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Help WiFi with exclamation point

nickdalzell

nickdalzell

Extreme Android User
Nexus 10 lollipop. Just this afternoon it decided to stop working with the internet until I rebooted. Before I did however the WiFi icon shows a tiny exclamation point inside it. Google being ever so vague what does it mean exactly? Can't find anything on it via search. Does it mean no Google servers? No internet? Bad router? It happened twice, once at a public WiFi and the next at home, both times it didn't matter if I forgot the network and reconnected it wouldn't let me online or lose the exclamation point unless I rebooted the tablet. Since this is the only device I own that has lollipop I can't state whether this is a device issue or not.

It looks like this but this is from an image I found online. White WiFi symbol with exclamation point.

 
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Lollipop checks a WiFi connections data before using it.

The exclamation point means that check was unsuccessful, and as you can see in the screenshot you then switch to mobile data if available.
 
Why reboot to fix? My internet at home was fine but I had to reboot to get the Nexus to connect through it.

Is this the lollipop equivalent to the error 'WiFi disabled because internet is too slow?'

There is no option to avoid poor connections under advanced WiFi settings
 
nickdalzell said:
Why reboot to fix? My internet at home was fine but I had to reboot to get the Nexus to connect through it.

Is this the lollipop equivalent to the error 'WiFi disabled because internet is too slow?'

There is no option to avoid poor connections under advanced WiFi settings
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It likely is pinging google servers to verify connectivity. Google also had some service issues today, so they may have been related.

You can read more about the feature here:
http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/1...-access-signal-icon-adds-a-for-no-connection/
 
Too bad the Nexus 10 was never available with LTE connectivity..

However I'm not liking the requirement to connect to Google or no internet. Google server connectivity is extremely hit or miss here, even via my hotspot modem. That means when I can't maintain connection to Google my Nexus won't go online period. My internet worked fine last night just my Nexus refused to connect either way.

I also wouldn't like my phone switching to my data plan if the WiFi has no connection to Google either and chew through my data plan. I seriously hope I can disable this 'feature'
 
Never had this issue on my N10, seen it on my N5 though but I've unlimited data so it's never concerned me.
 
When my G3 gets 5.0 what then? even with my Jetpack serving my internet with stable 4G LTE data, there are times Google refuses to cooperate (which in JB would mean my wifi turns orange or red) and that makes me concerned if it will default to 3G data or 1x (which is all my phone picks up without wifi) and bomb out. my smartphones and tablets refuse to use the 3G or 1x to get online and simply time out or say no connection. this would be very annoying if it does this just because it can't connect to Google, and would limit connectivity when my wifi would otherwise work fine. can this be turned off? even this morning my N10 did this three times trying to cast Play Movies content, and i had to reboot the tablet before it'd connect to my wifi again.

There doesn't appear to be an ability to untick this in advanced wifi settings. this reminds me of a very iffy feature Samsung used called Auto Network Switch. the catch being that Google doesn't provide the user the option to turn it off like Samsung does.
 
This could be a very bothering feature. If not fixed in the custom ROMs I may avoid 5.0 for a while.
 
Yeah. No Google? No WiFi. This reminds me of Auto Network Switch. Only you could disable that on a Samsung. This? Well I never cared if WiFi was offline anyway as I don't notice one or two minutes of no internet. So I wouldn't like it dropping to 1x and find out later i actually have no internet!
 
My issue with the exclamation mark? It will show up on me when I have both WiFi and Mobile Data disabled on my phone. I don't need it telling me it can't connect to the internet when I have deliberately shut off the connection.
 
It also doesn't say whether or not it's an Internet issue or a Google issue. Before the Orange color meant no Google, but Internet. All hollow meant no internet.

It's also very uninformative. I actually prefer fixing things and need to now the actual problem not just that 'error occurred'. It's just as vague as the little triangle with exclamation point warning light on my car. I know it is something wrong but what!?

Dumbing down sucks. So I guess we are expected to take computers in for service like cars too, eh?

At least in Windows 3.1 it told me what the error stemmed from or a code I could search online for.
 
nickdalzell said:
It also doesn't say whether or not it's an Internet issue or a Google issue. Before the Orange color meant no Google, but Internet. All hollow meant no internet.

It's also very uninformative. I actually prefer fixing things and need to now the actual problem not just that 'error occurred'. It's just as vague as the little triangle with exclamation point warning light on my car. I know it is something wrong but what!?

Dumbing down sucks. So I guess we are expected to take computers in for service like cars too, eh?

At least in Windows 3.1 it told me what the error stemmed from or a code I could search online for.
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All hallow meant not connected to WiFi. It trying to connect to google is it trying to establish whether or not there's an internet connection
 
Back in the day hollow meant connected but no internet. It would fill in when the Internet was up but be orange until connected to Google then turn blue. If it wouldn't connect to wifi at all the icon never showed up in the notification bar.
 
It seems today if it cannot connect to Google it disables Internet entirely or switches to data which would suck if the Internet works fine otherwise. In my fringe area connectivity to Google is very unreliable
 
nickdalzell said:
In my fringe area connectivity to Google is very unreliable
Click to expand...

I highly doubt that it's only Google connectivity that is poor, considering the redundant routing nature of IP packets and the fact that Google has multiple servers located worldwide. It's much more likely that your wifi connection simply crapped out, explaining why a reboot fixed it i.e. a new connection was established.
 
My internet goes through Verizon from a mobile hotspot. So if Verizon towers have issues with whatever IP address Google uses, it would explain a lot. It might also explain the issue where Google Now shows me 24 minutes from home after I'm already there.

Occasionally a similar issue plagues my Samsung devices. The exact message is 'your internet connection is unstable'. Result? It dumps the internet. The internet would work fine on my laptop, but the Samsung refused to see it. But the fix was simply turning WiFi off then back on. With the Nexus 10 I have to reboot. Simply turning the WiFi off then back on just makes it show the exclamation point inside a full icon.
 
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This is a huge problem for users in China. Glad my tablet has not updated, but my wife's did and now won't connect properly. In China, we have to start the VPN before anything Google works.
 
I have a nexus 7 with lollipop that connects fine to WiFi everywhere; and a nexus 10 with lollipop that connects to WiFi most places, but not at my home, where it shows the exclamation mark in the WiFi!
Both worked much better before the Lollipop 'upgrade'; can one remove Lollipop?
 
I have the same problem as wombdarkwolf, works perfectly everywhere expect when I'm on my home wifi. Actually, I can browse internet using Chrome without problem, but all google services and Facebook doesn't work. This doesn't happen with my other Android devices.
Any advice on how I can troubleshoot this?
 
Tried all the simple tips, like "forget" network, reboot phone, reboot modem. But what worked and so easy is turn phone off, take out sim card for 2 seconds put it back and turn phone on...PROBLEM SOLVED ;-)
 
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