[pi55edu55er]

Well……..   6 days in to ownership of my otherwise lovely N8 and I'm the ball in a game of  "callcentre monkey ping pong"  

The misery starts here

Thursday last week I set it up, put in my 26 character wep key and all was well, I could connect to my G604T router and also the "3" network. I then switched the phone off and on again and it wouldn’t  connect. The phone sees the router and tries to connect but then drops out with the message "Conn failed - WLAN not found" momentarily appearing in the top left corner of the screen.

Over the weekend I Googled  “n8 wlan problems” and guess what?  There are more stranded surfers out there than you can throw a stick at!  I realized I wasn’t alone.  We have all been sold an underdeveloped package and Nokia (judging by what I have read) are denying it.

I tried the fixes everyone has posted on various “fix it” sites including keying in *#7800# (or whatever the hell it was) holding the start button down for 8 seconds and eventually re-installing the software from the ovistore,  but no joy.

I then found a thread alleging that the individual network provider overlay software (all commissioned by Nokia from one company) is buggy but the generic phones from Nokia are ok.

09:30 Monday I call Nokia support explaining all this and was told that 2nd line support will call me back within 24 hours. I also ask about the hundreds of problems I’ve read about on the internet, and the buggy software and…….  you’ve guessed it……….  Plausible denial

 “we’ve never heard of this problem before sir”  

Still, it’s pointless arguing with someone who only works from a script so I moved on.

Teatime Monday; I also log the problem with “3” I also tell them there is no point in them swapping it as another “3” branded phone will act the same way . They say Nokia hasn’t told them about a generic fault (no 5h!t!!) and that I should keep them informed.

Tuesday (today) lunchtime still no response from Nokia, I bet they have a backlog of these calls. I phone them again,  complain about lack of response and a 2nd line support chap calls within the hour.

He tells me the fix is menu/settings/connectivity/settings/destinations/internet, then remove my wlan and re-search for it. He says “do it now and I’ll wait”. I tell him  I’m at work and don’t get home till after 8pm by which time, if this doesn’t work Nokia will be shut and it will be another 24 hours before I can respond, I say that we could go on for weeks like this but he GUARANTEES this will work. I ask about the phone problems I have seen posted generally and he admits they are having these problems but again GUARANTEES that his solution will work.

I got home and tested his solution 2 hours ago, guess what, of course it didn’t work. 4 times from scratch it didn’t work. Tomorrow I have 20 minutes at lunch to ring nokia and report the 2nd line chap as a liar, Nokia will get that phonecall as their last chance to propose a full and immediate solution.

I will be recording the phone call and demanding the truth about this product that has been released to sell but is unfit for purpose, I will also be demanding a generic phone direct from Nokia (but only if they admit the only branded software has the bug) or my money back. I will be reporting this to “3” and I will also be cutting and pasting this content to every forum I read over the weekend to warn others before it is too late for them.

Any of this sound familiar? I've had another surf around tonight, people are even posting fixes on youtube now!! 

[kman00]

Sorry for all that trouble man but hey quick question, do you have any problem connecting to other WLANs?

[donchichi]

Hi, I had this problem though in my experience it was caused by one or some of the software i installed. As a user to user, try uninstall some of the applications you had before this problem crept up. Solved my issue.

If my memory serves me correct, some of these apps were made for s60v5 and some of it has adware. There's quite a few of them running around so just a heads up.

[pi55edu5er]

I called nokia today and they instructed me to request a replacement fron "3"

I said what if this is not just my phone what if it is a general bug?

They said try a new phone first and if that doesn't work then they'll look at an alternative.

I called "3" and explained. "3" are sending out a new phone tomorrow.

I asked them about a general wifi bug but of course they flatly denied any knowledge again.

Oh "3" did ask me if I wanted a different make of phone to avoid repeat problems!!

I said no! I just want a working N8........    I hope I don't regret this! 

[pi55edu5er]

Speaking of bugs, I've just read this

/t5/Nseries-and-S60-Smartphones/N8-fault-with-WPA2-WiFi-connections-BUG-Found/td-p/780456

I'm now not confident that I've done the right thing in asking for a replacement N8, I'll report back in due course.

