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Help Connecting to Wifi Network with a Hidden SSID

Legato

Legato

Well-Known Member
Anyone have a problem connecting to a network with a hidden SSID? My wife can connect to our router fine with her Droid INc (wireless N router). But i can't unless i enable broadcasting the SSID. I found the hidden SSID enabler app, and going to try that. If that doesn't work does anyone else have any ideas? If i enable SSID broadcast i connect right away. If i disable it, i lose the connection and it is "out of range". Very annoying as i live in a condo unit with 10 other wifi networks in my range. Would like to keep my netwrok as private as possible.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
 
Legato said:
Anyone have a problem connecting to a network with a hidden SSID? My wife can connect to our router fine with her Droid INc (wireless N router). But i can't unless i enable broadcasting the SSID. I found the hidden SSID enabler app, and going to try that. If that doesn't work does anyone else have any ideas? If i enable SSID broadcast i connect right away. If i disable it, i lose the connection and it is "out of range". Very annoying as i live in a condo unit with 10 other wifi networks in my range. Would like to keep my netwrok as private as possible.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Click to expand...

Check this thread out

Question About WiFi Settings - Android Central Forums
 
Yup having the same problem. Got a hidden SSID on my home router and it won't connect either (out of range). Hopefully someone comes up with a trick lol.
 
I don't broadcast the SSID on my home network and I connected just fine. You can't have any typos. I believe even the SSID is case sensitive.
 
AJ_EVO said:
I don't broadcast the SSID on my home network and I connected just fine. You can't have any typos. I believe even the SSID is case sensitive.
Click to expand...
Everything is case-sensitive. The SSID and the password are all case-sensitive. ;)
 
yup...problems with hidden.

it worked once, then never again. i changed nothing on the phone, just enabled ssid broadcast at the AP, and voila...connects consistently.

for the record, this is with an enterprise-class avaya (proxim) AP, using 802.1x authentication to a corporate LAN.

hopefully something addressed in .604?
 
no problem concecting to my hidden WPA2PSK home network, corp networks hidden PEAP MSCHAPV2 is a nightmare though, unable to connect to it no matter what i try
 
Legato said:
Anyone have a problem connecting to a network with a hidden SSID? My wife can connect to our router fine with her Droid INc (wireless N router). But i can't unless i enable broadcasting the SSID. I found the hidden SSID enabler app, and going to try that. If that doesn't work does anyone else have any ideas? If i enable SSID broadcast i connect right away. If i disable it, i lose the connection and it is "out of range". Very annoying as i live in a condo unit with 10 other wifi networks in my range. Would like to keep my netwrok as private as possible.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Click to expand...
change your hidden SSID to something super easy like abc123 just for testing then see if you can connect, if you connect then you are messing up something in your SSID like a space or a capitalized letter or something.
 
I was using a hidden SSID with my Droid just fine for months with an older linksys G router. I just upgraded to a new linksys N router, model E3000. I set the new router up identical to the old router, including the hidden SSID and all of a sudden my phone says out of range. I don't have an issue with 2 different laptops, just the Droid. I changed the SSID to be broadcast and all of a sudden it works great. Change it back to hidden and its out of range again. Has to be some compatibility issues for some router models I presume. Very frustrating.
 
I use a hidden SSID on my home network. The DX won't always automatically connect to it. What I've found seems to remedy the situation is to manually force it to connect. I went to the "Add WiFi network" selection under WiFi Settings. I then manually added my SSID including it's encryption type and password. When the DX didn't automatically connect to the SSID, I then went to "Manage Networks" under WiFi settings and clicked on the SSID I had previously added. It then connected to the network.

It's a bit of a work-around but it's much preferable to dealing with the slower 3G data rates.
 
Yes. Mine is hidden too. Just add it manually. And also make sure you dont have MAC filtering on. If you do, you will need to get into the router setup and add the mac address to the list before it will connect even if you have the SSID and Password.
 
SonicBoom said:
change your hidden SSID to something super easy like abc123 just for testing then see if you can connect, if you connect then you are messing up something in your SSID like a space or a capitalized letter or something.
Click to expand...
SSID cannot have spaces. ;) I type it fine, i quadrupled checked everything. Everything is set up fine, just won't connect when SSID isn't broadcast, enable broadcast and it connects immediately. So i know it's done right if it connects when broadcast, cause it wouldn't connect then either if something was typed wrong.

