WiFi problems - WEP protocol
 

Hello there;

First of all, I am a Maemo and N900 newbie, I just got this phone for 2 days.

Could anybody please help me with an annoying problem? On the office we have an WiFi network running under WEP protocol. I (and some of my buddies from the office) managed to connect on it laptops, phones (mainly Nokia E 66 - we had 3 phones like that, i upgraded to N900 but so far it seems to be a downgrade - , iPod touch and so on. The problem is i CANNOT connect the N900 to our network.

I tried these steps:
1) just find the network, don't add it, just try to write the key - message was "Internet connection failed. Unable to retrieve IP address from the server. WEP key may be incorrect. Try again? Y / N
2) create a new connection, used WEP protocol, wrote the key - same message.
3) that's a bit ridiculous but i already was too hyped - debiff the "auto IP" and "auto DNS", entered it manually some IP and DNS (checked if the IP was available in our network so I avoided the network conflict) - the message was "cannot open the page".

Also, may be a bit lame, but I also tried to manually enter the key, or write it in a SMS and copy / paste it into the field. Nothing.

I checked in the router - its a ZyXEL by the way - if there is any filtering going on. Nothing wrong, and, as i previously said, I managed to connect on the same network without any problem with a lot of other "gadgets". Plus, my N900's MAC is on DHCP list, it says "will expire in xx seconds", i have no idea why and if that's good or bad. I'm not into networks, but in my humble opinion its something like the router sees my phone but the phone cant connect to it.

Now, the other strange fact is at home I have also WiFi, but with WPA shared key. Last night, when I got the phone, went home, checked networks, found it, used the key and everything was just fine.

Could you be so kind and try to give me some solutions about how to solve the problem with the office connection?

Thank you very much.

The not-so-funny-thing is that I contacted Nokia Romania and their final answer was "please reset the router" after a 20 minutes conversation and after i gave 'em all the details i explained here, including the fact that i used the WiFi network with other devices without any trouble.

Re: WiFi problems - WEP protocol
 

Are you using the 10-char passphrase, or a 40/64-char hex key? I think the N900 expects the former - it's been a while, but that's what I believe I used on a WEP network.

Re: WiFi problems - WEP protocol
 

Have you tried to configure your home wifi as your workplace (including passphrase) wifi and reproduce issue?

Re: WiFi problems - WEP protocol
 

WEP protocol is so unprotected so why they ever used it in your workplace. Can you try the following thing, remove all other wlan connections from the internet connection settings and then connect to the AP again.

Re: WiFi problems - WEP protocol
 

Hi

To TA-t3:i used a 26 chars code like FE3F 87E5 [....] and also a 9 or 10 chars passphrase.

To slender: nope, a friend of mine installed it for me at my home, I am not into networking and had some issues while installing it, so I asked him for help. Thanks for your idea, I will set my home WiFi to WEP and try to recreate the situation from work at home.

To Walker: thats what I did yesterday, I had no connections at all in the internet connection settings, the failed connection was the first one to create, then when i came home I was lucky with my WiFi.

Re: WiFi problems - WEP protocol
 

Hello again;

I configured home WiFi as at work: WEP with 128 key. I cannot connect with my N900, error message is "Network connection error". Switched back to WPA, everything works fine.

Any idea how to make it work under WEP too? :-)

Thank you

Re: WiFi problems - WEP protocol
 

I have the similar problem on my university. There is no option for Shared - WEP. How can i solve this? Tnx

Re: WiFi problems - WEP protocol
 

My N900 has suddenly had this problem start happening today after no warning. I's been fine for the last 6 months that I've been using it.
Did anyone ever fix this?

Re: WiFi problems - WEP protocol
 

try to reboot both Router and Nokia N900.

Re: WiFi problems - WEP protocol
 

I have my linkys router with wep 128 encryption,

Only think i can think of is

A) possible mac address filters are preventing you from connection
b) incorrect signal being broadcast ie: n instead of b/g signals
c) using wrong mac address?

Most common mistakes

What router is your work using? Unfortunately I am only fimilar with linksys.

also make sure it is broadcasing right channel freq ie: 11/13 etc