You may want to take off the back cover and tighten the screws that cover the wifi module and cellular modem a bit (but don’t overtighten). That pressure helps keep the wifi card from shifting around (along with a tab that stops the wifi card from sliding out once it’s pressed all the way down).
If that doesn’t work, you may want to remove that cover (TURN THE PHONE OFF FIRST!) so that you can visually inspect the antennas going to the WiFi card. Sometimes they don’t snap cleanly into place–a good test is to attempt to rotate them a bit, if they are snapped in place they should rotate, otherwise attempting to rotate them will cause them to fall off. Then of course add the cover back and tighten it, before you power the phone back on.
The screws were tight enough in my opinion. Also the antennas were snapped in place … I pushed a little bit to be sure. Unfortunately the phone keeps disconnecting
Something to test could be to keep it really close to the wireless router (access point) and see if it still disconnects then. To see if the issue has something to do with signal strength.
I’m next to the router, no doubt the signal strength is good. I’ll try on another network … even if on this I can connect everything.
Thanks for helping.
Update: I’ve tried an Android Phone as Wi-Fi Hotspot, it provides a stable internet connection to my Librem 5. So the problem is not on my phone, neither on the router I’d say, but rather on the coupling.
In order to summarize:
Android --))) – Router WiFi OK
Librem5 --))) – Router WiFi KO
Librem5 --))) – Android WiFi Hotspot OK
Any idea?
I would also jump on the router and see whether it logs / records anything of use regarding disconnection.
I would also verify which 802.11?? standards are available on the router and (I assume) the phone is limited to 802.11n (whether on 2.4 GHz or on 5 GHz). (So I would limit the phone to the 2.4 GHz band if you have e.g. 802.11ac devices on the 5 GHz band.)
On my WAP I have multiple SSIDs (per band) so that I can use different settings for older equipment or equipment requiring older 802.11?? standards - while still allowing the latest and greatest for equipment that supports it. I have found older equipment to be problematic when using aggressive latest-and-greatest settings - and the documentation for the WAP is not always good enough at explaining what exactly all the settings do!!
To that end, I would try to quiesce the wireless network so that the only client is the Librem 5 and see whether it then has a stable connection.
Does it disconnect immediately or does it stay connected for an unpredictable short amount of time? You may be able to test that by pinging your router.
FWIW there is a newer kernel driver from Redpine that we don’t have yet in our published kernel but might be worth trying. I’ll try to prepare some instructions on how to get it running after the holidays.
Wifi problems can be boring. I have at home five Ubuntu mobile phones BQ E4.5 (they all run an Android kernel with an Ubuntu system on top). They all connect fine to my AP at home, minus one. This one connects, gets IP addr, but a lot of package losses. Then disconnects. This one works also fine with any other AP I could find to test with (in my office, in public areas, etc.) What I planned to do as next test is take my AP and this phone to another location (for example to my office) to see if it works there. This would proof that the problem is perhaps caused by radio noise in my home…
OK, thank you very much, but there is no need to bother, I can wait for a forthcoming update. I’m relying more often on the mobile data connection, being often away from home.
Bingo! I didn’t find an option to disable IPv6, but while searching I found the option “Bandwidth”. It was set on 20/40 MHz, I thought I would try to change it and I set it at 20 MHz. Now the connection’s working like a charm.
Great to hear that you found a way to make it work. This was in the settings for your router, not on the Librem 5 itself?
Does it have explanation of what the “Bandwidth” option is supposed to do? (I’m wondering if it’s possible to understand why it would cause disconnects like you had, and if that is due to a bug somewhere.)
Yes, it was on the settings of the router. It is a Technicolor TG788vn v2, if it matters to you.
I don’t know what the option is intended for … on the user manual they don’t even mention it. It’s under the section “Advanced Wireless Options”