[pi55edu5er]

Got the new phone from "3" and it worked perfectly and connected first time to my G604t with my 26 digit wep key. one thing that did happen is that I got a "3" warning screen up saying

"it appears that you are trying to connect to the 3 network from an outside method, this is probably because you are trying to use wifi. please disconnect wifi and reconnect over the 3 network"

Anyway I thought I'd cracked it untill the next morning when I got up and I refreshed the wlan to find that although it could see the router (and others in my neighborhood), when  it tried to refresh it came up with the "wlan not found"

So I'm back to where I started........  same as this chap on a different thread

 /t5/Nseries-and-S60-Smartphones/N8-will-not-re-connect-to-wifi/td-p/782511

I'm  going to raise this with nokia tech suppt tomorrow again, and raise the "3" overlay software bug issue again.

Has anyone got as far as swapping their network branded phone for a generic phone, and did this solve the issue?   

[mikwag]

I have an N8 which is on the 3 network but I bought a sim-free from Nokia.  No problems at all with connecting to my WLAN nor the WLAN at work. Also connects fine to the 3 network with the settings they messaged me.

However, it does seem to screw my router if I leave WLAN power-saving enabled, causing me to have to reboot it.  Setting WLAN power-saving off however works fine.

Menu-Settings-Connectivity-WLAN-Options- Settings-Power Saving=Disabled.

[dribl3]

hey you

sounds like you are having a frustrating time with your new n8

i recently upgraded my phone from the n95 8gb to the n8

and im also on the 3 carrier

as soon as i turned it on, gave it to my brother so he can enter the wlan pw

and i was surfing on the net (i hate the old symbian browser, go opera mini)

and i bought it online if they made sense

should be coming from the same stock anyway

ps

remember to check which access point the internet or 3 mobile is getting connected to

when i surf the net, it connect to my wlan but when i connect to 3 to check my phone credits, it will use the wlan, which as you know wont connect

one way around this is to disconnect from wlan by clicking the battery bar, clicking on the connection and hold down on it and click disconnect

then go to your 3 mobile icon and it should connect now

also to make sure when you are using the wlan for internet and ovi

go to your web browser, click on it, options, settings, general, acess point, and tick,"ask when needed) so it will let you choose between wlan and planet 3

hope this helps

if you got any probs, contact me on williambill001@hotmail.com and make sure there is a topic

or it will be spam

for some reason

the nokia discussion doesn't send you updates when someone has updates your post/topic

[pi55edu5er]

I spoke to nokia 10am today and told them that the second phone was dead vis wlan the chap asked me to do an 8 second reset and went right through the settings on the phone changing lots of things including dis-abling the wlan power save. He asked me to test it when I got home and if it didn't work he would refer it direct to their R&D people.

I said that I had no confidence in his fix as this was now my second phone and it is not a "fault" as such but a bug same as I found on the first phone. I told him that I still believe this is a conflict in the overlay "3" software.

He said " this will definitely work" I said "can you guarantee that", he said "yes".  Guess what? he lied, no change, it can see and name the router but a message comes up after ten seconds saying Conn failed router not found.

Luckily I got in at 6:30 tonight so phoned customer services at 6:35. Had to go through the whole bloody think again with a CSM before being allowed to talk to 2nd line support at 6:59!!

After half an hour of the 2nd line guy  re setting/trying  various things we got to the bit where I was re typing in my Wep key. It was taking a little long to get it in and he asked if I was ok. I said it was taking me a while to get 26 characters in to the keypad and he said....  "oh the N8 doesn't recognise 128 bit encryption you'll need to change to 64 bit encryption this is only a symbian3 phone you know not a computer"

After I'd metaphorically ripped his f#####g head off I said how come my sons Iphone, daughters touch, wifes hero and other daughters Blackberry could just connect straight out of the box. also I said that I had been able to connect to my router first time around with both N8s but they lost connection day 2 so it must work on 128bit encription. but he was insistent. So I agreed to reset  my router but said it would take some time and I would need to call back in tomorrow. He also said that the N8 doesn't like WEP and WPA would be better but I said everything in my house is set up for wep and I wasn't going to change. 

Again I said "is this the fix then? 64 bit?" 

Yes sir this will work

Are you guaranteeing this?

Yes

If this doesn't work I'm telling you I'm sending the phone back to "3" not because it has a fault, but because it is not fit for purpose, it should never have been released this buggy

It will work sir blah blah.

So children are you sitting comfortably

I changed the router wep to 64 bit, I also changed the hero, touch & iphone (not the blackberry, daughter number two is out) and.................   everything works but the B#####d N8!

So, tonight I've got sod all else to lose, so I call talk-talk tech support and get them to advise me how to swap the router over to WPA PSK and set up a laptop and the bairns toys and everything now works fine on WPA. I reset the N8 and type in the shared WPA key and................  con failed wlan not found again.

