H96 Pro Dongle - WiFi drops with one router but not with another

[DrVlikhell]

I have an H96 Pro dongle, S912, 8/2 running the last stock ROM from Sept 22. I had two WiFi routers and when I would connect to one of them, my H96 would drop WiFi constantly. When I would connect to the other one, WiFi never dropped. Now, one router is gone and I am left with the one which my H96 drops connection with. Signal strength is always excellent and speed is never a problem, only the constant disconnect and reconnect.

I can't figure out what the difference is as to why the H96 would hold a steady connection with the other router, and it constantly drops with this one. I updated the router firmware but there was no change. Signal strength is always excellent and speed is never a problem, only the constant disconnect and reconnect. There was nothing different in the placement of the routers because they were near each other and only 15 or 20 feet from the H96.

I would use ethernet, but the H96 doesn't recognize my USB ethernet adapters.

Does anyone have any ideas? I'm guessing it must be something in the WiFi configuration of the router, but I have no idea what it could be.

[ReaperMan]

1. Turn router on first... several minutes, no other devices connecting then turn on dongle.
2. Check router log, is there a forced disconnect, or restrictive setting in effect.
3. Try to change the WiFi channel on router, lower is stronger (neighbours WiFi may be on same channel.)
4. Play with WPA vs WPA2 security....some devices and routers are flakey. ( router may need a firmware upgrade...risky).
5. Your dongle may need a fimrware update(provided with better WIFI drivers...risky).
6. If dongle has Bluetooth...turn it off.
7. Change the WiFi Band on your router 2.4GHz has more distance and is more powerful. 5GHz may be flakey or not compatible.
8. If possible change the beacon interval in you router(higher cycle is better...shortens the life of the router).

Other possibilities exist...can't recall. Test your WiFi(2-3 hours) during any of the steps to deduce any benefits.

[DrVlikhell]

Thank you very much for the reply. Today I got a second router (configured in AP mode) in hopes that this is specifically a problem between the H96 and the first (big) router but, unfortunately, it also drops on this second (little) router. It seemed to be going fine for a while playing YouTube videos back to back for several hours, but perhaps the buffer time was enough to mask the WiFi drop and reconnect. Really strange how it never did it with the router provided by the cable company.

1. I will try this with the additional router, but the big router has too much stuff connecting to it to arrange for the H96 to connect by itself.
2. The little router is too small/old/cheap to have logging but I checked the log on the big router and I didn't see anything about a forced disconnect.
3. The big router is on band 6 and the little router is on band 11 with a 20mhz width so there is no overlap. I don't have close neighbors but there is some weak signal on band 3.
4. I will play with security. Both are on WPA2 AES now, though I believe the old cable router, which never dropped, also used WPA2 AES.
5. I'm using the latest/last stock firmware for the dongle. The only other option is a ROM from superceleron.
6. I use Bluetooth almost every day. It drops WiFi regardless if a Bluetooth device is connected or not. I'll turn it off and see if there's a difference, but leaving it off isn't really an option.
7. The H96 only has 2.4ghz. I have the little router set to N-only mode.
8. The little router doesn't have a beacon interval setting. On the big router it's set to 100. I don't know if that's high or low.

After seeing that the H96 also drops WiFi on the newly acquired little router I decided to operate on the dongle and I moved the WiFi antenna to the outside of the case with the wire sticking as far out as possible. After that is when it seemed to work really well for hours playing YouTube, right up until it dropped again. Then, when I started up Kodi it dropped WiFi repeatedly and at one point refused to connect at all. I don't think there's enough room on the case to add a terminal for a proper external antenna or I'd give that a try. I would also switch to Ethernet, but neither the stock ROM nor supercelerons ROM have support for a USB Ethernet adapter. So frustrating that the old cable router worked perfectly.

[RiCkLaR_atvX]

DrVlikhell have you tried changing the wifi settings to " Static IP " for the H96 dongel, there are problems with these Chinese manufacturers using clone wifi chips and the normal DHCP ip protocol doesn't always work correctly. May also be a bug with using old Linux 3 kernel for android where it doesn't reauthenticate the dhcp password and that is why your losing connection.

Try Static IP setting

[DrVlikhell]

Thanks for the tip about the static IP. I've got that set now as well. I also found an interesting feature in my big router that may have been causing issues. It was set to automatically change the channel based on other signals. When I changed the channel manually, it knocked my laptop off. I'm on the fringe of a couple of other Wifi networks that sometimes can be seen and sometimes can't, so perhaps when it was automatically changing channels it was knocking the H96 off? Not sure, but I've disabled that and also arranged it so both routers are at opposite ends of the spectrum with a narrow 20 bandwidth on each since narrow is supposed to be more stable. The H96 is also the only device on the little router and with that, the narrow channel separation and the static IP it's been stable so far. I'll test it for a few days before I make any other changes.

Also, I have an RF remote with a dongle receiver plugged into a USB port on the H96. Could that be causing interference with WiFi? I have a short USB extension cable I can use to move it a few inches away if that might help.

[ReaperMan]

Your testing the proper way.

You probably know...Youtube..hmmm (apk?) drops connection...alot. Buffering may hide it for most, but, the last 2(?) years under different providers has revealed Youtube streaming problems.

20 vs 40 Mhz (Older devices had issues with 40) ...a useful link maybe https://routerguide.net/setting-up-2...k-performance/

Is your power supply stable? Bad power adapter to household brown-outs will cause havoc on electronic devices.

Just a few thoughts...to help or maybe confuse.

Please keep posting what brings you the most success.

[DrVlikhell]

I meant to say narrower 20 mhz, not 40, fixed that now. I actually found that exact same link when I was looking into the 20/40/auto channel mhz setting and is why I picked 20.

I was just using YouTube for testing, and I was using some 3rd party app instead of the regular YouTube app. I stream a lot of content from a local nas across my network with Kodi and this is when I usually see problems. Unfortunately, while the WiFi seems to be stable at the moment, the H96 is now giving problems and has locked up twice during playback. The issue could be Kodi, but it never gave problems like that before.

I'm using an OEM Samsung 2 amp power supply. It gets warm but I think it's sufficient. I could use a 2.4 or 3 amp supply. If I keep having issues I might try that.

Thanks for the additional suggestions.