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kriegaex avatar image
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kriegaex asked HannahGem-3459 answered

How to properly reset Windows 10 Mobile Hotspot if devices can no longer get internet connection?

I use Windows 10 Mobile Hotspot (W10MH) in order to share my WiFi connection with an Android 8 device. This works nicely. But sometimes, after the PC loses its connection and needs to re-authenticate in order to enter the WiFi again, the Android client can easily connect and get an IP via DHCP, but always says that it cannot connect to the internet despite the connection to the hotspot. I tried the following things in order to isolate the problem, all to no avail:

  • Deactivate and reactivate WiFi on the smartphone

  • Forget the connection details on the smartphone and reconnect anew to the W10MH

  • Reboot the smartphone

  • Deactivate and reactivate W10MH on the PC

  • Deactivate and reactivate the WiFi adapter on the PC

  • Deactivate and reactivate the MS WiFi Direct Virtual Adapter

None of these can solve the problem. The only thing that works is to reboot the PC, which is simply too costly and overkill, if I have to do it almost every day. I have lots of development tools and browser tabs open (16 GB RAM) and am usually in the middle of work when this happens. Normally, I only reboot the computer every few weeks, it is always on.

What I need is a solution to permit my smartphone to reconnect to the W10MH without rebooting the whole machine. Like I said above, the problem is not the smartphone, because even a smartphone reboot does not have any effect. Only a Windows reboot helps, i.e. it must be something on the Windows side which keeps clients from connecting (or at least from getting internet access after a successful WiFi connection to the W10MH).



Update: Here is the event protocol (Windows event log) of a seemingly successful connection from the Android device to the W10MH. But still, the device says "connected, but maybe there is no internet connection" or similar. This is true. The mobile device has a DHCP IP and is connected to W10MH, but cannot access the internet. I tested this by deactivating the mobile network in order to avoid that the device uses it in order to bypass the broken WiFi connection.

121344-wifi-client-login.xml

It would be good to have a way to reset whatever blocks the mobile device from connecting to the W10MH.



Update 2: I asked some visitors to try and connect with Android and iOS devices. They all see the same phenomenon: WiFi connection successful, but no internet access. So the problem really must be somewhere in the part of the network stack which routes through data from my PC to the connected W10MH clients. Something might be off with bridging, routing or DNS pass-through, I have no idea.



windows-10-generalwindows-10-network
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can i ask YOU a question; you seem to be very learned in the networking field; i've ignorantly messed with the network settings on my laptop (I don't know what exactly i must have done) and now my mobile hotspot refuses to connect to my iPhone. It's discoverable but won't connect. It's not my phone cause it is connecting to other hotspot connections.

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HannahGem-3459 avatar image
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HannahGem-3459 answered

Resetting your mobile hotspot to let others connect on your hot spot is not easy if it is your first time doing it. I had the same problem before but here's how I fixed it. Use ReiBoot for Android to fix Metro Hotspot Not Working


I hope this will help a lot of people too, just the way it helped me with my problems.

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francescoperfetto-9416 avatar image
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francescoperfetto-9416 answered francescoperfetto-9416 commented

Hi, go to the network settings of the smartphone and try to assign the dns manually, 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 or try to rollback the wi-fi driver of the PC.
If your PC uses third-party Firewall / Antivirus, try to uninstall it temporarily, alternatively use the native Windows one.

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Thanks for the idea to modify the DNS servers, but:

  1. The problem does not go away changing any smartphone settings, but only when rebooting Windows 10. So maybe from that you can conclude that client-side changes will not help much. Maybe you have another suggestion after re-reading my inquiry.

  2. My DNS2 is 8.8.4.4 already by default, only DNS1 is from the Windows hotspot DHCP address range. So I guess, the change is not going to help much because if the local DNS is not working, the Android phone would use a Google DNS server as a fall-back anyway. Next time the problem occurs, I am going to try anyway and provide feedback here. Actually, I kept the Windows PC running for days in order to be able to reproduce the problem, but then, after no good answers arrived here, I decided to reboot in order to get my phone back online.


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As I have already suggested to you, I would try to roll back the wi-fi driver of the PC. A different version of the wi-fi driver may have been installed following the latest Windows update.

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Spigolo-3573 avatar image
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Spigolo-3573 answered kriegaex commented

Hi @kriegaex

Mine is not an answer but a question:
why don't you connect your Android phone directly to your modem/router?

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The question is off-topic, but no problem, I can answer it: I pay for the WiFi connection in my apartment building, and only one device is allowed to connect, but tethering is allowed. Some people buy extra routers, but for me this has never been necessary for the last few years. But since one of the latest Windows updates, I am having this reconnection issue with W10MH.

Anyway, please let us not make this a lengthy off-topic discussion. I asked a specific question and wish to discuss solutions for my problem. I am a computer scientist, not a noob too stupid to connect his smartphone to a WiFi hotspot. Thank you.

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SSengupta-4080 avatar image
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SSengupta-4080 answered kriegaex commented
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Thanks for trying to help me, but the answer is irrelevant for my problem. I have no general problem connecting to W10MH, but the very specific reconnection problem I described. That StackOverflow question is about something else.

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