You know, I love this phone, I think nokia is a great manufacturer and I applaud them for ploughing their own way (like citroen used to do) I really don't want to go and get an HTC desire but I've got no option my 14 day cooling off period ends tomorrow and I'm not prepared to lose my cancellation rights with "3" while this comedy of errors stumbles on. 

[pi55edu5er]

After writing my last post (above) on 22nd I wrote a formal letter of complaint to  Steven Elop, Nokia's CEO. On the morning of the 23rd I received a return from Mr Elop promising that his team would attempt to sort "once and for all"

I also recieved a similar email from nokia.assist

I took a call from nokia customer care during the day and explained the scenario again that;

a, This was my second N8 exhibiting the same shortcoming. 

b, i have 4 other mobile devices and 3 laptops connect to my g604t router with no problem.

c, successive nokia support solutions have not been successful in making either phone connect to my wlan on either Wep or Wpa

I this has lead me to conclude that I do not simply have a "faulty handset" but that the N8 has a problem with it's wlan handshake due to a design oversight or technical shortcoming of symbian or a conflict between the network provider software and the handset generic software etc.

The nokia chap (j) said yes this was a known problem and it had been escalated to the R&D engineers to work on a fix. I said how long will that be. He said 3 to 5 days and that his colleague (C) would update me tommorrow the 24th. 

He also spoke about the possibility of providing me with a generic phone without the 3 software on it if they couldn't come up with another solution. I said that would be fine BUT only if it would fix my problem and WHAT ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE.

I phoned 3 on the evening of the 23rd to keep them up to date. They say they have now logged it internally as an issue and asked me to keep feeding back.

I said to "3" , given the response I'd had from nokia I would give them some time to resolve before reluctantly swapping the phone for a different maker.

So today the 24th I "wait all day" for the promised update call from (C) or (J) but I didn't get one. 

The (by now) ancient quest for the mythical fully functioning N8 continues.....................    

[pi55edu5er]

I've spent over an hour  with 2nd line support today over two phone calls.

First call, new chap J(2) had not been passed the full details of my case so I had to repeat it.

He said that this was a "recognised problem" and Nokia are putting out updated wifi software at some point between "2 weeks time and late December"

He also said he would stay behind tonight and call me at home to get me connected in the mean time, really nice chap actually.

Second call, J(2) told me to disconnect my router and then talked me through manually creating a new connection point and also a lot of other things. then switch on the router and try to connect. No joy. We tried twice more, still no joy. He said he would try to get the conditions replicated in the lab so the tech boys could come up with a work around!

He asked had I connected to any other wifi? I said I could connect at work but as I work in a bank it was likely to be enterprise class equipt and a far cry from a home device.

He suggested that it might be my router and I again repeated about the 27 million other devices that connect to my router just fine and also there are hundreds of complaints about this all over the net and in this forum. 

A good bit........

He then said that my particular case was the first he had come across ......

I said; then why are you rushing to get a wifi software update released ahead of the other publicised update of your browser and UI !

There was a slight pause here.

I said in my opinion the N8 has a flakey/under developed and unfit for purpose in this area and should not have been released for sale yet. I also repeated that people seem to be having no issues with unbranded phones supplied direct from Nokia.

I offered to send him my phone and router so Nokia can replicate the exact problem but he said why don't you ask 3 tomorrow to remove their software from your phone.

I said this may sound reasonable on the face of it but as a lay person, I don't know if a "3 phone with bits removed/unbranded/unlocked" is identical to a straight generic phone

Over the last two weeks I've spent around 12 hours on calls to nokia/3 and another 3 hours keeping this log.  I'm tiring of the whole affair. Every time I ring three they offer me an HTC as they know this is an easy solution to a happy customer. I told him this and he suggested that HE rings "3" for me. He will get the "3" software removed  and then ring me back later tommorrow to review.

I again offered to give him my router and phone but I don't think he had the mantate to make that call.  

My Wife has just suggested that "3" will give me a wildfire for a fiver less per month and with the £120 quid I save I can buy a proper camera, now there's a thought...........  

[pi55edu5er]

26/11/10

J(2) from nokia 2nd line support called back today.

After speaking to his R&D team he had not contacted “3” to remove their software but said that he would talk me through downloading and setting up a  third party program designed to simplify the connection process on the N8  and this would definitely get me going with my wlan.

