Liquid Zest (T06) wifi unusable

Just purchased a Liquid Zest as a starter phone for my son, but can't get the phone to stay connected to our home wifi.

The phone is running Android 6.0; June 1, 2016 security patch. Build number is Acer_AV0M0_T06_1.013.00_WW_GEN1.

All other devices in the house have no trouble connecting and staying connected to our wifi network. The Liquid Zest, however, will appear to connect but will not maintain a connection. For the most part, it's incapable of staying connected long enough to load a web page or to download an app.

I've searched the forums and found a post with some similarities, but the solution there (dev options; use legacy DHCP client) didn't work for me.

I also downloaded WiFi Fixer (after the phone managed to stay connected for a minute or so), but I don't have the expertise to translate the results. Nothing really stands out to my uneducated eye, but I do see the occasional "Network check failed" / "critical timeout" / "disconnected" / "authentication error" followed by a successful reconnection. It seems to cycle like that.

What really irks me is that this is the second Liquid Zest we've tried. This problem occurred on the first one; we returned it to the store, brought home a new one, and the same problem is back on the second phone. Help!?

Accepted answers

the_emporium

For a little while he kept resetting his router every day... But eventually he gave up and just replaced the router. He got a TPLINK AC2600 which happened to be on sale, and had decent reviews. I personally have an ASUS RT-AC3200 (not cheap, but super stable and awesome range). I'm assuming you already tried to just power cycle your router ?

If your router is old (not sure what model you have), it is quite possible that even though your firmware is up to date, it may be quite old. And the CPU on the router may be quite weak, and with all the increasing number of wireless devices we all have nowadays, it just simply can't keep up.

Before changing routers, you can try playing with some of the settings on the router and see if that helps. If it has option for 20Mhz/40Mhz channel bandwidth, try changing it from auto and force it to 20Mhz.

Instead of Auto Channel, try to choose/force a channel which is less congested. Sometimes routers have the option to survey wireless and you can figure out what is less congested. If not, try using channel 1, 6 or 11 (these are non-overlapping channels). If one doesn't work better, try another.

There is also an Android app called Wifi Analyzer which has the option to see how congested channels are.

Also, if you have a Wireless "N" router, it will probably have the option for wireless mode to support all "802.11n,g,b,..." varieties. Try to force it to "Wireless-G" only which is 54Mbps. I know it is not the fastest, but I know many older routers tried to jump the gun on wireless-n, and implemented the "draft" version only. There was not a huge change between draft and final for wireless-n, but in some cases, depending how they implemented it it could cause issues with some chipsets. The Wi-Fi Alliance added some important compatibility tests between their "draft N" and their "final N" certification, and some devices either did not bother re-certifying as "final", or were not able to due to limitations on thier devices.

Feel free to let us know if any of the above changes helps.

PS: Since we have identified what the problem is (and not necesseraly the phone), you can close this topic, by clicking the "accept as solution" on the bottom right of my response, and will mark the issue solved.

Thank you.

All comments

the_emporium

Had a friend who had a similar problem, and swore that it was not his wireless router since everything else "worked". turned out it was his router... He'd reboot the router, it was fine for an hour or so, then it would start up again. After further investigation we found that what was happening was one of his devices was activing up, and a bug in his router combined together were exhausting the DHCP table leases. ie: His AppleTV would stipidly try to renew it's DHCP address every few minutes. And the router (having a bug), instead of renewing the existing address, would stupidly give it a NEW address. Well, after some time, there were no more addresses to give out. The devices that connected from the beginning, had thier reserved IP, so those were not a problem, but nothing new could connect.

To rule out that issue may be with your router (I know you said other devices work), can you try using it and connecting and using some public Wifi access point ? At a mall, McDonalds, Starbucks, etc.. ? See if that is any better.

kpreston

Thanks!

I've tested on two different networks (not at home) today and the phone has no trouble obtaining and maintaining a wifi connection.

So - what did you wind up doing in your friend's case? My router is old, but firmware is up to date. Do I need to replace the router, or can I tweak the settings?

the_emporium

For a little while he kept resetting his router every day... But eventually he gave up and just replaced the router. He got a TPLINK AC2600 which happened to be on sale, and had decent reviews. I personally have an ASUS RT-AC3200 (not cheap, but super stable and awesome range). I'm assuming you already tried to just power cycle your router ?

If your router is old (not sure what model you have), it is quite possible that even though your firmware is up to date, it may be quite old. And the CPU on the router may be quite weak, and with all the increasing number of wireless devices we all have nowadays, it just simply can't keep up.

Before changing routers, you can try playing with some of the settings on the router and see if that helps. If it has option for 20Mhz/40Mhz channel bandwidth, try changing it from auto and force it to 20Mhz.

Instead of Auto Channel, try to choose/force a channel which is less congested. Sometimes routers have the option to survey wireless and you can figure out what is less congested. If not, try using channel 1, 6 or 11 (these are non-overlapping channels). If one doesn't work better, try another.

There is also an Android app called Wifi Analyzer which has the option to see how congested channels are.

Also, if you have a Wireless "N" router, it will probably have the option for wireless mode to support all "802.11n,g,b,..." varieties. Try to force it to "Wireless-G" only which is 54Mbps. I know it is not the fastest, but I know many older routers tried to jump the gun on wireless-n, and implemented the "draft" version only. There was not a huge change between draft and final for wireless-n, but in some cases, depending how they implemented it it could cause issues with some chipsets. The Wi-Fi Alliance added some important compatibility tests between their "draft N" and their "final N" certification, and some devices either did not bother re-certifying as "final", or were not able to due to limitations on thier devices.

Feel free to let us know if any of the above changes helps.

PS: Since we have identified what the problem is (and not necesseraly the phone), you can close this topic, by clicking the "accept as solution" on the bottom right of my response, and will mark the issue solved.

Thank you.

kpreston

Wow, that seems to have done the trick.

Forced the router to Wireless-G and the phone has maintained a connection for close to 10 minutes so far, and WiFi Fixer shows nothing abnormal - the disconnect / reconnect loop has stopped.

I'm a bit embarrassed for my old router.

Thanks for all of your help! Very thorough.

the_emporium

Glad it helped...

Don't feel too bad about your router. Many people have old routers, and never realize what a difference some of the new routers will make. For basic use, it is fine. But nowadays with all the new devices we all have, phones wifi, tablets, computers, etc.. we tend to quickly outgrow the capabilities.

I was in the same boat a few years ago, with my old WRT310 which was great. But when I got an ASUS AC66U and the range was super impressive, and it had so many new features. Recently I upgraded to an ASUS AC3200, simply for the additional QoS features. With VoIP, IPTV, other online streaming, kids gaming, and other stuff, I just needed better QoS to be able to prioritize my devices, and ensure stuff like VoIP get the bandwidth they need to avoid cutouts...