Temperamental wifi on UX and solution tips
 

As most of us UX50 know, the built in wifi on this unit doesn't always work. Many of you, including myself, have been victim to the dreaded "Invalid Network Settings" message from netfront. The UX50 connects fine to the router, but Netfront/Webpro hangs and finally returns the above error message. This appears to be a DNS error of some type.

There have been many threads regarding this error. Apparently Sony tech support has been utterly useless in either recognizing this problem, or being able to suggest some type of workable solution.

From my experience in dealing with this problem, i believe that it is not just a problem from the UX50's side, but also a wireless router problem. We all use many different brands of wireless routers, some with more success than others. Peronally i am using a D-Link DI-614+. The router works well, but the range is somewhat poor.

Some folks have suggested that this is possibly a DHCP problem, and to assign your UX50 a static IP. Sinse we all use different routers, i am not going to get into how to do this from the router side, but to enter the IP and DNS values manually on the UX50 you:

(This is assuming that you have already scanned for your router's SSID and selected it.)

1. go to prefs
2. select "Network" from the pulldown menu
3. hit the "Details" button
4. Highlight the SSID from the list that you would like to edit
5. Hit the menu button the far right of the screen, or tap in the upper left hand corner.
6. Hit edit
7. Under "IP address" the DHCP button should be selected. Unselect it and it will bring up the IP Address screen.
8. IP Address: the static address you or your router assigned.
9. Netmask: Should be assigned already
10 Router: IP Address of your router. You should know this from setting up your router.
11. Primary and secondary DNS: These should be the IP address of your router aswell.


Another solution that i had success with is to unplug your router, wait a minute and then plug it back in. This doesn't seem like it would work, but it does. Also, doing a soft reset or even a hard reset sometimes will correct the problem.

Folks have also had problems with disabling their SSID broadcasting. Personally for me it does not work. MAC filtering apparently is incomptible with the UX50 aswell.

If i have made any errors, or anyone has any other fixes to add, please let us know. I don't claim to be and expert on networking, but i'm no novice either.

Hopefully there will be a newer version of Netfront released soon, and perhaps it will address this issue.

Hope this helps. Cheers.

MAC filtering should work with the UX50. I have mine on, and everything seems to work fine.

MAC filtering can work fine with the UX50, as can dynamic IP addresses. I use both 100% of the time at home. I still get the invalid network settings problem often enough to get frustrated, though. Also, when downloading email in ClieMail, I will almost always get a fatal reset sometime in the middle of the download process. Only happens over WiFi, not when using Bluetooth to my GPRS phone.

As a possible clue, I've noticed that after connecting via WiFi and checking the network settings, sometimes there is a awful lot of whitespace (several lines worth) at the front of the DNS server IP address. No whitespace on the local IP address, net mask, or default router address. I don't think my DHCP server is inserting this whitespace (though that's on my to-do list to check), so I wonder if the UX50 is having trouble parsing the DHCP reply?

Stephen

There are two errors in the original post.

Error 1. DNS _NEVER_ assigns a "static" IP address. By definition, _ANY_ IP address assigned by DNS is "dynamic". Also, manually assigning a STATIC IP that is in the address pool used by the network's DNS server to a device on that network is asking the network to to be unreliable and inconsistant in its failures.

Error 2. MAC address filtering works with the UX50. If this fails on a certain network, it is unlikely that the UX50 is at fault. The logic for deciding if a device is allowed or not is in the AP, and that is where the greatest chance of a bug lies.

With respect to DNS problems, it is _possible_ that the UX50's networking services have difficulty in changing IP address when the lease on a dynamic IP address expires. I have had no problems with the DNS supplied dynamic IP address on my network, but my DNS server (in my SMC 7004AWBR AP, Router, Firewall, Switch, PrintServer device) is set to have very long leases and its possible that I haven't encountered a lease expiration yet. If you think you've encountered a lease problem and want to test a static IP number, don't use one belonging to the DNS server's dynamic pool. With my SMC AP device, doing this creates separate issues with its firewall leaving the static device able to see internal resources (printers, fileservers, ...) but unable to see through the firewall to the internet.