The program is “smart connect” from www.birdstep.com

Just a hunch but I suspect nokia are going to adopt this program as one of their next 50 symbian improvements. Well it didn’t work for me.

With J(2) mirroring my actions using an N8 at his end also, I installed the program on my phone and we tried for almost  an hour to set it up to connect.  I must give J(2) his due, he worked his socks off and is a credit to his team he could not get my phone to connect. Also I cannot now delete this “app” from my N8 and I don’t know what implications this has to the overall flakiness of my connectivity.

J(2)  said he had been told by his R&D dept that the only thing left  for me was to take the phone back to a nokia care point and for them to repair it.

I said, will they fix it while I wait? Of course he said no, it will be sent off etc etc.

I said, YET AGAIN, this is the second phone with the same issue, brand new, out of the box. It is not a “faulty phone” it’s a design issue that these phones have this flakey handshake.

I said I was not prepared to simply hand my phone to a nokia care point and wait for a repair whilst continuing to pay a monthly contract on a brand new product.

I said my next course of action was one of three options

a, I hand the phone back to three as “functionality significantly not as described” and they will give me an HTC desire HD. I hasten to add that this is three’s preferred option to keep their customer happy, but it’s still not mine!

b, I will agree to take my phone to a care point but only on the basis that it is swapped for phone that is guaranteed to connect to my wlan when I get back home.  

c, If nokia agree option b and the phone still won’t connect to my wlan  then I revert to option a.

J(2) said that he would speak internally and get back to me and he called later in the evening saying that the retentions team will be in touch on Monday.

Time on calls to nokia and three trying to sort this out? now about 14 hours

[kman00]

Man that sux, lets hope they fix your problem.

question, is it possible maybe you've maxed out the number of units you can use with your router? I'm just talking on past experience, when I was setting up my wireless connection one of the options was how many devices I would like to let use my network at the same time and a while later my friend was trying to use my wireless and whatever we tried didn't work then days later I remembered that I had chosen 3 devices to use the wireless at the same time and he couldn't use it because 3 devices were already in use. I got into the setting and changed it to 5 and next time my friend was here it worked just fine. Now that was just a thought since you said you had bunch of laptops and phones connected to it so I thought maybe that was the case. Good Luck

[pi55edu5er]

Hi kman00

Thanks for your input

I'm aware of the problems associated with overloading routers but I've never had a problem previously and also, I've always made sure that I'm the only one attempting wireless access during these "testing times"

Thanks again

[kman00]

Do you know anyone else with an N8? See if theirs work with your router, I know you've tried two N8s and non of them worked but you never know, quit possible both were defective. But gotta tell you, you have been very patient. Nokia better fix the problem for you.

[hsiboy]

Hi,

so i have an unbranded direct from Nokia N8 that i use with my Vodafone contract sim.

I have exactly the same issue. Wlan <SSID> not found.

The odd thing is, i work for a dot com, and we have a cisco wlan system, that detects rogue networks and devices. The N8 sets that thing off, and the whole corp. wlan shuts down. Needless to say my name is dirt with the networks team.

The issue isn't related to WEP or WPA because i run my router without security as it supports some old devices that can't do either. So my router is effectively open.

The power saving thing doesn't work for me either.

Odd thing is, i can connect easily to some wifi APs no problem. But i don't know if i could reconnect to them over and over as these have been transient for me (staying in hotels etc).

Im not impressed with Nokias denial. Don't they read these forums??

Nokia i will be sending this back, and i will get another device from a manufacturer that gives a stuff. You can go back to making boots.

hsiboy

[pi55edu5er]

Monday 29/11 at 3;45

No call from nokia so I call “3” to clarify my options. “3” say that this is now a recognized issue between them and nokia ie the whole wlan and software thing, not just me and my phone.

 “3” tell me to chase nokia but also offer to swap the N8 out for an HTC Desire HD if I don’t get immediate satisfaction.

I call nokia customer service in the phillipines again and have to go through the whole story again. I complain about another broken promise ie someone was going to call me back with a solution today and hasn’t, again. I stress that unless I get a call today guaranteeing plausible action to resolve this issue then the next call I will make will be back to “3” asking for a swap out on "fitness for purpose" grounds.

