Wi-Fi sometimes randomly stops working – but a simple reconnect makes it work again

[-mattias-]

Hi

Once a month or so my Wi-Fi at home suddenly stops working. I cannot connect to anything. But if I disable Wi-Fi and re-enable it again, my Mac will reconnect to the Wi-Fi and it suddenly works again. I have the same issue with my iPhone. It also happened when I lived another place with another router and connection.

So since it's both my Mac and iPhone, it's not specific for the product. And since it's happened to two different connections and routers, that doesn't seem to be the problem as well.

Does any of you know why this happens and how it can be fixed?

 

[appltech]

Thinking about DHCP that forgets to extend the IP lease.
Or provider changes your global (main) IP every month, but your gateway can't accept the preferences over datasheet, and reboot fix that.
Or as abovementioned + MAC address, maybe, your router changing it.
Saw on the newest Androids a feature (enabled by default) that allows device to generate a new MAC address every time when connection to the network

 

[-mattias-]

Thinking about DHCP that forgets to extend the IP lease.
Or provider changes your global (main) IP every month, but your gateway can't accept the preferences over datasheet, and reboot fix that.
Or as abovementioned + MAC address, maybe, your router changing it.
Saw on the newest Androids a feature (enabled by default) that allows device to generate a new MAC address every time when connection to the network

Is this something common thing happening for people once in a while? And there is no solution except for reconnecting (except for the Android feature you mention)?

 

[Fishrrman]

When this happens, have you tried powering off your MODEM/ROUTER, and then powering it up again?

 

[-mattias-]

When this happens, have you tried powering off your MODEM/ROUTER, and then powering it up again?

I don't need to as it is quicker to just disable and re-enable Wi-Fi on my Mac/iPhone. This makes the device connect to my router again which solves the problem. But I'm looking for a solution so I do not have to reconnect to the router again – that is that it just always works.

 

[gdbleb]

Does your router have a log file that you can read and see if something happened at the time your 2 devices lost WiFi?
Smells like a router reboot (perhaps to apply ISP patches) and the restart of the embedded DHCP server doesn't quite drop/reconnect the existing clients. Just a guess.