Why does my device periodically disconnect from wifi?

[fog37]

TL;DR Summary

understand why one of my devices periodically disconnects from the home wifi network

Hello,

I have a wifi device that has been connecting with no issues to my local wifi: it first detected the local wifi and I then used the password to complete the connection....
However, one day recently, the device disconnected from the wifi. After some reading, it seems that either low wifi signal or interference could cause a device to disconnect...But my device is always located in the same place and does not move. So if the wifi signal power was good in the past, it should continue to be good and sufficient in the present...Also, interference would not seem to be the issue since there aren't any other devices connected to wifi in the same room or other rooms....

What other cause could lead to my device to randomly disconnect from the wifi and then struggle to refind the SSID?

thank you!

 

[phinds]

It's at least possible that a local, stronger, signal is causing your problem. Do you live near a commercial area? Are any of your neighbors experiencing any problems? Has anyone around you recently installed any new heavy-duty electrical equipment? A minor power surge (caused by turning on and/or operating electrical equipment) could be the source of your issue.

 

[jedishrfu]

You could try recording the time of each outage to see just how periodic it is.

I know my service provider does a reset around 2am every evening.

 

[fog37]

It's at least possible that a local, stronger, signal is causing your problem. Do you live near a commercial area? Are any of your neighbors experiencing any problems? Has anyone around you recently installed any new heavy-duty electrical equipment? A minor power surge (caused by turning on and/or operating electrical equipment) could be the source of your issue.

I see, so a minor power surge could make the device drop the connection...interesting....
Assuming that may be the cause, is there any way to prevent it?

The disconnection does not happen periodically at all. All was fine for weeks and then the device got disconnected. Tried to reconnect it, could not find the SSID...I restarted the router and everything works again (found SSID, entered pwd, and was back in the game)...

 

[phinds]

You could try a UPS

 

[Vanadium 50]

there aren't any other devices connected to wifi in the same room or other rooms....

I don't live in an apartment; I have a house. My phone - not the best Wifi receiver - sees 4 available networks in range. My laptop, also not the best, sees 11. There may be more interference than you think.

 

[Baluncore]

A link process in the data-path may be disconnected, then quickly reconnected, to prevent a timeout of the link process. That may happen automatically, say every 10 minutes. A problem arises with network congestion, when the reestablishment of the link process is delayed. If reestablishment takes longer than the timeout of the data stream, the link will be missing when required, so the broken connection will be dropped.

How often does it happen?
Does it only happen during periods of network congestion?

 

[Nik_2213]

To get essential 2FA texts to this 'Desk With No Bars', I had to hang a 'Tamed & Tethered' WTE /WAP/Router in a window with signal, link via Cat_5 to my base router.
Okay at first, WTE's SIM would 'Go Dark' at random, ranging from days to fortnight apart. Device did not lose settings, just access to local SMS. A power off/pause/on sufficed to restore. I was advised to add a simple time-switch, to power-down the WTE for ¼ or ½ hour a day, preferably after 0100 to allow for 'Summer Time' etc.
That worked...

 

[fog37]

A link process in the data-path may be disconnected, then quickly reconnected, to prevent a timeout of the link process. That may happen automatically, say every 10 minutes. A problem arises with network congestion, when the reestablishment of the link process is delayed. If reestablishment takes longer than the timeout of the data stream, the link will be missing when required, so the broken connection will be dropped.

How often does it happen?
Does it only happen during periods of network congestion?

Hello, the issue happened only once. It does not happen periodically. I managed to connect it initially and it worked fine. IT then disconnected unexplainably on its own. I tried to reconnect it but no luck (spinning), could not find the SSID it was able to find previously. I proceeded to restart the router and the device immediately and easily found the SSID and got connected again...

I was curious to know what would cause that. The conditions seemed to be exactly the same (no new wifi devices around, device positioned where it originally was, etc.)

Thank you!

 

[Baluncore]

Hello, the issue happened only once. It does not happen periodically.

Give it time. It may become a recurring nuisance, or never happen again.
If it does repeat, gather as much information as you can about the circumstances.

 

[harborsparrow]

Has the wifi router hardware changed? I had the latest Verizon FIOS router, and certain bands of wifi (2.4 GHz, that is used by most smarthome devices) intermittently stopped working unless I rebooted the router. After trying to deal with Verizon, I finally turned the wifi off in Verizon's router and bought a Google wifi router instead (attaching it to Verizon's box just to reach the internet). My intermittent connection problems were over. It's not that the 2.4GHz band doesn't still fail with the Google device, but that router detects the failure and restarts itself.