Within 10 minutes I get a call from D in the UK Nokia complaints dept. She has my notes but asked me to summarise  the story to ensure clarity, I oblige. She agrees that this is an issue and agrees to send me out a new N8 from UK generic Nokia stock. She says “we only have grey, is that ok?” I say “yes that’s the same colour as the one I have” she says she will organize a courier to do a swap-out with my phone and call me back tomorrow (Tue 30th) to confirm. I stress again that I have had so many broken promises from nokia and ask her to confirm that she will DEFINATLY ring back tomorrow. Of course she says “yes”   

Tuesday 30/11 at 4;20

Oh! I bet you’re ahead of me by now! you’ve guessed it, no return call. Luckily I had her name so I called Nokia uk complaints and tracked her down to ask why, yet again, I didn’t get a promised call.

She says “oh hello, we won't have any N8s in stock for three days but I’ll call you when we get some” she didn’t seem to remember her previous promise, or consider it an issue when I reminded her.

By now I’m  thinking  “so the grey one you told me you had yesterday, that you told me you would organize to send me, didn’t exist ?”

In spite of my thoughts I just said “OK so you’ll definitely call by the end of the week to set this up then?”  She said “yes”  Another promise to be kept or broken, we shall see in due course.

Thur 2/12

I took a call from M in Nokia engineering. Good chap, knowledgeable enough to be forthright and honest. He agreed with the causes and issues I had been suffering he said that there were massive differences between branded and generic and said he would be interested to discuss the performance of the replacement  generic phone when it arrived. He also asked for the IMEI of my current phone so he could trace the batch.

Tomorrow is Friday,  can’t wait for my swap out call from Nokia    

[saataja]

"WLAN network not found" error can happen e.g. when router is having MAC address filtering (MAC address access list) enabled but phone's WLAN MAC address hasn't been correctly entered on router's list of allowed addresses.  In this case phone is able to find and show the network when scanning but when connection attempt fails (usually with "WLAN not found" error) because WLAN router is not responding to connection attempt due to MAC address filtering/blocking.

Another aspect the check and ensure is the WLAN network is operating with unique network name (SSID). Typically WLAN routers and access points are by default configured with some generic SSID like e.g. "linksys", "dlink", "wireless", "default" or something like that.

Configuring your network to have a clearly unique SSID is especially important if operating in densely populated area, where chances are high that some of the neighbouring WLAN network(s) are using the same default SSID.   This type of situation might potentially lead to some problems when you are attempting to connect to your own network but phone is actually attempting to connect to neighbour's WLAN network and fails to connect because incorrect security parameters, MAC address filtering etc. reasons. 

Note that neighbouring network (with same default SSID than yours) might be configured to "hidden SSID" mode, so if you attempt to look for potential duplicate networks by turning off your own router and scanning all other networks in the area, you might still not see all potentially problematic neigbouring networks because they can be in hidden SSID mode.

Yet still when you "connect" your phone or PC there's a possiblity that connection is actually attempted to neigbours "hidden" network that has the same SSID than your own, especially if neighbouring network has decent signal strength and you are a bit further away from your own WLAN router.

[hsiboy]

@saataja

Seriously, your post is not helpful.

Did you not read above? The wifi routers are all working fine with other items, even other Nokias, its only the N8 which is broken. I dont think branding has anything to do with it.

hsiboy.

[hsiboy]

@pi55edu5er

I would be surprised to learn that an unbranded N8 fixes your problems. My N8 was direct from Nokia, no branding. I have the same issue with wlan connection not found.

I just called nokia support again, not only to address the lack of a stable wlan connection but also the other interesting features.

1. Charging the phone when its off, always shows 10% regardless.

2. The phone often reboots for no obvious reason, when it comes back, its lost all my settings, so guess what, no ring tone!

3. a couple of times the "phone" app has hung, meaning i cant hang up a call! And you cant get the battery out easily!

I could go on, but i wont bore you.

so 1st line support wanted me to go through he whole reset thing, power cycle, you know reading off the script. And i said i didnt want to go through all that again. when will these issues be resolved?

The guy was  honest enough to say they are getting swamped with angry N8 users. He said to hold, and i waited about 5 minutes before he transferred the call. I got a lady who just said ive raised an RMA and i've emailed the label. Print it off and send the phone back for a full refund.

Wow... i guess that's my answer then. The RMA arrived seconds later.

So now i have the RMA im thinking hell, i'll get my £489 back then, thank you.

Because Nokia are being tight lipped about any firmware update. In fact they went so far as telling me their policy is not to disclose their roadmap. So how long do we have to put up with this for? The N8 was delayed time and time again for supposed quality issues, and we are still waiting for known issues to be fixed. Nokias attitude is pretty brazen.