Self-Assigned IP Address

[Ratsima]

I go out for coffee every morning. All of the venues I visit have WiFi Access Points. I have trouble with only one. At that one place both my iPhone and iPad always get a self-assigned IP address. Other customers, including those using Apple devices, seem to have no trouble at all. I have tried renewing the lease, forgetting the network and resetting the network settings. (I even did a factory reset of the iPhone for other reasons.) Nothing works.

The only way I can connect to the network is if I manually enter the IP address, subnet mask and router address. (I asked other customers about their IP address in order to figure out what I had to enter manually.)

This place is one of a chain. They all use the same SSID and Password. I can connect fine at all the other venues. It's only this one where I have problems. The only clue is that they are using a ZTE modem at this place. The only other branch where I know the modem brand has a TP-Link.

Two questions:

• Why me?
• What can I do to fix this?

 

[Raz0rEdge]

If you are getting a self-assigned IP, that usually indicates that you aren't actually connecting to the router or the router is out of IP addresses to hand out. When you forcibly hard code a random IP address, as long as no one else connected at the same has the same IP address, things will work. If you have two devices with the same IP connected at the same time, you're going to get very goofy behavior.

If your devices are working fine with other WiFi networks and misbehaving only with this one network, it's more than likely an issue with that specific router. The router likely needs to be rebooted to clear out the old/stale IP addresses.

Traditionally, the IP leases (for personal networks) are set for a day or longer. For places that offer free WiFi to customers or visitors, that lease time should be reduced to something significantly smaller (like an hour or so) and that would ensure good recycling of IP addresses.

 

[RadDave]

I go out for coffee every morning. All of the venues I visit have WiFi Access Points. I have trouble with only one. At that one place both my iPhone and iPad always get a self-assigned IP address. Other customers, including those using Apple devices, seem to have no trouble at all. I have tried renewing the lease, forgetting the network and resetting the network settings. (I even did a factory reset of the iPhone for other reasons.) Nothing works.

The only way I can connect to the network is if I manually enter the IP address, subnet mask and router address. (I asked other customers about their IP address in order to figure out what I had to enter manually.)............................

Hi Ratsima - as you likely know, in IPv4 there are 3 IP ranges (shown below first pic) that are used for private IP addressing, e.g. routers in homes and businesses, such as Wi-Fi hotspots - the IP address you are showing is in the 192.168.x.x range (like my old Linksys & Cisco routers); I now use an Apple AirPort Extreme which uses the 10.x.x.x private range - so, just checked my iPhone (second pic) and am assigned 10.0.1.34 (my iPad Pro is 10.x.x.28) - now I noticed that you have a 'Manual' setting; thus, my understanding is that if you go to this one place and your Apple devices are set on 'Automatic', you cannot connect and then need to do a 'Manual' setting - correct? If so, I agree w/ Ashwin, have them reboot their router (if not already tried) - I've had this problem over the years in several hotels and a re-boot got me onto their network. Good luck and let us know the solution! Dave

.

.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Building on what Dave said about 3 private networks, each of those can support quite a lot of devices since you have 192.168.xxx.yyy where yyy = 2 to 255 and xxx is 0 to 255. That's quite a number of combination (a little bit less then 65k for those who care ). However, the limit is not the number of available addresses, but the fact that "home" routers are able to manage some number of devices, while in theory this could be as high as 250, in reality it's more around 25 or so before you start seeing severe bandwidth and performance issues. A couple of ways of mitigating this (used by offices) is to install multiple routers that spread the device load. Commercial routers are also capable of handling more devices, and coupled with multiple of these, you are going to get consistent results across your entire Wifi space.

There's also the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz difference that allows for better isolation.

 

[Ratsima]

I'm pretty sure the problem is with an excessive lease time with the router's DHCP server. My daughter happens to work for this company and made her first visit to this branch this week. Last night I asked her about connectivity and she said that a few, but certainly not all, other customers have trouble connecting. I suspect that if you walk in soon after an IP's lease expires, you can connect. I explained to her what the problem is and offered to help. It's anyone's guess as to whether or not the message will make it to the IT staff. If not, my work-around of manually entering an IP address seems to work, for me. It failed yesterday because I inadvertantly deleted the Note in which I saved the necessary info. It took me a while to work it out again.

 

[lclev]

I agree with what the others have said - the router has probably run out of IP addresses. That can be easily fixed by limiting the IP reservation time to say one hour. That way the business does not have to continually reboot the router.

Also if the place is really busy most routers/access points can only handle around 127 users at a time - and realistically that number is more like 100 users. That is why businesses add more access points as the local routers or access points are overloaded with users.

You can have a huge IP pool but get bottle necked at the router/access point being overloaded with users.

Lisa

 

[Ratsima]

It's a relatively small place, so there's never more than a dozen or so users. But, much of their business is take-out beverages, so I'm sure many people come in, order, use the WiFi until their drinks are ready and then move on. That will use up a lot of IP leases without it being obvious.

