Newly installed Pixel 6 Wi-Fi keeps disconnecting

The problem I'm experiencing is on every Wi-Fi network I've tested it with. I first noticed it because the wireless Android Auto setup I use would cut out every minute, but every other Wi-Fi network I've tested has been the same.

The only way I noticed was by monitoring the network traffic from a Wi-Fi router to the device and seeing the device fall off the network every minute. If the device has another method for internet (i.e. cellular data) then it shows the 4G/5G symbol, otherwise it continues to show the Wi-Fi symbol as it drops out for such a short time that the Wi-Fi symbol does not disappear.

So far all Wi-Fi networks I've tested have been the same, so it's interesting to hear a hotspot connection works. I wonder if it's something to do with using a 2.4GHz vs 5GHz, perhaps?

Hmm okay I don't think it's 2.4/5 related, as on a 2.4/5/6GHz Wi-Fi I've had 20+ minutes without a dropout.

Interestingly, though, it seems to have dropout constantly when per-network MAC address randomisation is on, rather than off. So I wonder if it's actually a bug in this? Wouldn't explain why Android Auto is dropping out though as it's on by default. I'll investigate further.

mdapa when you connected to your hotspot, was randomised MAC per-connection still enabled?

mdapa I don't know if this is helpful, but all of the networks I have used recently are from my university.

This may well be relevant. Enterprise-quality access points are different from regular access points. For example, they often cooperate behind the scenes (over a wired network) in terms of how specific access points behave toward specific endpoint nodes. For example, if the collective wisdom of the access points is that you should be using #4 instead of #11, but you are signed in to #11, #11 might either drop you or slowly degrade service to you to encourage you to switch.

Meanwhile, some enterprise-quality access points behave differently toward different client devices -- for example, if the AP chipset was made by the same company as the client-node chipset, private protocol extensions may be used.

So it might be interesting to try Wi-Fi networks from a different provider -- maybe a public library. In the U.S., I think the McDonald's chain uses enterprise-grade Wi-Fi gear and allows public access. Also, if you can find out whose equipment your university Wi-Fi uses, that could be interesting too.

Gilboboy It was

de0u I have been trying some methodical experiments. Using analiti to analyze my connection I have connected to both my school's network and my hotspot using every network privacy option.

I tested each option for around 2 minutes. In the app I selected "continuous download traffic throughput & bandwidth" since I've noticed the disconnections mostly occur when my phone is actively using the network.

When connected to my university's network, it made no difference if I had per-connection, per-network, or device MAC. Every 30-60 seconds my phone would disconnect from the wifi then reconnect after a few seconds. This meant over the 2 minutes it always disconnected twice.

When connected to my hotspot (which itself is my old phone that is connected to the university's network) it again made no difference if I had per-connection, per-network, or device MAC. My phone never disconnected from the wifi over the 2 minutes.

analit does give some info on the type of access point. It says that my room's access point is by "Hewlett Packard Enterprise". I don't know if this is consistent across the entire campus but every one that I've seen at least looks the same as this one.

It might be a few days until I can test another provider's network. I'll report the results of that when I do. Let me know if there is anything else I should try in the meantime.

mdapa It might be a few days until I can test another provider's network. I'll report the results of that when I do. Let me know if there is anything else I should try in the meantime.

So far this is a good report. When you issue your "final report", please re-state that you believe you did not encounter these issues with the stock OS.

You might try asking your university's tech-support team if they have had other disconnection reports and/or if they are willing to tell you why your device is being disconnected. Somebody would need to hunt through the AP logs a bit, but there may be interesting information there.

FWIW, I am not aware of "HP Enterprise" being top-ranked among enterprise access points. This randomly-selected web page suggests that HPE bought Aruba, which previously I would have classified as reasonable. Meanwhile, enterprise access points have many options, so it's possible your university has turned on some feature that others don't.

Wi-Fi is complicated.

To add to the above, using the same WiFi network as yesterday, I'm now seemingly not getting dropouts with MAC randomisation set to any of the three settings. I'll update if Android Auto is the same (so far that has consistently dropped out every minute every time I've tried), but it would appear whatever the bug is, it can be inconsistent.

I'm also now going back to wondering if it's frequency related. Most of my testing before was on a joint 2.4/5GHz network, so I would have been on 5GHz. My wireless Android Auto box is also 5GHz-only. So it might be worth disabling 2.4GHz/6GHz on a network and seeing if it has the same issue.

mdapa any chance your university network is 5GHz and your hotspot 2.4GHz?

kebapfan I can confirm my Android Auto is still not working and disconnects every minute. I'll test later whether this is some kind of special case or 5GHz networks.

After further testing, I'm almost certain this is related to the 5GHz band. By changing my home WiFi network to be 5GHz-only, the disconnects happened every minute, with it set to 2.4GHz/6GHz, no disconnects occur.

My guess is the inconsistency we've seen is because if you have an access point broadcasting multiple frequency bands, it'd depend which one you were in as to whether or not you get disconnected.

This would explain why wireless Android Auto always disconnects, because it forces 5GHz. If we also assume that mdapa's university enterprise gear was 5GHz and their old phone hotspot was 2.4GHz then that's also explained.

MAC settings also made no difference to whether I was disconnected or not, the frequency band was the only thing that changed the outcome.

I hope the GrapheneOS Team can have a look at this

I've submitted an issue here: https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/3944

Gilboboy I just checked and this is the case. My uni's wifi is 5GHz and my mobile hotspot is 2.4GHz.

Gilboboy I've submitted an issue here: https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/3944

That seems likely to be upstream.

Please feel free to subscribe to the issue or use a reaction (e.g., thumbs-up), but for previous GitHub issues the developers have firmly requested that people not make "me too!" postings -- in the past that has resulted in the developers just locking comments on an issue.

Good suggestion.

For anybody that it's helpful for, I've found that it's specific 5GHz channels that are affected. If you are able to change the 5GHz channels your access point uses, you can find one that doesn't disconnect for you (my Android Auto wireless hasn't disconnected when using Channel 165).

Gilboboy For anybody that it's helpful for, I've found that it's specific 5GHz channels that are affected.

This is great information for people to have. Thanks for reporting it!

Gilboboy where can you Change that? If Iam connected to Android Auto Iam Not able to change anything with the WLAN Iam connected to