably has a lease set so it only refreshes every so often. hence it suddenly starting working.

if it happens again try hitting bbc directly using IP http://212.58.246.94/ ( you shoudl get a bbc branded 404 error page )