Just leaving SSID broadcasting for now. Hoping the next update to 2.2 will fix this. I have MAC address filtering on, but once again, set up right or i wouldn't be able to connect at all, whether SSID is broadcasting or not. Just doens't like my router i guess
 
So, this seems to be an interesting problem - I have found that with my hidden wireless network at home with my incredible, when I just turn on wifi it does not connect, but if I go into the wifi settings where it lists the networks and scroll down so that my network is on the screen. Then the phone sees the network and connects right to it - works most every time - don't know why!
 
Mine does the same thing, if I just turn on wifi it won't connect to the network, I have to go into wifi settings then it connects right away.

Last week on vacation at the hotel with a broadcast SSID it would connect automatically. I think it's an android issue, not phone specific.
 
I believe that your router is dual band make sure that wirelss g is enabled you can set up same security in both bands but I would change ssid a little to be able to connect your wireless n devices to proper band.
 
In my case the quick fix was to ensure that the ssid being entired was the same case as the one your router was broadcasting. Can you believe the stupid device was actually case-sensitive. When I entired my ssid on my droid the first character was being capitalized, switched it to lower case after giving myself a headache and it connected even though it was hidden.
 
I had to take my router out of mixed "N" mode. When I set it to 802.11 B & G mode only, my EVO 4G connects to my network, hidden or visible just fine. If I add in N mode, it craps out and says the network is out of range if it's hidden. It can only connect to "N" node when the ssid is visible. So, just set your router to "Mixed B & G Mode", hide your ssid, and you should be fine. Hope it work for everyone.
 
I had the same problem. Luckily I was a Senior Information Management specialist for Xerox so I know a few tricks from the old days before I became disabled. I had to go in and set up my new phone manually for my network, hence my coming across this thread.

First part for a hidden network is to unhide the network long enough for it to detect your device. Once that happens and you can connect to the network, go into your router, find the android device and set a manual static IP address for your device. Next, hid the network SSID.

Manually add the android device to your router using exactly what case and password you need. You should have the option of expanding the information that is required to include the static IP address that you assigned with the router, what kind of security you are using, and any other information it needs including the password in the expanded Wi-Fi setup on your android device.

Enjoy your device and happy computing to you all.
 
Hey guys,

I stumbled across the answer to this last night.

For some reason, if you select "show password" when you type it in, it works.

I did this because I knew I was typing the characters correctly. Just had a feeling that the combined ASCII value was somehow being changed when the password was hidden since it seems to affect certain devices in different ways.
This was reproducible and is probably a problem with the version of the OS. Please reply back and let me know if this worked for you too.
 
Solution, that worked for me:

1. Turn "broadcast SSID" on the router on.
2. Connect your Droid to the network.
3. Disconnect the Droid (turn off WiFi).
4. Turn "broadcast SSID" off (hide your network).
5. Turn on the WiFi on the Droid.
6. Find the SSID of your network in the list of WiFi networs on the droid (it will be saved there but will show it as "not available").
7. Click on the SSID and then "forget".
8. Now "add network" manually typing in the SSID and password.
9. Enjoy the hidden connection ;).

Android "remembers" all networks you have been connected to. If you connected to a visible network first and than have hidden it Android still has it in the list but marks it as a "not available" network. If you now try to add the hidden SSID you create a conflict: You are trying to connect Android to a network that is "not available" according to its list. It won't work.
 
I don't know if other devices have similar settings but I had the exact same issue with my Galaxy s8... my s4 had no issues.

I noticed that the s8 had an option for FT Key Management in the Advanced settings.

I could connect fine without this on if the SSID was broadcast, however as soon as I hid the SSID, my S4 connected fine but the S8 wouldn't connect.

With the FT Key Management option enabled, I could connect on my s8 with the ssid hidden.

I have a cisco cable modem gateway if that makes any difference too.


But after trying the process listed in the previous message, that too worked... so I may go with that going forward.



Legato said:
Anyone have a problem connecting to a network with a hidden SSID? My wife can connect to our router fine with her Droid INc (wireless N router). But i can't unless i enable broadcasting the SSID. I found the hidden SSID enabler app, and going to try that. If that doesn't work does anyone else have any ideas? If i enable SSID broadcast i connect right away. If i disable it, i lose the connection and it is "out of range". Very annoying as i live in a condo unit with 10 other wifi networks in my range. Would like to keep my netwrok as private as possible.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Click to expand...
 
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