WLAN Connection Problem...

9 replies · 13,477 views · Started 06 June 2006

alfa145 06 Jun 2006, 08:37

I wonder if anyone can shed any light..

Only got my n80 yesterday, so last night was quickly trying to get it to work over my wlan at home.
I hide the ssid broadcast at home, so it never displayed when searching for a wlan (my neighbour's did so the scan does work..)
I entered the details manually, ssid, set it to hidden, entered the 128bit wep key, found the mac of the phone and added it to the ACL on the router (3com office connect, forget which model).

However when I try and connect to the internet I choose the newly created wlan access point, it errors with a message along the lines of wlan not found.
Now I know it's not a signal issue, I'm sat almost next to the router :roll:
Checking the dhcp on the router the phone never gets assigned a private lan IP address (should it?) I tried hard coding a free IP into the phone anyway, but no joy.

The only thing I could think of is that it wasn't on the right channel, as there was nowhere to enter this in the access point settings.

Is there any logging for wlan on the phone? The router's logging is next to useless, making troubleshooting a tad tricky!

entwisi 06 Jun 2006, 09:25

why not start by lowering the security settings on your router and slowly bring them back online. i.e. unhide youur ssid, turn off wep, allow all MACs etc, get a connection with the phone then slowly add things back on one at a time?

Rafe 06 Jun 2006, 10:20

I don't think there's a way of logging on the phone.

I know some people in this forum found that switching to something other than WEP security (WPA I think - try a forum search) solved some of these issues.

alfa145 06 Jun 2006, 10:34

Cheers chaps,
Lowering the security might be an idea. I'll also run ethereal tonight on a hub inside the router see what kind of traffic flows (if any) to that MAC addy.

Can't switch to wpa - router doesn't support it.

Was just wondering what that error message really meant.

zygote 06 Jun 2006, 12:30

alfa145, I had exactly the same problem as you and I think it's the hidden ssid that is the problem, but only initially. The way I got it to work was to un-hide the ssid on the AP, then connected with the profile already set up, then re-hid the ssid. Should work flawlessly after that, mine does.

HTH.

alfa145 07 Jun 2006, 09:42

Well got it working...
had to enable ssid broadcast, then it found the wlan but wouldn't connect - so I hard coded the IP address - it then worked, so I set it back to dhcp, rebooted the phone and bingo.. still works, and picked up a dhcp address.
So something strange was going on with the tcp stack I'd guess in the phone.

I couldn't get it to work with the ssid hidden, even making that access point the default. It seems like a real limitation not being able to fix a channel for the access point.

saroopsandhu 28 Mar 2007, 14:45

hi
i m new here, i just bought the nokia n80 and i m having real problems connecting to the WLAN. although i have used the internet through one WLAN which was not secured in anyway, so my n80 got connected.

now the problem is that my university has a WLAN (WEP enabled). whenever i m on campus my n80 shows WLAN network found, and when i define the access point, it doesn't connect to the internet. i have WLAN wizard software on my n80. afetr defining the access point, it shows that my n80 is connected to the WLAN. but it gives "no gateway reply" error message.

now i wanted to know that my universtiy has 128-bit hex WEP key. now the WEP key that i m supposed to enter, can i enter just any key or does it have to match with any other key on the WLAN network? do i have to change the IPv4 or IPv6 settings or they are good as automatic?

Please help.

elaverick 28 Mar 2007, 15:04

saroopsandhu wrote:hi
i m new here, i just bought the nokia n80 and i m having real problems connecting to the WLAN. although i have used the internet through one WLAN which was not secured in anyway, so my n80 got connected.
now the problem is that my university has a WLAN (WEP enabled). whenever i m on campus my n80 shows WLAN network found, and when i define the access point, it doesn't connect to the internet. i have WLAN wizard software on my n80. afetr defining the access point, it shows that my n80 is connected to the WLAN. but it gives "no gateway reply" error message.
now i wanted to know that my universtiy has 128-bit hex WEP key. now the WEP key that i m supposed to enter, can i enter just any key or does it have to match with any other key on the WLAN network? do i have to change the IPv4 or IPv6 settings or they are good as automatic?
Please help.

The WEP key is like a password for the wireless network. The fact that its not easily human readable doesn't change what it is. This means you have to know the password to access the network. To further complicate things many corporate style networks will be running Microsoft ISA firewall... if this is the case then you need a seperate program to authenticate yourself on the network to recieve external traffic. Unfortunatly there is now ISA client for the S60 (well not that I can find anyway), so you may be totally stuck there.

I'd recommend you go and see the Uni IT department (the support department that is, not the teaching department), they should be able to tell you all the settings you need to get things working.

giginger 28 Mar 2007, 18:46

I downloaded the WLAN Wizard from the Nokia Catalogue and I found that very helpful in getting connected to my WLAN. Previously I just couldn't get it to connect properly. I recommend you give that a try.

deadkenny 31 Mar 2007, 01:06

alfa145 wrote:I hide the ssid broadcast at home, so it never displayed when searching for a wlan (my neighbour's did so the scan does work..)
I entered the details manually, ssid, set it to hidden, entered the 128bit wep key, found the mac of the phone and added it to the ACL on the router (3com office connect, forget which model).

Hiding the SSID is often a major cause of wireless LAN connection problems, especially when connections drop and you can re-establish.

Thing is, hiding the SSID is one of those internet security myths. WLAN was never designed to work without it, it doesn't actually make your wireless LAN secure at all, and can cause more problems than it's worth. It's like hiding the entrance to your house. A thief will still find the house if determined, but is it worth it when the postman and legitimate visitors won't be able to find your house either? Sure, whilst it may stop the casual thief, so would just simply locking your doors, just like having any kind of encryption enabled.

Technically, it's fairly easy to snoop and get the SSID as it's broadcast in plain text whenever anyone makes a connection anyway.

Far better security is to use WPA or WPA2 security. The 128bit WEP key is better than a weaker one, but still crackable. Whilst WPA is also crackable it's very hard to crack, and the best security is achieved by just simply picking a very long key as this simply makes it impractical to crack (as it would take hundreds, if not thousands of years).

Oh, and the MAC ACL on the router isn't really secure either. Though it does help, again it's easy enough to snoop and easy to spoof also. However unlike SSID hiding, it does no harm really. Arguably it stops accidental connections by an oblivious neighbour auto-connecting, but then so would enabling encryption anyway.

saroopsandhu wrote:now the problem is that my university has a WLAN (WEP enabled). whenever i m on campus my n80 shows WLAN network found, and when i define the access point, it doesn't connect to the internet. i have WLAN wizard software on my n80. afetr defining the access point, it shows that my n80 is connected to the WLAN. but it gives "no gateway reply" error message.

I had "no gateway reply" kind of errors when I was using a wireless hotspot in the US in a hotel. This was on an open network with no WEP/WPA security (has a login page though). I put it down to shoddy coverage though despite claims of WLAN in every hotel room, as the signal would drop every few seconds. Though it may also have been down to a congested network. They must have had a lot of access points around, but still you could be talking about a lot of devices trying to connect over a limited number of channels.

I never have that kind of problem at home, and also got a connection fine on a T-Mobile hotspot at a Starbucks, and another coffee shop hotspot (the latter was free 😃).