Is there any known issue with Kindle and not finding wifi access?

Richy_T · 08-10-2017, 02:21 AM

Very weird thing happened today. I was attending a group meeting and I had prepared a modified version of a kindle weather station hack on a Kindle Touch to act as a display during the meeting. The app was running for three days at home with no issues. Not long before I left for the meeting, I realized that I wouldn't have access to my home wifi at the meeting over 40 miles away (d'oh) so I set the kindle up to access the hotspot on my phone and tested and everything was OK.

So I arrive at the meeting and turn my hotspot on and... The kindle is not connecting. In fact, when I go into the wifi menu, it scans and detect there being *no* wifi access points despite my phone being one, the restaurant having one and there being several other access points detectable by my phone in the region. I rebooted a couple of times including a couple of full hold-down-the-power-buttin reboots but the same thing. Eventually I gave up (not a biggie, I was just trying to show off).

So after the meeting, I drive the 40 miles home, check the kindle and there is the full list of local hotspots. Within minutes, I'm connected to my home one and the pseudo-weather app is updating again.

So I'm wondering what happened. I am wondering if perhaps there was an overwhelming radio signal that blocked out all the hotspots on the Kindle. Seems unlikely as the phone was picking up plenty but a couple of people were having trouble with the restaurant free access and this was in a fairly busy downtown area. Other alternatives I can think of could be too many local hotspots causing trouble (seems I would have heard about that by now though) or something weird in an SSID causing issues. Or maybe my kindle was just going crazy for an hour.

Before anyone suggests this should be in the developer thread because of the weather thing, I believe that is completely unrelated to the issue so I am posting it here.

Edit: I dug into the logs and I have to work out how to interpret the timestamps but I see that there are a lot of errors that look like this probably around the time that this was occurring:

Code:

150331:151730 wifid[7029]: W iw:scan:blen=8192:insufficient buffer
150331:151730 wifid[7029]: W iw:scan:blen=16384:insufficient buffer
150331:151730 wifid[7029]: W iw:scan:blen=32768:insufficient buffer

I also see some of this error. Was my kindle simply too hot and it refused to turn wifi on?

Code:

170809:152806 kernel: I papyrus:TempExceeded:temp=29:

That seems a little low to be cutting off wifi but...

HarryT · 08-10-2017, 03:41 AM

Whatever the cause, it seems to have been something environmental, given that it was fine when you went home again. I've not heard any previous reports of this happening, but it's certainly conceivable that the Kindle would shut its WiFi down in excessive temperatures.

knc1 · 08-10-2017, 06:59 AM

You figured out how to read the time stamps?
"150331:151730"
That is: YYMMDD:HHMMSS
Or: 17 and a half minutes past 3 in the afternoon of March 31, 2015

Either your a bit slow in reporting the problem, or there is more than one thing wrong with your device's configuration.

I would vote for PEBCAK, recheck your own work.

Note:
It is very common for meeting places to suppress Wifi communications.

HarryT · 08-10-2017, 07:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by knc1

Note:
It is very common for meeting places to suppress Wifi communications.

But the OP's phone could see the WiFi networks.

knc1 · 08-10-2017, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

But the OP's phone could see the WiFi networks.

And the OP did not provide any technical information on his on-site troubleshooting.

For instance -
If the OP did:

Code:

iwlist wlan0 scan

on the Kindle and the equivalent on the 'phone (whatever brand/model that happened to be) the information was not included in the post.

And yes, the iwlist command is included in the Kindle fiirmware (it is where the list of Wifi APs comes from).

So I can't consider what he might have seen on an unknown cell phone under unknown conditions as significant (and neither should the OP if his troubleshooting was limited to what he posted).

HarryT · 08-10-2017, 09:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by knc1

And yes, the iwlist command is included in the Kindle fiirmware (it is where the list of Wifi APs comes from).

Does it not simply duplicate the list that's given on the "Connect to WiFi" page, in that case?

Richy_T · 08-10-2017, 11:19 AM

PEBCAK might be reasonable but unfortunately there was no keyboard available to do any debugging since I was mobile. Just my phone. And, of course, my attention was supposed to be elsewhere. The restaurant had its own wifi and the meeting was casual so definitely no deliberate corporate signal suppression. (Phones were working fine too)

knc1, you are correct about the timestamps and I realized that a bit later. I was thrown off by the date being wrong and I have worked with systems with non-standard timestamps before. I twigged a bit later but unfortunately, it's so far out, it becomes complicated. Doubly so because I did change the time to be correct at one point in case that was causing the issue (I don't believe there's an easy way to change the date from the UI).

I'm running with the temperature being high at the moment. I'll do some experimenting to see if I can repeat the issue. 29C is only 84F though so that seems a bit low to be cutting off wifi.

HarryT · 08-10-2017, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richy_T

knc1, you are correct about the timestamps and I realized that a bit later. I was thrown off by the date being wrong and I have worked with systems with non-standard timestamps before. I twigged a bit later but unfortunately, it's so far out, it becomes complicated. Doubly so because I did change the time to be correct at one point in case that was causing the issue (I don't believe there's an easy way to change the date from the UI).

