Phones suddenly dropping off the Wi-Fi - why?

[Cliff_G]

A strange and very annoying thing has suddenly happened over the last 2 days - both our mobiles in the house have been dropping off the Wi-fi.

The Router is a ~3 month old EE Smart Hub Plus. To satisfy some older devices I have both 5 and 2.4 GHz bands available on both the Main Wi-fi and the Compatible Wi-fi.  The phones are both Samsung A20e on Android 11. It is only the phones that we have problems with, our Samsung and iPad tablets and a Dell and HP laptop are all fine.  We have older devices such as Kindles which also seem to be ok, just tested my Kindle and it connects fine.  The router is strategically situated in the centre of the house upstairs but at the top of an open stairwell, a position we've used for 15+ years with good spread to the farthest rooms.

Originally the phones were attached to the Main Wifi 5 GHz and worked fine for around 3 months.   2 days ago they both started receiving very weak signals and dropping off the wifi.  I moved them both to the Compatible wifi (which has 2.4 and 5 GHz) and thought this had sorted it, 2.4 GHz in theory being stronger through walls/floors etc. This seemed to work but they started dropping off again. Rebooting the router would re-connect them for a while but after some hours they would drop off again. Rebooting the phones does not help.

A strange thing is that the phones will now not detect the Main wifi even with the router just rebooted and the phones right next to the router.

I use an Android App called Wifi Analyser on my tablet and it appears the 5 GHz signals are actually stronger, around -40 dBm, with the 2.4 GHz weaker at -60 dBm. The 5 GHz's are on circa channel 106 the 2.4 Ghz's on channel 1, occasionally channel 10. The only other Wifi signal around is a very weak one from a neighbour, at ~ -90 dBm on channel 2.

We have DECT "landline" phones but have always had these.

The phones have not had a software update during this time, they are both the same version, and to have a hardware problem on both phones at the same time seems unlikely.

So I can't work out whether the router is faulty in some way (warm/failing? but we're in Scotland and have not seen the high temperatures in the south) or the phones have both had something happen at the same time.

Driving me nuts, as we depend on Wifi Calling on the phones (we're out in the sticks with no mobile signal). Thankfully we have a Home Phone installed, which works fine.

Any ideas, anyone?  Thanks

[JimM11]

@Cliff_G The hidden channels are all for a wireless wifi backhaul when you are using a Smart Wireless extender, until the extender is in play they sit there doing hee-haw, would have been better not on until an Extender is connected, but it is what it is, the other one you will be seeing if you look is EE WIFI, that is the free one that any BT/EE account holder can jump on and use you bandwidth free of charge.

Some devices do not complain working through the WPA3-T and work away as normal, some just throw in the towel at times.

Could be something just did not gel with the update, and the on/off has made it apply correctly what EE intended, glad it's all going well for you now.🙄😶👍👍

[Cliff_G]

**** Overnight the phones have dropped off the Wifi again ****

So the power down is only a temporary solution.

Grrrr.

[JimM11]

@Cliff_G And they say that sugar happens, can be something Overnight, but see what it takes to get them connected again and how long they hold the connection. A previous ISP made a major oops and continually pushed the same FW update to all the hubs for ever a week, took a little time to spot when done FW updates got suspended until they fixed what was going on, not to say that is happening at all. 

[Cliff_G]

Yes. At least we have a workaround. I'll se how long it lasts this time. Just did 5 minutes power down this morning, which worked.

Feels to me like a memory allocation problem / memory leak or similar. Whatever they changed has written over the area allocated for whatever protocol handling (WPA3>WPA2 or Wifi 6>5>4 ) is used by our phones but not the other devices we have.

What's the best way to get hold of EE re this issue?  Looks to me like a call to the phone number at https://ee.co.uk/help/contact-ee/technical-support/broadband-landline

[JimM11]

@Cliff_G Correct the HELP to 66033 for a test check, or GUIDE to 66033 for the call back to you, if your mobiles will do that, some do struggle texting the service especially if on another provider network.👍

You might be able to spot something in the log files, but would need to use the web manager to take a look see, http://192.168.1.254 to get on the hub, and they are all in the advanced side to look at....

[Cliff_G]

Thanks. Have tried GUIDE thus far and have received a 1-hour wait advice. 

Ironic all this, as we have almost zero mobile signal here, can rarely get an SMS through, and depend on the broadband for our wifi-calling (which now supports SMS too).  I logged in here earlier on my tablet and they sent a 2FA to my phone. Good job this was after the reboot. 

Had checked the log before, but not since today's reboot. Something happened last night with DSL connection established 23:30 yesterday plus a load of Network interface up msgs.  Unfortunately the firmware is still the same version 😉  Nothing else unexpected.

[Cliff_G]

A Guide called back in 35 minutes. Factory reset done and phones straight back on it after that. We have to monitor for 7 days. He was confident it should fix the problem but there was a fair pause when I re-iterated that this seemed to happen after a firmware update.

We shall see.

Thanks @Jim11  and everyone for your help.

[JimM11]

@Cliff_G That's the reason i am no longer an EE customer, they did the same sugar way back Feb 2025 and killed my network overnight, just not one thing, everything that was on, woke to the wife screaming at me **bleep** is going on with this stupid Internet, took 2 day's to sort it all out and i have been doing it for a long/long time, knew what was wrong corrected some parts to get the good lady off my back then worked on the rest... I resisted the old Factory reset should never be a need to do so, yes it fixes issues but they should NOT be getting created to start with.😶

[Cliff_G]

It may be they know perfectly well it was probably the firmware update. As a 1st or 2nd line support person, they can't really say (unless it has been through the corporate route) "we'll get you a FW update", but I would hope they report it or maybe there's a watching mechanism.  When I did support for a DCS system, 2nd level, we were restricted to diagnosing, reporting and once the devs had sorted something we would roll out patches or updates. (Hairy when the kit is controlling hazardous chemical plant).

I'm surprised, though grateful, that you're still hanging around here after leaving EE.  We were with Plusnet for nearly 20 years, very happy, but the digital phone rollout has finally reached us and Plusnet don't do a home phone / "landline", but passed us to EE (all owned by BT). The changeover went very well, and this is the first problem we've had. Time will tell.

Have pm'd you.

[JimM11]

@Cliff_G replied back, on the PM.