Chromecast dropping off the network and undiscoverable, cast icon disappears.

[droidntn]

Love my chromecast.
Everything works great, then the cast icon disappears.
Have to reboot to get the icon back and use chromecast.
Anyone else have this happen with the S4, Wifi porblems and chromecast?
Any workarounds?

Sincerely,
An amazing S4

 

[zkSharks]

Re: Chromecast Wifi being dropped

If you don't have the Chromecast plugged into the short HDMI extender cable that came with it, doing so would be my first recommendation. The extender also acts as a WiFi antenna, augmenting the Chromecast's network connection abilities. You're not the only one that's had networking issues with the Chromecast:

http://forums.androidcentral.com/google-chromecast/303760-chromecast-causing-wifi-issues.html
http://forums.androidcentral.com/google-chromecast/343671-chromecast-never-stays-discoverable.html

Maybe something in one of those will be of help. It seems at least a few people with similar issues found this to be the fix:

Problem solved. I found a comment on a user forum that was explaining the same problem I was experiencing. The solution presented there was to replace the USB cable powering the Chromecast device. I did that and have been casing video from my laptop and phone for over 6 hours straight without one drop. The USB cable that I replaced was the one that came with Chromecast. I love the simple fix we most often overlook. Hope this helps others.

 

[droidntn]

Re: Chromecast Wifi being dropped

Great.. Thanks! I had the cable and plugged it in. We'll see if it helps. I never used it because I didn't read where it was recommended or required. I just plugged the chromecast directly in the hdmi port.
Thanks again, this was really interfering with my
Breaking Bad binges. Lol

Sincerely,
An amazing S4

 

[droidntn]

Re: Chromecast Wifi being dropped

Has worked flawless now for several episodes.
Thanks!

 

[NathanSt]

I had this issue too.

Turns out it had nothing to do with wifi signal or a dodgy power cable

(neither of which make sense to me:

• dodgy power cable would probably manifest itself by the device rebooting randomly
• most people have a decent wifi signal strength - otherwise you'd use a wired connection.

)

I had to disable the DHCP service on my router - then all was fine.

This makes some amount of sense: if something is going wrong when the chromecast asks for a network address (or indeed goes partially wrong), then you could expect the device to not be "visible" on the network even though it may think it's doing ok.... hope this helps someone. :-*

 

[MedicD]

I had this issue too.

Turns out it had nothing to do with wifi signal or a dodgy power cable

(neither of which make sense to me:

• dodgy power cable would probably manifest itself by the device rebooting randomly
• most people have a decent wifi signal strength - otherwise you'd use a wired connection.

)

I had to disable the DHCP service on my router - then all was fine.

This makes some amount of sense: if something is going wrong when the chromecast asks for a network address (or indeed goes partially wrong), then you could expect the device to not be "visible" on the network even though it may think it's doing ok.... hope this helps someone. :-*

Don't I need my router to have that capability?

 

[dan1431]

I had this issue too.

Turns out it had nothing to do with wifi signal or a dodgy power cable

(neither of which make sense to me:

• dodgy power cable would probably manifest itself by the device rebooting randomly
• most people have a decent wifi signal strength - otherwise you'd use a wired connection.

)

I had to disable the DHCP service on my router - then all was fine.

This makes some amount of sense: if something is going wrong when the chromecast asks for a network address (or indeed goes partially wrong), then you could expect the device to not be "visible" on the network even though it may think it's doing ok.... hope this helps someone. :-*

I have no doubt that the problem was resolved, but I am unsure about disabling DHCP.

Did you assign static IPs?

Dan

Posted via Android Central App

 

[mavrrick]

I have no doubt that the problem was resolved, but I am unsure about disabling DHCP.

Did you assign static IPs?

If he really disabled DHCP, he must have. It would be interesting to see what would happen if he left DHCP enabled but just reserved a ip for the CC in the dhcp config.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[dan1431]

If he really disabled DHCP, he must have. It would be interesting to see what would happen if he left DHCP enabled but just reserved a ip for the CC in the dhcp config.

Posted via Android Central App

Oh I have no doubt he disabled DHCP, I am just unsure that actually had an effect.

Dan

Posted via Android Central App

 

[NathanSt]

- - - Updated - - -

I have no doubt that the problem was resolved, but I am unsure about disabling DHCP.

Did you assign static IPs?

Dan

Posted via Android Central App

Initially, yes, I assigned static IPs - but in the end I did as another person commented and reverted to DHCP with an assignment for the CC. (turns out static IPs aren't much fun when a friend asks to connect their ageing phone to your wifi... )

 

[Alsoknownasjazz]

My chromecast works great for a while, but after a few days, or even a week or two, it starts to flake out. The cast icon disappears from my all my devices, and on the screen it shows that it's disconnected, or sometimes it starts cycling in a loop of "disconnected, attempting to reconnect" and never actually gets a solid connection until I power cycle it. It seems to be getting hung up at obtaining an IP address, so I was already considering assigning a static reservation. As soon as I did that, the chromecast started working without a reboot. Too early to tell for sure if that fixed it, but figured I'd throw in my two cents. I'll try to remember to report back in a couple weeks if this fixed it for good.

