PilotAware

British Forum => Technical Support => Topic started by: Mat on May 18, 2023, 09:57:02 pm

Title: WiFi repeatedly connecting/disconnecting
Post by: Mat on May 18, 2023, 09:57:02 pm
A mate is having problems connecting to a PilotAware Classic unit running 20230316 from his phone (Android 11). It works fine with an Android tablet, but on his phone the WiFi connection repeatedly connects and disconnects (about 5 seconds later). I can replicate this behaviour with my own Android 13 phone.

It looks to me like it's Android not playing ball with an Internet-less WiFi access point. Slightly odd as it's worked fine from his phone in the past. I'm assuming something's changed in Android recently, or possibly something different in PilotAware 20230316 that Android doesn't like (I'm somewhat dubious, but with the same problem afflicting Android 11 and 13 I wonder if a change has triggered something).

As far as I can tell Android just doesn't like that there's no Internet available on the AP and I need to find a way persuade it that it's fine. There's lots of suggestions online for fixing this in various versions of Android over the last few years, so I've a series of things to try next time I can get near the device, but wondered if anyone else has experienced this problem and fixed it? I note the troubleshooting page references turning off the Android power saving facility (https://www.pilotaware.com/knowledgebase/troubleshooting#:~:text=Android%20power%20saving%20facility), but it's not clear what setting that is in contemporary Android.
Title: Re: WiFi repeatedly connecting/disconnecting
Post by: AlanG on May 22, 2023, 10:35:04 am
Hi Mat
Android has defo made  it harder to connect to a Wifi without internet connection.  I have experienced the same problem with my Android phone versus Android tablets.
I have F-Secure VPN on my phone and I can go into the settings for that and include the url/IP address for the Paw in the list of trusted sites and this lets me use the phone too.
Having said that, previous to using this method, the phone did not drop the Wifi connectio it simply refused to allow the Paw app to connect to it despite still showinf as connected to the Paw Wifi in the phone settings.  The same thing happened when trying to use the Update App.   Hope that helps.

Regards, Alan
Title: Re: WiFi repeatedly connecting/disconnecting
Post by: steveu on May 22, 2023, 10:48:25 am
There is a lot of relevant discussion here:

http://forum.pilotaware.com/index.php/topic,2305.0.html (http://forum.pilotaware.com/index.php/topic,2305.0.html)
Title: Re: WiFi repeatedly connecting/disconnecting
Post by: Mat on May 31, 2023, 12:17:03 am
I've had a good fiddle with the PilotAware on the bench tonight.

This is the repeated disconnection behaviour I'm getting with my Pixel 4a, and presumably similar with my mate's Pixel 2. It's immediate disconnection rather than some time later.

(https://i.stack.imgur.com/PtGQp.gif)

I've tried a few things, to no avail:

I had some success by manually setting an IP and DNS to 0.0.0.0 rather than using DHCP. This keeps the connection active, but doesn't seem to actually allow access to anything on 192.168.1.1  So close, yet so far. :'(
Title: Re: WiFi repeatedly connecting/disconnecting
Post by: Mat on May 31, 2023, 01:30:50 am
Time I gave up and went to bed, but toggling the network routing functionality seems to change the behaviour.
I wonder what's changing on the Raspberry Pi as a result of this setting?