Just bought a Pixel 8 from an ebay seller. GrapheneOS installation worked flawlessly.

TL;DR: wifi appears to connect, using the same type of configuration that works flawlessly on two other google phones, and various Android tablets, but DNS lookups fail, so there is effectively no internet connection. Private DNS is off, and I tried different MAC privacy settings. Router shows the Pixel as connected with a MAC address matching the one in the Pixel's wifi connection.

Details: I uses static IP addresses on my home router, and configure all devices in my home with a static IP. DHCP is off on my router.

My router's LAN IP is 192.168.173.172. The router is also configured to function as a DNS server. Router firmware is DD-WRT v3.0-r59887 std (02/27/25).

On the Pixel 8, I configured the wifi connection with:
Proxy = None
IP Setting = Static
IP = 192.168.173.104
Gateway = 192.168.173.172
Network prefix length = 24
DNS 1 = 192.168.173.172
DNS 2 = 8.8.4.4

The device shows for the wifi connection:

  • Connected
  • the correct name of the home wifi network
  • Signal Strength: Excellent
  • Security: WPA3-Personal
  • IP Address 192.168.173.104
  • Gateway 192.168.173.172
  • subnet mask 255.255.255.0
  • the two DNS servers configured
  • transmit link speed 130 Mbps
  • receive link speed 28 Mbps
  • an IPv6 address

The Device MAC address matches the one I see in my router's web admin under Status/Wireless/Wireless Nodes/Clients.

After reading another thread on this forum, I already tried all three options under the Wifi Connection's Privacy settings:

  • use per-connection randomized MAC (default)
  • use per-network randomized MAC
  • use device MAC

I also turned private DNS off (Network & Internet / Private DNS).

Still, Vanadium cannot perform DNS lookups (ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED) and likewise, the App Store cannot update (Download failed.. unable to resolve the server name.)

I checked permissions: Vanadium has "Network and Sensors". I confirmed that the address 192.168.173.104 is NOT blocked in the router's access restrictions.

The only independent sign that there is something wrong (other than DNS lookups not working) is in Settings/About Phone. There, "IP Address" is grayed out, and below that, "Unavailable". To me, this means, that the IP connection has failed, though I cannot reconcile this with the fact that the Wifi connection details show a successful wifi connection with IP Address 192.168.173.104.

I am out of ideas here and would be grateful for any help.

The only other thing that may be worth mentioning is that I previously, after the fresh installation, used a reverse-tethered USB network connection via Developer options/USB Debugging and gnirehtet. This resulted in a working internet connection (though no google playstore functionality - playstore famously refuses to work with gnirehtet.) I turned USB Debugging off again after that test.

The build number of my GrapheneOS is 2025031400.

  • de0u replied to this.

    cappy73 The only independent sign that there is something wrong (other than DNS lookups not working) is in Settings/About Phone. There, "IP Address" is grayed out, and below that, "Unavailable".

    What is the value of the "Internet connectivity checks" setting?

    What network activity is shown in logs on the router?

        de0u

        Internet Connectivity Checks is the default, "GrapheneOS Server". (I have now tried all three settings there, including "off", but none of them fixed the problem.)

        In my router's connection log, I see the following relevant entries for the phone right now:

        No. Protocol Timeout (s) Source Address Remote Address Service Name State
        70 TCP 28 192.168.173.104 192.178.49.163 http TIME_WAIT
        163 UDP 28 192.168.173.104 192.168.173.172 dns UNREPLIED
        242 UDP 27 192.168.173.104 192.168.173.172 dns UNREPLIED

        That dns "unreplied" seems like an important clue, but I do not know why the router would not reply to a DNS request from the phone (if that is what this means).

            cappy73 That dns "unreplied" seems like an important clue, but I do not know why the router would not reply to a DNS request from the phone (if that is what this means).

            I agree that seems like a clue. Perhaps turning up DNS logging verbosity might help.

              cappy73 DNS is UDP traffic, so UDP might be normal, it also might not be.
              Check different DNS servers on the phone (like 8.8.8.8 instead of your router's DNS) to rule out possible issues there. And as de0u pointed out, increase log verbosity.

                I tried 8.8.8.8 as the second DNS server but this made no difference. I turned on syslogd in my router, but the syslog shows me nothing helpful. After making a new wifi connection and trying to access a site in Vanadium, syslog only shows me
                wlan0: {phone's MAC} RADIUS: starting accounting session
                wlan0: {phone's MAC} WPA: pairwise key handshake completed (RSN)

                I don't know how to get more verbose logging in dd-wrt.

                I discovered the solution by accident: after uninstalling the gnirehtet phone app, wifi access is now working.

                • de0u replied to this.

                  cappy73 Thanks for reporting back! So it sounds as if what was happening was that the Wi-Fi connection was ok but the gnirehtet app was sending all the traffic to nowhere.