Touch wifi (adhoc) would not connect,

[mengo]

... Hello everybody,

I'm a proud new owner of a Kobo Touch ereader. Got mine from Saturn (in Germany) for 49 € and I'm very impressed with the look and feel and reading experience so far.

...it's been discussed time and again but there still seems to be a huge problem with WiFi connectivity from what I read on the forums.
I'm posting a new thread because I never did find an answer how to get connected over WiFi. Already in the store where I bought my device I noticed that Kobos aren't really user friendly when it comes to wireless. None of the Kobos (touch mini and glo) seemed to be able to connect to the store's WiFi (both to the unsecured and the one with a WEP password), and all the others (sony, kindle, trek etc.) had no problem at all connecting.
I couldn't connect to my home Ad-Hoc WiFi either. With or without password protection (WEP and WPA2), with or without firewall on.
The latest firmware installed without problem and book transfer works via cable.
I tried the trick where you have to reset and do a factory reset but even so it wouldn't connect.
I also tried manually entering the network details but instead of unable to join, it says: incorrect login. Everytime and it's correct (case sensitive).
Making an Access point from my Android phone gives the "something went wrong" (WHAT WENT WRONG AND WHY???)
Any thoughts? Maybe it's because I'm using ad-hoc and not a real rooter? Maybe I should try an older Firmware, or mess with some of the files on the device?
Is it the WiFi frequency (US/ Euro - standarts??)- can I change the frequency channel somehow?

I really wish the developers addressed this problem as it's the main thing people complain about since the older firmwares




Update: using my Android's AP - I managed to start the browser and connect for 5 seconds. google search loads but right after you type a search it asks you to reconnect. If you do the next link loads and then the reconnect menu comes again.
The funny thing is with the browser opened on a page it also WORKS with my ad-hoc network, it says error but you can clearly see behind the flickering that the next webpage loads.... if this isn't due to faulty software I don't know what is!?

Please fix it!!!

[Mutisk]

I believe it works like this:
1) Wifi is activated.
2) Kobo device tries to 'phone home' or test the connection by accessing an url
3) If there is no reply, or a refused connection it decides the connection is useless and shuts down the wireless.

In my opinion this is a serious bug, because wireless should work even if their site is not reachable. For example when you have a captive-dns solution that's popular in hotels. You buy a username and password to enter on their web page portal before getting access to the outer network(internet).

Kobo Mini:
2.8.1:
No plugins or files necessary:
Steps to reproduce:

1. Attempt to connect with a wifi accesspoint that does not give internet access.

Current result: Wifi is disconnected prematurely
Workaround: None currently


You can simulate or test this by unplugging the uplink cable on a home router, you should notice a longer delay while the connection times out. If you work reasonable quick then you'll be able to verify that the device has gotten an ip address and is responding to pings. But when it finally the "something went wrong" is displayed the wifi radio is shut down.

[davidfor]

According to https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=182846, it actually trying to contact http://www.apple.com/library/test/success.html. And https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=202388 gives some more details and a workaround.

[Mutisk]

Thanks for that information Davidfor. I managed now to work around the problem by re-directing the url to http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt

If this url is called with the http-headers from the Kobo Mini, it will generate this following reply.

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: 14
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2013 00:02:16 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Type: text/plain
Cache-Control: max-age=30, must-revalidate

Microsoft NCSI

This can be served trough netcat if one can live with not accessing any other page on that host. To always have this open, I settled for a script loop, but I suppose inetd is more elegant and less likely to blow up in a busy loop.

while true; do nc -p 80 -l < /root/ncsi.txt; done&

[mengo]

Thanks for the replies but I have no idea what you just said.

I wouldn't even know where to begin searching in order to try to understand as my knowledge of everything linux is nonexistent.

So in order to get WiFi working if I got you correctly I need to somehow root my device, install mongoose (couldn't find anything on it though), modify the correct files, add suggested script.

And I guess there isn't an "easy way", without rooting


With this the prospect of Internet on my KT steadily approaches zero. : (

[Mutisk]

I got to admit I'm a bit confused now to what 'ad-hoc' refers to. My initial impression was a computer-to-computer setup, but since you mention internet on it I presume some kind of configuration or protocol is involved to point to a gateway? The Kobo is being configured by DHCP alone so you would have to work from that.

As soon a wireless connection is established, my device issues a GET request of the url I mentioned (Others have reported an apple url so it might vary.) Even when this fails, I have internet on the device briefly and this seemed very similar to the behaviour you described in the update about using your android's access point.

I don't know about mongoose. I could get by with nc (netcat) only.

You do not have to root or hack the device if you have control over the network node it connects to. But neither that or hacking the device are trivial solutions in my opinion. If you want to learn, getting familiar with Wireshark is a good starting point.

[mengo]

By WiFi ad-hoc i mean the simplest way of sharing your internet connection through a laptop that has a direct connection to the router via lan. No special protocols or anything.
I thought it could be an issue since android smartphones are officially restricted to not to see ad-hoc wifi networks and even rooted have issues connecting to such.

[Mutisk]

That is not ad-hoc wireless networking. Just call it a regular wireless connection and add 'to a home router/accesspoint' if you wish to be more specific.

Ad-hoc in networking is a technical term and most often means absence of infrastructure (like routers).

[PeterT]

I've tried today the basic Microsoft Windows/7 WiFi AdHoc and will admit, I too had no luck getting it to work.

HOWEVER, I did install and try Connectify HotSpot Lite and it works like a charm!

[mengo]

Hey thanks, this works by me too!

[Bob Brunius]

Originally Posted by Mutisk

Thanks for that information Davidfor. I managed now to work around the problem by re-directing the url to http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt

My KOBO H2O is looking for the www.msftncsi.txt page. I created that response from my node.js server and the WiFi now connects to my adhoc hotspot. I had been trying the other Apple "success" response which wasn't working. -- Thanks