The date's set when you sync with Amazon's servers. The time can be set from the GUI.

Cinisajoy · 08-10-2017, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richy_T

PEBCAK might be reasonable but unfortunately there was no keyboard available to do any debugging since I was mobile. Just my phone. And, of course, my attention was supposed to be elsewhere. The restaurant had its own wifi and the meeting was casual so definitely no deliberate corporate signal suppression. (Phones were working fine too)

knc1, you are correct about the timestamps and I realized that a bit later. I was thrown off by the date being wrong and I have worked with systems with non-standard timestamps before. I twigged a bit later but unfortunately, it's so far out, it becomes complicated. Doubly so because I did change the time to be correct at one point in case that was causing the issue (I don't believe there's an easy way to change the date from the UI).

I'm running with the temperature being high at the moment. I'll do some experimenting to see if I can repeat the issue. 29C is only 84F though so that seems a bit low to be cutting off wifi.

My house is set at slightly less than that and even then devices get hot at times.

Strange question,
Did you leave the wifi on while driving to this meeting?
You did say others were having problems too. I vote for environment being the cause.
If we were talking old fashioned radio signals, my guess would be interference. Too many slightly different frequencies in a small space. Rather like when two radio stations overlap and you get garble. Happened more on AM than FM and analog rather than digital.
I am sure if my theory isn't plausible, someone will let me know.

Richy_T · 08-10-2017, 01:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

The date's set when you sync with Amazon's servers. The time can be set from the GUI.

Interesting. I wonder why that's going awry then. The battery had gone flat the night before but it had been up, charging and displaying stuff from my web server for about an hour before I left for the meeting. Perhaps it only auto-syncs when the kindle is in screensaver mode (which I had disabled)

I don't really understand why the time is not set from the servers. I mean, it would be trivial to add a timezone setting. That's another issue though...

Richy_T · 08-10-2017, 01:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

My house is set at slightly less than that and even then devices get hot at times.

Strange question,
Did you leave the wifi on while driving to this meeting?
You did say others were having problems too. I vote for environment being the cause.
If we were talking old fashioned radio signals, my guess would be interference. Too many slightly different frequencies in a small space. Rather like when two radio stations overlap and you get garble. Happened more on AM than FM and analog rather than digital.
I am sure if my theory isn't plausible, someone will let me know.

Yeah. I basically turned my hotspot on to set it up ready then turned it off and drove to the meeting. The A/C on my car does not get things really cool anymore so it's possible it got that warm. We're seeing high 80s days currently. The restaurant should have been cooler but I guess if the wifi was running, the chips could have stayed hot.

I'll definitely try again next meeting (though I'm hoping to get it in a frame and hung on the wall) and if I get chance this afternoon, I'll wander outside and see what happens when it gets warmer. I'll also try and work out allowing it to suspend when I don't need it to display anything.

Cinisajoy · 08-10-2017, 01:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richy_T

Yeah. I basically turned my hotspot on to set it up ready then turned it off and drove to the meeting. The A/C on my car does not get things really cool anymore so it's possible it got that warm. We're seeing high 80s days currently. The restaurant should have been cooler but I guess if the wifi was running, the chips could have stayed hot.

I'll definitely try again next meeting (though I'm hoping to get it in a frame and hung on the wall) and if I get chance this afternoon, I'll wander outside and see what happens when it gets warmer. I'll also try and work out allowing it to suspend when I don't need it to display anything.

By 4pm we are supposed to be at 96.
The reason I asked was maybe the wifi was caught in a loop.
Idea for next time. If it doesn't find a wifi, restart/reboot the device either with the menu or long press on the power button.

Richy_T · 08-10-2017, 01:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

By 4pm we are supposed to be at 96.
The reason I asked was maybe the wifi was caught in a loop.
Idea for next time. If it doesn't find a wifi, restart/reboot the device either with the menu or long press on the power button.

I did restarts a few times, including long presses and from the menu.

It looks like the only temperature available from lipc is the battery temperature so I guess I'll make that show on the display so I can see if it cuts out when it gets warm. Though it might maintain an existing connection so maybe I should delete the house one first and mess with the phone one.

Edit: Hmm, seems battTemperature is not available on the touch.
Edit2: Looks like I can get it from /sys/devices maybe. Though it appears to be in F (no biggie)

Cinisajoy · 08-10-2017, 01:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richy_T

I did restarts a few times, including long presses and from the menu.

It looks like the only temperature available from lipc is the battery temperature so I guess I'll make that show on the display so I can see if it cuts out when it gets warm. Though it might maintain an existing connection so maybe I should delete the house one first and mess with the phone one.

Since it works in the house, try another location before deleting anything.
The house wifi doesn't mess with anything else.
I can connect my devices several places. My mom's wifi doesn't show up here but if I take a device to her house and log in, the device remembers so I can just tap wifi on the next visit a year later. Except in one spot in her house. It gets no reception either wifi or cell.

It sounds like you might have been in a dead zone.

Richy_T · 08-10-2017, 02:23 PM

Definitely not a dead zone. Busy area with, if nothing else, my phone hotspot inches away.

