[MikLSP]

As is customary with new Sony Ericsson devices, several irritating bugs can be expected until updates start to be rolled out and the Xperia X10 is no exception. The bug I'm pertaining to at the moment is the dropping of the phones WiFi connection for seemingly no reason, even while in use, only for it to then reconnect and operate normally after 10-20 seconds or so.

Some of you may have experienced this strange loss of WiFi connectivity, other will not. It's currently unclear whether this bug was introduced with the R1FA016 firmware update or if the R1FA014 version is also affected but I have managed to track down the apparent cause of the problem.

Since updating to R1FA016 I had been noticing frequent WiFi disconnections even while actively browsing. Being in an area of poor GSM coverage at home this was particularly irritating with little or no network connection to fall back on for continued browsing. Shortly though it became apparent that this poor coverage is not only a separate irritation but is in fact directly causing the problems with the WiFi on the X10!

As you can see in the video below the WiFi is happily connected until the phone loses network coverage. At this point you would usually expect your WiFi to carry on regardless but the X10 mysteriously decides to turn off it's WiFi before reactivating it and reconnecting to the network automatically:

If this wasn't bad enough however, the same thing happens when the phone reconnects to the GSM network:

As you can imagine, in an area where the signal comes and goes quite frequently, this makes the WiFi about as reliable a connection as a water soluble rope in a rain storm! My concern at this point is how long it will take Sony Ericsson to acknowledge this issue and issue a fix, especially as it will not be experienced by users who don't suffer from dropped network coverage.

Mik

From Unofficial Sony Ericsson Blog: http://blog.se-nse.n...ug-cause-found/

[scotsboyuk]

Hmmm ... that is very annoying indeed. This ties in with what I'd noticed myself and it makes a lot of sense.

[MikLSP]

It's 100% reproducible, I didn't even have to edit or trim those videos as I could predict it quite easily so this makes sense in that aspect but obviously not in how the phone should be expected to operate!

[USEB Commenter]

Blog comment left by ronny: Hi, I noticed this only happens on DG834 routers made by netgear, i have removed mine and put a sagem fast24 ADSL router in it's place and have had no dropouts at all, the netgear was useless.

[MikLSP]

I have a BT HomeHub so it's nothing to do with those routers.

[USEB Commenter]

Blog comment left by Maree: I have just bought one of these phones and my Wifi will not connect AT all, my signal strenth is excellent, but Wi-fi is just Scanning... and then it just disconnects. I don't have a full signal but should this really matter? How annoying!

[USEB Commenter]

Blog comment left by Ahmed: I am feeing very disappointed in SE, they r not the same company as 5 yrs ago. very bad engineering team. I m now thinking of changing sides to HTC.

[USEB Commenter]

Blog comment left by Haro:

Have you tried putting the Wifi sleep policy to "Never" ?

[MikLSP]

Yes I have tried that and it makes no difference. As you can see in the video, the WiFi turns off in response to a change in GSM network connection and then comes back on again automatically. This is nothing to do with power saving and the screen is clearly on.

[USEB Commenter]

Blog comment left by JP: I am a new X10 owner and this problem is very real and very annoying. I cannot connect to my home WiFi at all. The network is seen but the phone then just scans and scans and wont connect. I am also unable to connect to my mail server unless it is through the wifi, so its not even got working mail on it. Where can we get info from Sony on these issues and possible solutions? It will not even let me re-install the software - if the current version is up to date it will not let you reinstall! Is there a way around this?

[USEB Commenter]

Blog comment left by Nick: I have just bought one of these phones and had it just over 2 weeks wifi working fine. just today tried turning wifi on everything same way but nothing its found my wifi but will ot connect at all my signal strenth is excellent, but Wi-fi is just Scanning… and then it just disconnects. any ideas ? the anoying thing is its past the 14 days change of mind

[MikLSP]

Has it duplicated itself in your router devices? Mine keeps on taking multiple IP addresses until it uses them all up and can no longer connect!

[USEB Commenter]

Blog comment left by npgall: I have exactly the same issue as in the videos (btw I'm on 3 network in the UK, with BT HomeHub router). Thanks for capturing it I just mailed Sony Ericsson support about the issue and I included a link to this page for their reference.

[MikLSP]

Sony Ericsson support took about two weeks to respond to me and then just said "we've passed it on to the technical department". Waste of time.

[USEB Commenter]

Blog comment left by Mark D: I have had real problems with the WiFi on my new Xpedia X10 trying to connect to my BT Home Hub. the network would appear but not connect. I solved the problem by switching the channel on my home hub and everything jumped into life. I think it might have been conflicting with other local networks. May help some people. Good luck.

[USEB Commenter]

Blog comment left by Satio: try setting your router to one frequency band and do not let the router auto-search. I always set it to a fix channel and i never have such problem ever since i encounter similar issue with my iTouch/iPhone.

[USEB Commenter]

Blog comment left by Matt20v: I have just got my New X10 was so excited about swapping from the iPhone untill it came to this, I have bad coverage at home and at work in certain sports its sometimes a little suspect and this ties in with what i am noticing as well and then if this wasnt bad enough it dosnt even support WPA PEAP !!! So at work i have had to creat a hidden netowkr for my phone to browse on... NOT COOL! So yeah Sony really need to get onto this i thought i was making the right move going back to SE as i used to have a Sony Walkman phone 810w which was great bit so far im wondering if i should put it back in the box and use the iPhone till 2.1 is realsed cause then hopefully it might be actually good to use!!! mm

[USEB Commenter]

Blog comment left by npgall:

FYI Sony Ericsson gave me this reply:
---
Thank you for contacting the Sony Ericsson support centre.

We are currently working on an updated revision of firmware for the Xperia X10 to address issues that have been raised to ourselves. However there is currently no set date for this update but it will released as soon as possible.

What I can advise as a work around is set your handset to GSM only, so that no network change can take place. If your currently using Wi-Fi then a 3G will not be required, you can change this by follow these steps:

Menu > Settings > Wireless Controls > Mobile Networks > Pref. Network > GSM only
---

This is basically a non-answer of course. Gives no time estimate, and doesn't confirm that this specific wifi issue will be fixed in the next update.

At least they're aware of the issue, since they suggested that workaround. Workaround's no good for me though because my 3 forbid disabling 3G (d'oh!).

[MikLSP]

We can only hope but at least they seem to be aware of the problem.

[frankieh]

Hi guys,

Anyone been successful at getting the X10 to connect to a wireless network on channel 13? my friends HTC magic has the same version of Android and it can connect fine, but the X10 doesn't see the network at all and even spoofing location to Japan and other such tricks made no difference.

If the magic/Mytouch can do it, you'd think the X10 should be able to..

cheers

Frank