 

[droidntn]

please do reply back. I've come to the conclusion that it's my router and/or cable signal.
Don't ask me why, but all of a sudden, knock on wood, mine is working great. Has been a month or so. Nothing has changed from my end as far as settings, etc.
Strange. Great little gadget though.
Good luck on yours!

 

[Zammo76]

My chromecast works great for a while, but after a few days, or even a week or two, it starts to flake out. The cast icon disappears from my all my devices, and on the screen it shows that it's disconnected, or sometimes it starts cycling in a loop of "disconnected, attempting to reconnect" and never actually gets a solid connection until I power cycle it. It seems to be getting hung up at obtaining an IP address, so I was already considering assigning a static reservation. As soon as I did that, the chromecast started working without a reboot. Too early to tell for sure if that fixed it, but figured I'd throw in my two cents. I'll try to remember to report back in a couple weeks if this fixed it for good.

I keep having this exact same issue. I've tried setting my Android devices and Chromecast to static IP's but this isn't working, so I've since switched them back to dynamic. I am beginning to think its the actual Chromecast, as I bought a US one and I'm based in the UK. I've now bought a UK one, I'm going to give this a try see if the problem has gone.


If not I'm going to try reverting back to static IP's and also switching off DHCP as NathanSt suggested above. Apart from this niggling problem which ususally surfaces every now and then the Chromecast is a sweet device!

 

[I Can Be Your Hero]

Yeah I've been having these issues ever since I got the Chromecast. I've just given up on it and just use my Smart TV's YouTube app now.

Sometimes the Chromecast is recognised, sometimes it's not. Sometimes I start playing something through the Chromecast, then the Chromecast disconnects from the network, and the video starts playing on my phone as well as on my TV. Because the Chromecast has been disconnected from the network, there's no way for me to then stop it playing on my TV unless I disconnect the CC or turn the TV off.

It's just too frustrating to bother with it anymore. So as I said, I just use the YT app on my smart TV. It's much more fiddly to watch something (have to use the tv remote to navigate the on-tv keyboard to type something in), but at least it works 100% of the time.

 

[Zammo76]

Are you using a chromecast bought from the country you live in?


I don't have a smart TV plus I mainly use my CC for watching films through [redacted], so there's no way I'm giving up on it.

Incidently I tried switching off DCHP and assigning static IPs and I couldn't get the CC to even connect to my network!


My UK CC should arrive early next week hopefully this fix's the connection issues.

 

[Zammo76]

So I got my new chromecast the other week and this too was exhibiting the same issues as the original one, namely every now and then none of my android devices can discover the CC's and the only way to sort it was to reset the CC.

When it did it last night I decided to just reboot my router and once it had started up both my CC's were visible to my Android devices. So the problem is with the router and not my chromecast.

Incidentally my router is also having the exact same problem with my Sky+ HD box where it loses connection to the Video On Demand services and keeps moaning that the only way to access them is to connect the router to my Sky+ HD box.

So it would seem my router has an issue with kicking devices off the network. As my router was provided by Sky I will feed this back to them in the hope that they provide me with a replacement for free, rather than the £70 upgrade fee.

 

[Adel Mandani]

Thank you everyone for the help and information

 

[Ivan Gill]

If he really disabled DHCP, he must have. It would be interesting to see what would happen if he left DHCP enabled but just reserved a ip for the CC in the dhcp config.

Posted via Android Central App

Unless you have manually configured IP addresses on all of your devices (can you even do that on the chromecast?) then this suggestion is a great way to break your home network. You need 1 DHCP server to assign IP addresses to connecting devices so they can talk to each other.

If disabling the DHCP server on your router did fix your problems then it sounds like you had 2 DHCP servers on your network assigning IP addresses in different ranges that could not communicate with each other, it would be luck as to which DHCP server replied first to a request for an IP address and sometimes your phone would see the chromecast and other times it would not.

 

[Jarek KRK]

Re: Chromecast Wifi being dropped

Maybe something in one of those will be of help. It seems at least a few people with similar issues found this to be the fix:

I got my Chromecast 2015 a week and a half ago. In the last few days it kept randomly becoming unreachable from casting devices and breaking off the playback, even though it is less than 1 meter from the wireless router and there are no other networks on the channel.
I found the advice to replace the USB cable that came with Chromecast. Seemed a bit stretched but what the heck. I tried it and guess what - worked like a charm!

I bought the new cable in a supermarket. I think it doesn't get much cheaper than what I paid for it. It is surprising enough that the cable made any difference at all. But why would Google provide a cable that is worse than a $1 replacement?

 

[thanlite]

Re: Chromecast Wifi being dropped

Patrick Schroedl's suggestion works! I swapped power cable with another one. It's started to work! Then, I switched back to original cable I had used all along. It continued to work!

It did fix the issue!

Thanks, Patrick! I signed up for this forum just to say Thank You to you!