Some folks are reporting that their shiny new HTC One X and One S phones are experiencing a rather irritating Wifi bug. The glitch in question results in the phones disconnecting from certain Wifi networks while idle, and being unable to reconnect until the phone is woken up.
Hopefully HTC will have a fix ready for customers soon -- we're hearing that it's no longer an issue in the recently-leaked One X 1.28 firmware -- but in the meantime there's a pretty easy work-around for both phones. Manually assigning your phone an IP address on your Wifi network, rather than using DHCP, seems to squish the issue. If you already know how to do that, then off you go, we'll wait. If not, we've got a full walkthrough after the break.
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First, go to Settings > Wifi and tell your phone to disconnect from your network if you're already connected to it.
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Select your network once again from the list, and enter your password as usual.
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Tick "Show advanced options" and some extra options will appear. Select "IP settings" and choose "Static" instead of "DHCP."
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IP Address: The IP address you want to assign to your phone. This should normally be taken from the pool of IPs available for devices to claim via DHCP (check your router's admin page if in doubt). Usually something on the same subnet as your router will do. For example, if your router is 192.168.0.1, then 192.168.0.2 to 192.168.0.254 should be good.
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Gateway: The IP address of your router, usually 192.168.0.1, 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.1.254.
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Network prefix length: This is a different way of specifying your network's subnet mask (check a conversion table here). For most, the default "24" will work just fine.
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DNS1/DNS2: Your ISP's primary and secondary DNS servers. If you're not sure, you can always use Google's public DNS service by entering 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, as we've done in our screenshots above.
- Click "Connect" and you should be good to go!
If you're still experiencing Wifi disconnection issues after doing this, then try enabling "Best Wifi performance" under advanced Wifi settings. If you're having issues connecting, or you can connect but not access the Internet, check back over all the settings above, particularly gateway and DNS server IP addresses. If none of the steps above result in a working connection, you can always disconnect and connect using DHCP as usual.
Reader comments
HTC One X and One S Wifi gotcha down? Give this a try
If your pc is already connected to the desired network.
do this.
if you are using windows.
Goto run
Type: cmd
enter
Type: ipconfig /all
you will now see all the info you need. (eg. which IP scheme to use - eg.192.168.0.* or 10.0.0.* etc.. - and your gateway IP)
Yep. Great tip for anyone not sure which addresses to use.
It's not recommended to use an IP address within the DHCP range because you could end up with an IP address conflict when the DHCP server hands out the static IP you're using (it doesn't know you're using it unless you reserve it in the DHCP system, but that's beyond the scope here; no pun intended). But if you do though, use a higher static IP address (ex. nearest 254, such as 192.168.1.254) as the lower ones are typically the first to get assigned via DHCP.
Actually, no, you don't have to worry about this.
Every modern router (for the last 15 years) pings an IP before it hands it out. So if you usurp an IP (and assign it statically), it will not hand it out to anyone else.
If you happen to choose one that was already in use, you might knock that machine off the air (briefly), but it will simply request a new lease and carry on.
Where the real problem comes in is Multiple devices trying to usurp the same static IP.
This may not be safe for work. Some sys admins will track you down and rip you a new one for statically assigning an IP. Others really don't care. Unfortunately the ones that DO care always seem to be the little tyrants that have 15 forms for you to fill out to get a static.
Ah, thanks, learned something new. Regardless, it's still best to use a static IP address outside the DHCP range or reserve it in the DHCP scope. That way you can be sure there won’t be any potential IP address conflicts. Not all systems will recover gracefully after a conflict and will require manual intervention. An ounce of prevention...
That is interesting. The same problem happened when HTC pushed out the last Evo 4g system update. (Would be nice if HTC would also provide a system fix for the Evo 4g - I have had issues when using public wifi (and the above won't work if it isn't your wifi router))
So far we have documented issues with wifi and the battery and the screen. And the phone has not even been released everywhere yet.
So in other words it's more of the same HTC junk. What happened to their promise of releasing better products?
When will they learn?
Take it from someone who actually owns the phone and has owned many of the top handsets, its absolutely superb and easily the best phone around at the moment by far.
They're are minor early niggles for sure and I very much mean minor and pretty much every smartphone ever released has had those.
Things like the wifi and other software problems are easily fixable and barely noticeable to the average user.
The battery is about average in terms of heavy use for a large screen phone (and that is before the next software update) but the best I've ever used in stand by time by a long way, I've still had 80% + battery at the end of the day after light web use.