With respect to MAC address filtering, the only problem that I've encountered on the WiFi branch of my net (to date one Win98 notebook, 4 Mac PowerBooks, and one UX50) that relates to MAC address filtering has been my own bad eyesight and slight dislexia. Once I finially get the number entered correctly I never encounter problems.

Wifi is torture
 

I still can't get wireless at home. At a friend's home, no problem. Linksys works great. 2Wire is hopeless. I have tried every solution 2Wire has given me except to call Sony - I've already been down that garden path.

Perhaps the answer is to get a new router/DSL modem.

DNS vs DHCP
 

DWIG,
I think you mean DHCP (Dynamic Host Control Protocol)

and not DNS (Domain Name Service)

-Oliver

I believe I mentioned my typing problems... :-) Actually, my brain tripped on the original post's use of "static" with reference to DNS. My bad!

My original comments do apply the DHCP and butg not to DNS.

The DNS supplied number is not the IP number that your UX50 is using for itself. It is, instead, the IP address of the Dynamic Name Server itself and all machines on that same net, or sub-net, will generally be using the same server and would, therefore, be set to the same number. If you get the DNS number wrong and recieve the "Invalid Network Settings" message, you should try to browse a web site using that site's IP address instead of its name. If the number works and the name fails, your UX50 does not have the correct IP address of the name server, the DNS address.

When you "ask" for a URL by name, the DNS server finds the correct IP number for the site. The site is then accessed by number. When the server's IP is incorrect, or missing, the server is not found and the "Invalid Network Settings" message will appear.

I had problems initially, but once I got everything straight, and then tightened security with the non-broadcast SSID, and WEP settings, everything has been fine since then...

I guess the problems with SSID broadcasting, and MAC filtering are router specific. Having SSID broadcasting turned off definitely does not work for me.

I have tried for two weeks with all possible combinations of settings that I can find on many threads with no luck. I can ping the router and the UX50, I can ping www.yahoo.com by ip number only, but I get an error when I use the ip name. Does this mean that I don't have the DNS server put in the clie settings right?

I use a Dell 1184 router both at word and at home and I'm hoping that I can move between the two seamlessly, but I'm losing a lot of sleep and battery life trying to figure this out. BTW, I have been able to sync wifi and BT without any troubles.

quichelorraine, the problem that you describe does sound like a DNS problem. It sounds like you are able to talk tcpip but you can't resolve DNS addresses.

quichelorraine - That is the exact same problem that i was having with my UX50 when i was trying to get it to work with a D-Link 802.11 range extender. I did a hard reset on my clie (after i hotsynced of coarse) and then unplugged my router, waited a mintue, and plugged it back in. After that, it started working again fine. This is defenitely a "Can't resolve DNS" problem. If you do this and it still does not work. Try assigning a static IP to your clie, and input the settings manually. The primary and secondary DNS servers should be the IP of your router. Hope this helps.

P.S. I never did get it working with the range extender, but it works fine with my router. I guess i'll just have to move the router to a more centralized location.

Invalid Network Settings
 

I got an Invalid Network Settings while in the Panera cafe. It is very annoying getting that message. I have no wifi at home and the only place that I have tried wifi access is at Panera. Being a new user of the UX-50, it does not make me too happy having gotten this this otherwise nifty machine. Based on what others have stated, does this mean therefore that I have a DNS Query problem?

When I click on status, I can see the primary and secondary DNS IP's. Should I add those therefore to the primary and secondary DNS under the unchecked Query DNS and that should clear up my problem?

It works fine using Bluetooth. A little too slow to make everyday practical use.

Mike

with all this complaining of wifi errors, im not sure whether to get it now. along with the battery thread complaining. is there any wifi router yall recommend? any solution to this wifi problem? and is every one screen have that tilt problem, and whats up with whinning scrren?

No screen whining. No battery issues. No screen tilt. Just a little prob with wifi, which is corrected now by the way.