Nexus 7 wifi connectivity problem

August 22, 2012 11:37 AM

I got them ol' wifi blues: I took the plunge and bought a Nexus 7, primarily to use for reading textbooks. While it works great on my home wifi, at school, it is unable to connect (apparently Jelly Bean and enterprise wifi don't play nice). Can you help me identify what's causing the problem and fix it?

My Nexus 7 is running Android 4.1.1 (Jelly Bean). According to Google, it works with 802.11 b/g/n wifi.

My college's network says it will respond to either 802.11b or 802.11g devices. Here is their extremely annoying wifi info site which manages to provide lots of text and hardly any information at all.

Here's what happens when I try to log in: I put in my username and password and the device will say "Connecting" for quite a while until it eventually says "Authentication Problem".

I took it to the helpdesk here on campus and the person there said, basically, that they've just noticed an issue with Android devices running Jelly Bean not being able to connect to their wifi (and apparently other enterprise wifi networks), and as far as they can tell, at this point, there's nothing they can do about it.

I'm also going to be calling the Nexus 7 helpline, but any help y'all can give in identifying the cause or a solution to my problem would be great.

posted by ocherdraco to computers & internet (8 answers total)

We need more data here.. My Nexus 7 logs in my my company's enterprise wifi just fine.

PEAP
MSCHAPv2
Identity: [e-mail]
pass: corporate password
posted by LeanGreen at 11:50 AM on August 22, 2012

What kind of more information do you need? I'd be happy to provide if I can find it.
posted by ocherdraco at 12:00 PM on August 22, 2012

Have you tried http://bc-wifi.brooklyn.cuny.edu/pdf/WiFi_Android.pdf it sounds obvious but maybe you missed it?
posted by ElliotH at 12:33 PM on August 22, 2012

Here's a bug report that sounds relevant.
posted by holgate at 12:35 PM on August 22, 2012

Consensus on XDA is that this is a JB bug.

You might have luck playing with settings on this app.
posted by damn dirty ape at 12:48 PM on August 22, 2012

Alas, the instructions in that PDF don't seem to help (though the helpdesk guy didn't give me that info about the EAP method and Phase 2 authentication, so thanks for that).

dda, I'll try that app when I can.
posted by ocherdraco at 12:50 PM on August 22, 2012

Unfortunately, you may need to wait for google to deliver the first update to fix this. I'm sure they are aware of this. 8021X is a common thing. I wonder if this is vendor based and escaped their testing.
posted by damn dirty ape at 1:23 PM on August 22, 2012

Well, I've at least figured out ways to use the tablet for its intended purpose when I can't connect to wifi, and I've identified all the easily accessible non-enterprise wifi connections near campus. That'll have to do for now!
posted by ocherdraco at 2:27 PM on August 23, 2012