Why does my Oppo Find X3 Neo keep dropping wifi connection

[Android Central Question]

My Oppo Find X3 Neo repeatedly stops transferring over wifi. The network stays connected, but nothing will transfer. Turning wifi off and back on again fixes it, but 5-10 minutes later it will stop again. All other devices in the house, including iPhones, Fire TV sticks etc etc are connecting absolutely fine and are totally stable. It's just this phone.

I have tried static IP vs automatic via DHCP, both in the phone settings and as a router DHCP reservation. I've also tried editing DNS servers, disabling auto connect to strongest network, disabling dual wifi networks... nothing works. Every 5-1o minutes, data transfer stops over wifi, though the network is still connected.

My wifi is sent around the house by a Tenda Nova MW6 mesh system in Bridge mode to my Huawei CPE Pro 5G mobile broadband (provided by 3 in the UK). I have a suspicion that some of this might be due to IPv6 - I can't disable it in the router as Three have locked down loads of the settings, and I can't find a place to disable it in the Oppo phone settings either. Apparently Android won't let you.

Does anyone have any magic that might help me out?

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! You've also tried the Reset Network Settings option in the phone's system settings?

Please register on this forum, which will allow you to engage in discussion more easily, as well as post images. https://forums.androidcentral.com/ask-question/409154-join-android-central-community.html

 

[mustang7757]

@fuzzylumpkin anything you can help here ?

 

[fuzzylumpkin]

Well, the first thing I'd recommend is getting rid of Three... That solves most issues loll.

Is QoS turned off in your router? Have you disabled the NAT on one of the devices? Does the Hotspot have a modem mode?

Most importantly, have you tested the phone on another (preferably more straightforward) network?

 

[bertie_bassett]

Hi, OP here - thanks for the responses! Alas we can't get rid of Three - we need the 5G speed as we are not served by decent FTTP providers...

So otherwise:

Yes, I've reset network settings and power-cycled the phone a few times now. Doesn't stick.

The router doesn't have any QoS options, or at least none that are visible in Three's hamstrung version of the config page. So I can't turn it off, alas.

The only NAT options I have in the router config are to select either 'Symmetric' or 'Cone' - there's no option to turn it off that I can see (screenshot below).

The hotspot (I assume that means the router) does have a modem mode, and I could engage that and let the Tenda Nova mesh do all the DHCP stuff... but I don't want to do that because I need a few fixed IP addresses in the system which the Tenda Nova mesh isn't able to do.

Yep, the phone (which is actually my wife's phone) spent all day at her workplace today without a single dropout in wifi transfer. So it is definitely something to do with how the Oppo negotiates with our home network. I made the mistake of suggesting it was a problem with the phone... my bad, that didn't go down well...

It's super annoying, not least because this phone is a replacement for an identical model that got cracked. That first phone had the same issues, but somehow - no idea how - they stopped happening. The replacement is suffering from the same issues, but nothing seems to fix it this time.

My wife has just found an app buried in the settings called 'Oppo Wifi assistant', which was blocked from running in the background. She has now enabled this. Wonder if that will help...

 

[fuzzylumpkin]

Are you sure you can't assign a static IP in the Tenda router settings (you seem to be fairly savvy, so I assume you've tried the routers actual configuration page and not just a management app)?

As you can probably appreciate you have a fairly convoluted set-up (and I thought mine was a pain lol), so troubleshooting this in a forum isn't exactly straightforward...

Is the NAT turned off on the Tenda? The reason I asked is because having multiple NATs (Network Allocation Tables) activbe on the same network can cause issues... It doesn't help that I am completely unfamilliar with all of the equipment you're using lol.

 

[B. Diddy]

Can you see what the DHCP address range is? The default should give plenty of addresses to accommodate lots of devices, but every now and then we run into a situation where the address range was severely pared down for some reason. If that's the case, then it's possible a device might get kicked off the network when another one joins (if all of the addresses were already taken).

 

[fuzzylumpkin]

Can you see what the DHCP address range is? The default should give plenty of addresses to accommodate lots of devices, but every now and then we run into a situation where the address range was severely pared down for some reason. If that's the case, then it's possible a device might get kicked off the network when another one joins (if all of the addresses were already taken).

Not a bad idea... With the router being a mobile hotspot it is certainly plausible that it would have a restricted address table due to having limited bandwidth and processing capabilities...

 

[bertie_bassett]

The Oppo Wifi Assistant didn’t help…

Are you sure you can't assign a static IP in the Tenda router settings (you seem to be fairly savvy, so I assume you've tried the routers actual configuration page and not just a management app)?

Is the NAT turned off on the Tenda? The reason I asked is because having multiple NATs (Network Allocation Tables) activbe on the same network can cause issues... It doesn't help that I am completely unfamilliar with all of the equipment you're using lol.

