'Per-network Randomized Mac' causes my Pixel 8 random wifi disconnections

F0SSIL

After 5 months of dealing with this issue with my two routers Eero and Flint, I decided to try out something new and switch my Pixel 8 with GrapheneOS to 'Use device MAC' and the connection has been stable as a horse for over two weeks. No more random disconnections.

de0u

F0SSIL Thanks for the report! It sounds as if at least one of those devices likely has a problematic DHCP server, or perhaps the underlying ISP border router does.

GrapheneOS

F0SSIL You should replace these faulty routers. A router's DHCP being filled should not result in any issues. It would be completely unacceptable for a coffee shop where many devices come and go. A router being high enough quality to be used by a coffee shop is a very low bar. Our main testing setup has around 20 GrapheneOS devices connected to the same ISP provided modem/router combo with no problems... and it's not a particularly high quality router. The vast majority of users have no issues with this, so routers with these problems must be quite rare.

F0SSIL

de0u you are correct. It is the DHCP that is the problem

de0u

GrapheneOS A router's DHCP being filled should not result in any issues.

Absolutely. Anything old/cheap enough to exhibit that sort of misbehavior may well also be old/cheap enough to be remotely exploitable, and probably has poor Wi-Fi performance, so replacing things like that would be good when possible.

I think some people don't have much control over "their" home router. I have a relative whose ISP is Frontier, which covers chunks of the rural U.S. Her router is old enough that she shovels coal into the side of it every morning, figuratively speaking. And I think some apartment buildings provide building-level Wi-Fi instead of individual ISP wiring per-apartment; I wouldn't be surprised if some of those access points were chosen purely based on price.

GrapheneOS

@F0SSIL You can use persistent per-network randomization to avoid creating more than 1 DHCP entry for the device, but it shouldn't be necessary on any halfway decent router which should be nearly any encountered in the wild in 2024.

[deleted]

de0u shovels coal into the side of it every morning
that made me lol

GrapheneOS

de0u It's usually possible to put these devices into a passthrough mode and use another router instead, although it would be much better if they provided decent routers to people. It's also a major part of many DDoS attacks since these devices are usually incredibly insecure due to lack of basic security measures and patches. They get compromised and used to attack sites, which becomes a bigger issue if they're fast connections and higher end hardware in the router able to send more packets.