Also before anyone says anything about the screen flex its absolutely not a problem in any way for anyone, you have to push hard on an area that you never would to get the effect which is very minor and has no causal effect on the phone.
All in all just because a phone has a problem does not mean its a major one or mean it should be avoided, its all a matter of perspective. If you don't believe me try it for yourself when its released for your country, I promise it won't disappoint.
Well said.
Just because we get a post to help people out doesn't mean there are major defects or a lot of problem phones.
And FTR: This problem is widespread in Android, it is nothing specific to the HTC phones. Nooks, had it. Xoom had it. Its an android bug. (And its not helped by the fact that Google ignores host name RFCs and uses an underscore when fetching a Dhcp IP).
BTW: often you can get it to reconnect using dhcp if you simply connect to any open wifi your can see at that moment, then switch back to the one you really wanted, and forget the open one.
Well said and I'll second this. On the early SW versions we were testing for the One X on at&t this was an issue. Subsequent SW updates resolved the issue and it is without a doubt the best Android device we've ever carried...
PG
Same problem with Nexus one.
Well the perception is that it is just another incomplete product released. I am sick of hearing excuses for these manufacturers releasing products with obvious issues. If they are such small issues, then fix them before the product is released.
If I am buying a $600+ piece of equipment then I expect things like wifi to be fully functional. Not an excuse that it will be fixed in a future software update.
I agree with you. Android manufacturers seem to have no quality control at all. It seems every phone is released with a huge amount of bugs. Some of which is so obvious you ask yourself did anyone even test the phone. I have the GSM Galaxy Nexus and the recent 4.0.4 update that was supposed to fix bugs introduced a major bug itself where you lose all connectivity/or data connectivity when your phone goes to sleep. Leading you to miss all your alerts. I'll probably be downrated but there needs to be better software quality control in the Android world.
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=28133
How in the world was this missed?
I don't necessarily disagree with you as it would be nice to have a phone with no problems from the start but to say its an android specific problem is simply untrue, iOS, WP7, symbian and so on all have or have had their problems when they introduce new software or hardware. Some manufacturers are worse than others admittedly but the One X does not fall into that category I can assure you from my own experience.
It isn't a android specific problem but android is by far the worst offender. Its blatant critical bugs that are allowed to be released. And the wait for a fix could be months on end each time. Just to have a update create more bugs and the wait continues.
Well speaking for the One X specifically, it has no "critical bugs" at all.
A critical bug would be something that stops you using the phone as intended and makes the handset virtually unusable.
It has some minor ones that don't really impinge on day to day use and will be fixed at some point but definitely nothing that anybody should be getting worked up about.
You're absolutely right!! Btw, here's a list of manufacturers to choose from who have produced phones without any issues:
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You can choose any phone from those manufacturers! Good luck!
My amaze does the same exact thing. If I walk into my home, i lose signal. Instead of switching onto my wifi and using wifi calling, i get no service until i turn on the screen.
Just shows that manufacturers Do. Not. Quality. Test. these phones before release. Maybe it's just me but I figure they would have a handle on certain problems that has plagued most releases of thier past phones and fixed with an update. It's almost as if they are incapable of learning.
I'm going to work.
Nice one Alex, used this tip to fix the very same Wifi issues that were plaguing both mine and my girlfriend's HTC phones. Seems like it's an HTC issue...
Aaaaand the problems are back. Darn.
LG Spectrum has the same issue.
I tried this fix, but it didn't work for me. When I start to change stuff it won't let me save and reverts back to DHCP. I'm sitting right next to my router and it doesn't detect it. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. I hope this gets some kind of fix soon. I use a lot of WiFi.
Just go to settings, then WIFI, then from the menu the dots top right click advanced, then choose the option keep WiFi active when sleeping, its that simple. HTC have defaulted the phones sleep mode to phone carrier data to save battery.
Not the case with the Evo LTE, which is defaulted to keep WiFi active when sleeping.
And apparently if you active "Best Wi-Fi performance", it will destroy battery life- draining the battery 3 times faster than normal, regardless of if the phone is sleeping or not.
my htc one s put a password on itself out of nowhere and I cant figure out what it is. I went to the "Forgot Password?" option, but i have no service on the phone so i cant sign in with my email. I have important data on it so i dont wanna reset it. PLEASE HELP ME OUT! how do i figure out the passwrod or get around it without having service or internet on the phone. Is there a way for me to get transfer the data on my phone without it being unlocked? please, anyone who knows anything that i can do to get my data off the phone let me know what to do! Thanks