Only thing different is that we had an internet outage the other day. Everything went offline. Iphones, computers, and tablets connect with no issue. Thermostats, printer, and Rokus don't detect any signal.

The thermostats do pick up both 2.4 and 5.0 ghz signals, detect both from our modem, but show zero signal and won't stay connected to either. Printer and Roku devices won't detect any network at all.

I can stream video on my laptop computer through it's wifi connection right next to all of the devices who can't seem to even locate a signal. If it was just one device having this issue I may consider the device itself being the issue, but with 3 different device types from 3 different manufacturers I find it hard to believe that they would all have the same problem at the same time.

Any ideas?

Reboot the modem. After it's fully up, as seen by the devices that will connect, reboot the devices that haven't been connecting one-by-one.

Sometimes, when there's a power event like you've just experienced, some WiFi clients will try to come up before the WiFi Access Point is ready, won't be able to, and give up. (Poor code abounds, sadly.)

Sometimes you need to bring it all down and bring it up slowly.

Shut everything down, kill the breakers if you have to, and bring it up piece by piece.

Start with the Network connection device, ONT, or Modem, move to the router, and then to the individual devices. Wait until the network devices have come up completely before trying to bring up other equipment.

Sometimes a device will not release an address that another device has grabbed on the reboot and needs to be reset.

In addition to what ensigmatic said be sure to check your IP address.
You could connect but not getting an IP address.
However, with the information supplied I would tend the issue lies with OSI level 1 or 2 ~ 802.11 connectivity but could be level 3 when the IP comes into the picture.
Rebooting normally solves the physical issue.

Did all of that, and still have thermostats, printers, and Roku devices that don't even detect a wifi signal/network despite the computers and phones having zero issue finding it and strong signals.

In this situation in the past, a new Netgear router invariably solved the issue for me.

Weird.

I wonder if the modem glitched and set itself to stop broadcasting its SSID? Check the modem's config, I guess? If you have anything spare laying about, that wasn't configured for your WiFi network, fire it up and see if it can see it?

Difficult to troubleshoot something like this remotely.

If you had an Android device I'd suggest you install WiFi analyzer and tell us what it shows you. (Unfortunately there's no analogue to it for iOS/iPadOS.)

Is there a tiny hole that you stick an unbent paperclip in, to reset the router?

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Is there a tiny hole that you stick an unbent paperclip in, to reset the router?

I mean, if you want to reset it to defaults, which may or may not be a good idea...

I ditched a netgear router a year ago because it kept resetting to default on its own, which was VERY annoying.

Literally lost the SSID and port forwarding settings every 2 weeks or so.... ugh

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:


I wonder if the modem glitched and set itself to stop broadcasting its SSID? Check the modem's config, I guess? If you have anything spare laying about, that wasn't configured for your WiFi network, fire it up and see if it can see it?

Difficult to troubleshoot something like this remotely.

If you had an Android device I'd suggest you install WiFi analyzer and tell us what it shows you. (Unfortunately there's no analogue to it for iOS/iPadOS.)

^^^^ this would also be my next step.

Use a WiFi Analyzer to see if it is a broadcast issue or manually create a connection on the device and manually connect.
Also inspect the IP address (or lack of one).
Physically resetting the wifi AP as well as inspecting the configuration may also be necessary.

I'm obviously not an electronics expert, but I couldn't wrap my mind around why some of the devices would detect the signal, and others wouldn't. Especially after they were all previously connected without issue.

I figured the expensive items had no issue seeing it, and the less expensive items were having trouble. Perhaps whatever receives the signal in them wasn't as good as what was in the more expensive items. While out this morning I grabbed a $40 wifi extender/amplifier from Walmart, plugged it in, and those that weren't seeing a signal previously are getting it loud and clear now.

Don't understand how that's working either, but it is. The printer is a good example. It's 20 feet from the modem/router in a direct line of sight but doesn't see the signal. The extender is 30 feet from the router and sees the signal fine. The printer is 30 feet from the extender, not in a direct line of sight, and with several obstructions in the way, but it's getting a strong signal from the extender.

It's all fairy dust to me.

I wonder if the devices that weren't working were originally connected in the 2.4ghz (vs 5ghz) band?

Like I said: Without throwing a WiFi analyzer on there (I have them on a retired Android tablet and on my Linux laptop) there's really no way to know just what's happening ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:
I'm obviously not an electronics expert, but I couldn't wrap my mind around why some of the devices would detect the signal, and others wouldn't.

Especially after they were all previously connected without issue.


It's all fairy dust to me.

Well, I am in the business and I hear that ALL the time.

My approach is to assume nothing, start with an original hypothesis, observe and measure then go from there.

You don't know until you do.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
My approach is to assume nothing, start with an original hypothesis, observe and measure then go from there.

I would guess that the SSID is transmitting or the iPhone and iPads couldn't connect.

Still, probably best to reboot everything, and see if it fixes the problem, many time that does, these things get a little out of whack sometimes.

do you have/have you tried logging into your router from the working PC? Most supply a wealth of information about network and allow you to make changes.

Check to see if both 2.4ghz and 5ghz are activated. If not turn them both on and reboot the router. There should be a selection to do the reboot.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
I would guess that the SSID is transmitting or the iPhone and iPads couldn't connect.

The SSID need not be broadcast to connect to a WiFi network. It can be entered manually (if the client software/firmware allows it to be specified manually) or, if the client already knows it, it can just go ahead and use it.

Signal strength transmitted out of the router may have dropped for some reason and your extender reamplified it. Or, there’s interference on the wifi band(s?) coming from somewhere that the extender was able to overcome. Didn’t turn on a baby monitor or something else that generates GHz signals recently?

Lot of tools available 'cept maybe Apple.

Android Device Tools


Microsoft Windows Tools


Just see if you can see networks.
Note that the MAC address is the key component and the tool can generally see hidden networks but not necessarily the SSID.
The encryption (security) is revealed as well.