Enabling wifi turns off 5g

[asmac]

My s23 lost its 5g connection on a weekend road trip and that was a big problem. Tried all the normal things: hard reset the phone, reinsert the sim card etc but nothing helped. After rebooting, the Rogers & 5g icons would briefly appear and quickly vanish. After I got home I reset the settings and, though losing all the various network passwords and bluetooth connections was annoying, 5g is working again. HOWEVER, it now seems that if wifi is enabled the 5g connection is automatically disabled. In the past I had always left wifi enabled so that my data would use that instead of 5g if a wifi connection was found. Has something changed? The phone is current with all updates, One UI 7 (July 10) on Android 15.

 

[Bla1ze]

Samsung has a hidden toggle that can cause strange behavior with Wi-Fi/5G interaction:

• Go to Settings → Connections → Wi-Fi
• Tap three dots (⋮) in top-right → Intelligent Wi-Fi
• Ensure "Switch to mobile data" is enabled (or at least test toggling it)

 

[asmac]

Samsung has a hidden toggle that can cause strange behavior with Wi-Fi/5G interaction:

• Go to Settings → Connections → Wi-Fi
• Tap three dots (⋮) in top-right → Intelligent Wi-Fi
• Ensure "Switch to mobile data" is enabled (or at least test toggling it)

Thanks. I tried these settings and it didn't change things.

 

[VidJunky]

Welcome to Android Central forums. Just a few questions before offering any advice.

When you say that your phone is losing 5G, when the WiFi is enabled, how do you know the phone has no 5G?

Is the phone losing all Mobile Data, or just 5G?

Let's say you're home with WiFi on and connected and you leave, are you saying if you don't turn off WiFi setting your device just won't do anything involving data? If you then turn it off data is restored?

The first thing you mention is a "Hard Reset" then later say that you reset the settings. A hard reset would be performing a Factory Reset, while a soft restart would be cycling the power. Are you saying that you Factory Reset the phone? Then when you say that you reset the settings, do you mean the Network settings, WiFi and Bluetooth settings, or did you Reset All Settings?

I'm not able to think of a way that enabling WiFi would affect Mobile data. I asked Google and it says the same, only offering the same steps as Bla1ze offered to encourage or discourage switching under poor signal quality. I'm wondering if a system update didn't do something like hid the 5G icon, or maybe all of the mobile data icons, when connected to WiFi, and because you're not seeing it, feel like it isn't working. We'll need answers to really offer better advice. In the meantime this was my question to Google and the reply.

 

[asmac]

When wifi is turned on, whether or not it is connected to an access point, the 5G icon is not visible and there is no mobile data available. I looked for the 5G icon because there was no data, not the other way around. The problem is the lack of data, not the lack of an icon.

"Let's say you're home with WiFi on and connected and you leave, are you saying if you don't turn off WiFi setting your device just won't do anything involving data? If you then turn it off data is restored?" ..... yes, that is exactly what is happening.

Even more strangely, the day after this problem first appeared, the phone started working normally again and then, after an hour or so, reverted to having no data. Today, when I left my daughter's house and her wifi connection, I had no mobile data until I turned wifi off.

My wife has an iphone using the same carrier as me and she had normal service.

Prior to looking at the settings mentioned by Bla1ze, I did these things:
1. Pulled and re-inserted the sim card
2. Turned off the phone and turned it on again
3. Reset the network settings, not all settings
4. Turned off and on the sim
5. Turned flight mode on and off

Until three days ago everything was working fine. I had changed no settings and I don't believe there was a recent update.

I hope that's more clear.

 

[VidJunky]

Those are the steps outlined by Google. You can see what Google's Gemini says here.

Let's see what we can figure out through troubleshooting.

Sometimes issues are caused by bad apps. One tool that can be used to decide if it is the device or an app is testing in Safe Mode. For this test restart the phone in Safe Mode by pressing and holding the side key until the 4 options appear, press and hold power down until the option to start in Safe Mode appears, then tap that and allow the phone to restart. From here do whatever you're doing to test if you have mobile data while wifi is enabled. What is the result?

If the device acts predictably, that would point to this being an issue with an app. If the device still acts up, this would indicate that the issue is either part of the OS or an issue with the hardware.

App side;
Do you have any "saver" or Virus apps? Data saver, Memory saver, anti malware, anti virus, or battery saver?

Device side;
Has the phone been dropped, submerged or taken any other physical blow or possible damage?

If the phone still acted up in Safe Mode, it could be a cache issue after some update. To clear the partition cache, fully power down the phone. Hold the Vol+ button while holding the power button to restart. When the Samsung screen appears release the power button but continue to hold the Vol+ button until the phone fully starts up. On the bootloader screen use the Vol buttons to navigate, select wipe cache partition by pressing the power button when highlighted. Then reboot normally and test.

Let us know what you find.

 

[mustang7757]

Moved this to the s23 Forum

 

[mustang7757]

Welcome to AC!
How old is your Sim card?

Can try to reset your APN, go to settings>connections>Mobile network>Access Point Names (APN) tap>upper right corner tap >reset APN

 

[asmac]

Welcome to AC!
How old is your Sim card?

Can try to reset your APN, go to settings>connections>Mobile network>Access Point Names (APN) tap>upper right corner tap >reset APN

It's about a year old. I tried reset apn but no difference.

 

[asmac]

Those are the steps outlined by Google. You can see what Google's Gemini says here.

Let's see what we can figure out through troubleshooting.

Sometimes issues are caused by bad apps. One tool that can be used to decide if it is the device or an app is testing in Safe Mode. For this test restart the phone in Safe Mode by pressing and holding the side key until the 4 options appear, press and hold power down until the option to start in Safe Mode appears, then tap that and allow the phone to restart. From here do whatever you're doing to test if you have mobile data while wifi is enabled. What is the result?

If the device acts predictably, that would point to this being an issue with an app. If the device still acts up, this would indicate that the issue is either part of the OS or an issue with the hardware.

App side;
Do you have any "saver" or Virus apps? Data saver, Memory saver, anti malware, anti virus, or battery saver?

Device side;
Has the phone been dropped, submerged or taken any other physical blow or possible damage?

If the phone still acted up in Safe Mode, it could be a cache issue after some update. To clear the partition cache, fully power down the phone. Hold the Vol+ button while holding the power button to restart. When the Samsung screen appears release the power button but continue to hold the Vol+ button until the phone fully starts up. On the bootloader screen use the Vol buttons to navigate, select wipe cache partition by pressing the power button when highlighted. Then reboot normally and test.

Let us know what you find.

Thanks for your detailed reply. I will do as you suggest and let you know. Right now I have a workaround (turning off wifi) so will take my time with this.