Yeah I’ve been trying to fix this for quite a while and I’m reasonably clued up on a fair bit of this stuff. The Tenda system doesn’t have a web interface at all - all management is done through the app. And since it’s set on bridge mode, leaving all the DHCP etc to the Huawei router, there are almost no config options. I’ll post back on here when I’m at home later with full details, but off the top of my head the only options I have are:

- Fast Roaming On/ Off - currently on, but doesn’t seem to make a difference if off

- Capacity Oriented Mode - I think this is some rudimentary bandwidth management. It says to turn it on if I have >30 devices connected. I have <28 at any one time, so this is off.

…and other than wifi ssid/password that is it. No way to change Wi-Fi bandwidth, frequency, IP address range or allocation, or anything else. It’s a cheap mesh system, and I guess you get what you pay for.

 

[bertie_bassett]

Can you see what the DHCP address range is? The default should give plenty of addresses to accommodate lots of devices, but every now and then we run into a situation where the address range was severely pared down for some reason. If that's the case, then it's possible a device might get kicked off the network when another one joins (if all of the addresses were already taken).

I currently have the router set to a DHCP range of 192.168.11.100-200, and never have more than 28 devices connected, so limited available addresses shouldn’t be an issue. There’s also a few devices with fixed IPs - the four mesh nodes, for example, and currently the offending phone, and these are set to get addresses outside of the DHCP range in an attempt to avoid IP allocation conflicts. Alas still no luck in getting this phone to have internet data transfer for longer than a few minutes at a time…

 

[fuzzylumpkin]

And you still can't change the static IPs if the Tenda is in router mode and not bridge mode?

Your mesh satelites shouldn't need a static IP, and they could be causing problems if they're trying to connect directly to the three hotspot...

Honestly, if it was my set-up, I'd scrap the tenda system, get a decent mesh system and use it with the three hotspot in modem mode. I appreciate this may not be financially viable for you , but if it is you should consider it. That system clearly isn't meeting your needs, and your router isn't where you want to save money... Besides, if your house is big enough to need four mesh satelites you can't be doing too badlyhaha, there's probably a lot of money in liquorice allsorts!

I'd suggest asking in a more networking oriented forum, but I think you'll be hard pressed to get much better help with the unconventional setup you're using.

But' for more testing ideas... have you tried turning your satelites off and seeing if the phone works properly? Handoffs can be tricky on a good mesh system, and if this thing is el cheapo the phone may not be coping well with living in a mesh network that isn't sure what node to send it to...

 

[bertie_bassett]

I don’t want to speak too soon but the issue seems to be fixed!

Yesterday evening the phone was doing its usual thing, dropping out every 5-10 minutes and being rubbish as usual. I found the router system log buried in the settings, and in there was an error message that appeared around the time of every drop out (photo attached - the MAC address is the phone’s device IP, not randomised). This implied to me that the phone was either (a) requesting that it was given the IP address 192.168.11.1, ie the router’s own address or (b) attempting to be allocated two different IP addresses for the same MAC. Either way, that I think could explain the cut out of internet access.

However, I didn’t have a clue how to fix it. While I was trying to think of something, the phone decided to tell us that it wanted to update to Android 12. I let it do this - 15 mins, 5 wifi resets and 4.7GB later it installed the update. And the issue vanished. It then updated to 12.1, no dropouts at all, and has been connected, roaming the house and transferring data ever since. 15 hours now and counting - no drop outs, no repeat of that error message in the router log. It’s just working as it should.

So I can only guess that what I was experiencing was a really obscure bug in Android 11 on this particular phone that only manifested in my particular set up - as fuzzylumpkin said, it’s a somewhat unique use case - and which Android 12 has fixed. But either way, fingers crossed it’s all been fixed and I can forget about it now.

See, no need to fix the kit - it’s meeting my needs now!

PS I was right, it was the phone’s fault, but ssh - rubbing that in with swmbo won’t go down well at all!

 

[mustang7757]

I don’t want to speak too soon but the issue seems to be fixed!

Yesterday evening the phone was doing its usual thing, dropping out every 5-10 minutes and being rubbish as usual. I found the router system log buried in the settings, and in there was an error message that appeared around the time of every drop out (photo attached - the MAC address is the phone’s device IP, not randomised). This implied to me that the phone was either (a) requesting that it was given the IP address 192.168.11.1, ie the router’s own address or (b) attempting to be allocated two different IP addresses for the same MAC. Either way, that I think could explain the cut out of internet access.

However, I didn’t have a clue how to fix it. While I was trying to think of something, the phone decided to tell us that it wanted to update to Android 12. I let it do this - 15 mins, 5 wifi resets and 4.7GB later it installed the update. And the issue vanished. It then updated to 12.1, no dropouts at all, and has been connected, roaming the house and transferring data ever since. 15 hours now and counting - no drop outs, no repeat of that error message in the router log. It’s just working as it should.

So I can only guess that what I was experiencing was a really obscure bug in Android 11 on this particular phone that only manifested in my particular set up - as fuzzylumpkin said, it’s a somewhat unique use case - and which Android 12 has fixed. But either way, fingers crossed it’s all been fixed and I can forget about it now.

See, no need to fix the kit - it’s meeting my needs now!

PS I was right, it was the phone’s fault, but ssh - rubbing that in with swmbo won’t go down well at all!

That's great