It does occur to me that amongst other things running on battery would also likely raise the temperature some (though the kindle is by no means a power hog).

My concern with the home wifi is that it would keep the wifi connection up when what I experienced was going from wifi to no wifi to wifi again. I want to try and recreate that. So I'll tell it to drop the home wifi, connect to phone wifi, go outside and then drop and raise phone wifi once it gets good and warm. I guess I could throw it in the car for good measure.

08-10-2017, 02:21 AM	#1
Richy_T Member Posts: 17 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2017 Device: kindles of all kinds	Is there any known issue with Kindle and not finding wifi access? Very weird thing happened today. I was attending a group meeting and I had prepared a modified version of a kindle weather station hack on a Kindle Touch to act as a display during the meeting. The app was running for three days at home with no issues. Not long before I left for the meeting, I realized that I wouldn't have access to my home wifi at the meeting over 40 miles away (d'oh) so I set the kindle up to access the hotspot on my phone and tested and everything was OK. So I arrive at the meeting and turn my hotspot on and... The kindle is not connecting. In fact, when I go into the wifi menu, it scans and detect there being no wifi access points despite my phone being one, the restaurant having one and there being several other access points detectable by my phone in the region. I rebooted a couple of times including a couple of full hold-down-the-power-buttin reboots but the same thing. Eventually I gave up (not a biggie, I was just trying to show off). So after the meeting, I drive the 40 miles home, check the kindle and there is the full list of local hotspots. Within minutes, I'm connected to my home one and the pseudo-weather app is updating again. So I'm wondering what happened. I am wondering if perhaps there was an overwhelming radio signal that blocked out all the hotspots on the Kindle. Seems unlikely as the phone was picking up plenty but a couple of people were having trouble with the restaurant free access and this was in a fairly busy downtown area. Other alternatives I can think of could be too many local hotspots causing trouble (seems I would have heard about that by now though) or something weird in an SSID causing issues. Or maybe my kindle was just going crazy for an hour. Before anyone suggests this should be in the developer thread because of the weather thing, I believe that is completely unrelated to the issue so I am posting it here. Edit: I dug into the logs and I have to work out how to interpret the timestamps but I see that there are a lot of errors that look like this probably around the time that this was occurring: Code: 150331:151730 wifid[7029]: W iw:scan:blen=8192:insufficient buffer 150331:151730 wifid[7029]: W iw:scan:blen=16384:insufficient buffer 150331:151730 wifid[7029]: W iw:scan:blen=32768:insufficient buffer I also see some of this error. Was my kindle simply too hot and it refused to turn wifi on? Code: 170809:152806 kernel: I papyrus:TempExceeded:temp=29: That seems a little low to be cutting off wifi but... Last edited by Richy_T; 08-10-2017 at 02:45 AM.

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08-10-2017, 03:41 AM	#2
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	Whatever the cause, it seems to have been something environmental, given that it was fine when you went home again. I've not heard any previous reports of this happening, but it's certainly conceivable that the Kindle would shut its WiFi down in excessive temperatures.

08-10-2017, 06:59 AM	#3
knc1 Going Viral Posts: 17,212 Karma: 18210809 Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Central Texas Device: No K1, PW2, KV, KOA	You figured out how to read the time stamps? "150331:151730" That is: YYMMDD:HHMMSS Or: 17 and a half minutes past 3 in the afternoon of March 31, 2015 Either your a bit slow in reporting the problem, or there is more than one thing wrong with your device's configuration. I would vote for PEBCAK, recheck your own work. Note: It is very common for meeting places to suppress Wifi communications.

08-10-2017, 11:19 AM	#7
Richy_T Member Posts: 17 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2017 Device: kindles of all kinds	PEBCAK might be reasonable but unfortunately there was no keyboard available to do any debugging since I was mobile. Just my phone. And, of course, my attention was supposed to be elsewhere. The restaurant had its own wifi and the meeting was casual so definitely no deliberate corporate signal suppression. (Phones were working fine too) knc1, you are correct about the timestamps and I realized that a bit later. I was thrown off by the date being wrong and I have worked with systems with non-standard timestamps before. I twigged a bit later but unfortunately, it's so far out, it becomes complicated. Doubly so because I did change the time to be correct at one point in case that was causing the issue (I don't believe there's an easy way to change the date from the UI). I'm running with the temperature being high at the moment. I'll do some experimenting to see if I can repeat the issue. 29C is only 84F though so that seems a bit low to be cutting off wifi.

08-10-2017, 02:23 PM	#15
Richy_T Member Posts: 17 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2017 Device: kindles of all kinds	Definitely not a dead zone. Busy area with, if nothing else, my phone hotspot inches away. It does occur to me that amongst other things running on battery would also likely raise the temperature some (though the kindle is by no means a power hog). My concern with the home wifi is that it would keep the wifi connection up when what I experienced was going from wifi to no wifi to wifi again. I want to try and recreate that. So I'll tell it to drop the home wifi, connect to phone wifi, go outside and then drop and raise phone wifi once it gets good and warm. I guess I could throw it in the car for good measure.

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