Yet another WiFi problem

[Eudaimonium]

Greetings,

Upgrading from my 7 year old SE M600i to a second-hand Xperia S, as a more technically versed person (IT student) needless to say I am completely amazed by the phone's capabilities. Hence I believe that the solution to the problem I'm about to describe isn't phone's settings, rather my laptop's... but in any event, let me describe:

Through out the Dorm and my university, I am able to access all WiFi networks, with very good reliability and signal qualities (and speeds).

When I am home through weekends, I have a PC with wired internet, shared over LAN cable to my laptop, which then broadcasts the internet access via WiFi over my house. My Xperia S fails to recognise this WiFi for some reason (it's completely invisible). Googling through the internet I have found, tried and dismissed following solutions:

-Reboot phone and router/laptop

-Manually adding the network on the phone

-Use WPA2/Shared key/Use completely open unprotected network (in combination with manually adding the network after each change)

-Create new fresh Ad-hoc network with no special characters

-Change the broadcast's ad-hoc channel under 11 (I tried various ones between 1 and 10) [This one is most commonly one that works, except for me]

-Assigning static IP address to the laptop's wireless router/Allowing dynamic one

---

None of the above solutions worked and I am still unable to access my WiFi network, being broadcast by my laptop. Amazingly I'm able to pick up some guy's WiFi from down across the street, but not the one being transmitted half a meter away.

I have no third party Wireless managing apps on my phone, no antiviral software, it is completely up to date (4.0.4, no custom ROMs, no unlocked bootloaders, no root access), the only thing I did not yet try was WiFi Manager app people say sometimes solves problems but I cannot access internet on my phone (Cellular data is off) to download it.

So... yeah. Every single solution that Google offered failed so far.

Held high hopes for the one about channels, people say that channels over 11 are not recognised, but amazingly in my Ad-hoc settings I'm not even able to select anything higher than 11, nevertheless I tried about every other one between that and 1, none worked.

Thoughts?

[Eudaimonium · Accepted solution]

I appear to have found a solution, actually, as well as the cause. I hope this helps somebody:

Apparently it's inhereted in Android systems the inability to recognise and connect to Ad-hoc networks. Changing that is exeptionally challenging and very unrealiable from what I gather, but there's a way around that and FINALLY my net is working on my phone.

Here is the workaround:

-You need to transmit your internet connection NOT through "Ad-hoc" network, but through hotspot  WiFi; basically your computer must pretend it's a WiFi router. To achieve that we need some third party tools. The best out of three I have tried is "Virtual Router Manager". You can download it here:

http://virtualrouter.codeplex.com/

Please download this, and run it. It may require a reboot of your computer after it's done.

To run it, simply input your desired SSID and password, and click Start Virtual Router.

If everything went well, congrats, you have your internet on your android device!

But, as fate usually has it, you most likely do not. Here are a few troubleshooting tips I've gathered:

Error messages from Virtual Manager:

"Operation is blocked, waiting for opblock", or,

"Not accepting messages at this time" (or something of sort, don't remember it word for word), here is how you solve it:

You need to make sure your SSID you have inputted is not the same as any of the already existing Ad-hoc networks you may have stored.

The program will create a new virtual adapter device on your computer, named Wireless Adapter 2.

For it to all work properly, first you have to make sure your drivers actually do support this virtual operations. To do that, click Start, type "cmd", right-click "cmd.exe" and select "Run as Administrator". Once there, type:

netsh wlan show drivers

Scroll up a bit and find the line saying "Hosted network supported: " and if it says "Yes", you're good to go. If it says "No", please download the latest drivers for your wireless adapter.

If you manage to start the wireless network and your device shows "Limited connectivity", you need to Share the internet connection (through LAN or DSL or whatever) to the WiFi network yourself. To do that, open Network and Sharing Center, click the "Local Area Connection", click "Properties", and select tab: "Sharing".

Make sure you check all the boxes, including "Allow devices to use this internet connection", and select "Wireless Adapter 2" as the network to share *to*, from your LAN.

IF at this point you get the error message saying that the process/device "is not accepting status messages at this time", you need to do the following:

Click Start, type "cmd", and right click "cmd.exe" and select "Run as Administrator". Type:

netsh winsock reset

You will get a message saying that Winsock catalog has been reset and you need to restart your computer. Do it now, and after the OS is up, you should now, with little bit of luck, be finally able to start the wireless network using Virtual Manager, connect to it with your device and be able to access internet.

IF NOT (of course!), you need to check your IP settings.

IP settings:

Go to Network and Sharing Center, click "Wireless Network Connection 2", and click Details,

Then on your device (while you're connected to the WiFi network), simply tap the network name in Wireless settings pane. Check the TCP/IPv4 settings on computer and IP settings on your device.

The first three network segments must match, the 4th segment must be "1" on your computer, and anything else on your device. For example:

On computer:

192.168.1.1

On device:

192.168.1.15

If your IP settings on your device are wrong, tap and hold the WiFi network for a second, and select Modify Network, under IP address select "Static" instead of "DHCP", and input your correct settings.

Next, the Subnet Mask should always be 255.255.255.0

All the rest should be left blank on your computer.

On your device:

Gateway is the IP address of your computer, in our example "192.168.1.1". Gateway is, to put it bluntly, the first node your device bumps into when going to internet.

Copy the "DNS" server from the "DNS server" field on your PC on your source Connection. Meaning, if you have internet over LAN, Click Local Area Connection (in your Sharing Center), and copy it's DNS Server into corresponding field on your device. Bluntly put, DNS server is the boss of the network, it determinates to which device does which data packets go, and how. DNS supplies teh internetz to your PC, to your device and all devices in your own subnet branch (your house or maybe neighborhood, depending your network ogranization). So this boss is same for all devices.

Make sure you get the password right

Congratz, you can now access the internet on your Android.

Now, if you still do not have internet access on your smartphone, then you're definitely cursed by fate itself and at this point, you could've browsed half the internet on the damned laptop that's in front of you anyway. :smileygrin:

So, to sum up
==============
-Install Virtual Router Manager to setup a hotspot WiFi instead of ad-hoc

-Make sure you have latest drivers for your WiFi adapter

-Make sure to NOT have any ad-hoc networks created. You can delete them in Network Center, on the left side there's "Manage wireless networks" option.

-Make sure your internet source connection is Shared manually

-Make sure you select "None" in Router Manager, in "Shared connection"

-If you cannot start the hotspot, make sure to have latest drivers (verify in CMD if Hosting is supported) and to reset your WinSock after installation of Manager

-Make sure your IP addresses are correct, follow the directions above.

Alright let me know if I missed anything, and to moderators, feel free to move this post/thread into whatever corresponding sections you may want.