 

[lclev]

It is an easy fix. Most put in the router and never change the defaults which is usually an 8 hour lease I believe. At work I allow two hours which is plenty but I also have enough access points to allow for about 500 users. That far exceeds what we need.

Lisa

 

[Ratsima]

In this case getting the message to the people who have the authority to change the setup of the router will be problematic. I don't speak Thai and the people who work in this shop don't speak English. It's extremely unlikely that I would ever be able to get in touch with the people who can log in to the router.

Amazing Thailand

 

[lclev]

Yeah that language barrier can be a problem. It can even be a problem when all parties supposedly speak the same language! ;D

Lisa

 

[pm-r]

Yeah that language barrier can be a problem. It can even be a problem when all parties supposedly speak the same language! ;D
Lisa

Heck, even just the dialects can be enough to be misunderstood.

My cousin who lives north of Portsmouth UK sent me a URL of an acquaintance of his doing some sort of skit and I couldn't understand 90% of what he was actually talking about. Certainly, nothing that I could understand and both my parents were English speaking. King's/Queen's English that is.


- Patrick
======

 

[chscag]

I remember back in my military days when I was stationed in Quebec at a RCAF-USAF base, we had civilian workers at the base who were from Newfoundland. Couldn't understand half of what they were saying.

Of course we have much the same problem here in the US. You can always tell what part of the US a person is from by their accent.

 

[Ratsima]

And then there's the culture problem. I decided that instead of trying to find out who I should talk to, I would send an email message suggesting that reducing the lease time might solve the WiFi connect problem. I told my wife about the email and she let me know that sending it was cultural insensitive.

Oh, well.

 

[pm-r]

@chscag

I remember back in my military days when I was stationed in Quebec at a RCAF-USAF base, we had civilian workers at the base who were from Newfoundland. Couldn't understand half of what they were saying.

Charlie,
Maybe you might get a kick out of this Nissan Canada ad for their Nissan X-Trail - Bonavista model that was only released in Canada. My wife drives one and still just loves it. The accent might bring nack me,mories for you:

YouTube


- Patrick
======

 

[chscag]

Generally, the accents in Canada are very much like those of the US, but the Newfoundland dialect is different from all the others. And yeah, that car ad was totally out of it. LOL

 

[Ratsima]

I went back to this place today for the first time in a while. Once again, I got a self-assigned IP address on both my iPhone and iPad. After placing my order I walked around a bit to find a place to sit. There were almost a dozen other customers, all busy working on their phones and/or laptops. I sat down across from a woman with an iPhone and laptop. She was connected to WiFi with both; watching videos on her laptop while doing Line Chat on her phone. A guy who came in just after me and sat down next to me immediately connected to WiFi with his iPhone.

My daughter happened to be working there. When she delivered my cappuccino I told her I couldn't connect to the WiFi and asked her if any other customer was having trouble. She said, "No.". I said, "So, it's only me?". She said, "Yes, only you."

Keep in mind that this has been going on for several years. In the interim I have tried:

• Forgetting the network
• Resetting network settings
• Restarting the devices

I have also done a factory reset on my iPhone (for other reasons).

I sent the company an email requesting them to shorten the DHCP lease time. Their response?

"Thank you for your suggestion."

Nothing has worked.

How do I fix this?

 

[ferrarr]

Are you using a VPN, and they're not? Or any other extra security apps?

 

[Ratsima]

Are you using a VPN, and they're not? Or any other extra security apps?

No, nothing.

 

[pm-r]

I assume you've tried the various "fixes" such as this?:

YouTube

And have you tried the "Wireless Diagnosis?
Hold down the option button and it should be available at the bottom of the Airport menu dropdown list.
(Unless Apple moved it or removed it from the latest OSs. I don't know as I mainly just use Mavericks 10.9.5 and it's certainly there.)

EDIT:
And how about this???
HOW-TO
Internet not Working Due to Self-Assigned IP Address on Mac: How to Fix the Issue
Internet not Working Due to Self-Assigned IP Address on Mac: How to Fix the Issue

It looks like it's a bit more drastic and deleting some files that may be corrupt.

Worth a try I'd say.



- Patrick
======

 

[pm-r]

And an old apple-discussions method that seems to have worked for many. * *(yes a 7 year old post)

The second time I found a better solution from someone on this forum:

Go to Network Settings

Turn Airport Off

Click Advanced tab

Select my wifi network and hit minus sign to delete

Click Okay

Click apply

Go to Keychain access in Applications/Utilities

Find your network name in the list and delete that password login

Then go back to Network settings and turn airport back on

Click Advanced

Click plus sign then Show Networks

Choose your network and re-enter your password

Click Okay

Click Apply

Then airport should work again, this is what fixed it for me.

Ya never know... ;-)


- Patrick
======