Model 3 WiFi Connection [Unable to Connect]

[CWFLY]

Seems to me it's a very poor antenna.
I can use a HotSpot from my phone, while sitting in the car, and the car shows only 2 (occasionally 3) bars.
Also, as an experiment, I moved my wireless router within 20 feet of the car... 1 bar.

Printers, TV's, streaming devices -- none have issue with my WiFi even at more distant location.
It's the car's WiFi, in my opinion.

 

[TejasD]

Had a similar issue after the latest update, it would connect, the icon would turn green and then immediately disconnect and ask me to re-enter the SSID password. I did the 2 thumb salute to reset the system and that seem to have fixed it. Now WiFi connects as the good lord intended it.

I'm having the exact same issue. Just got the car a week ago. Tried the 2 button reset but no luck. Anyone have any other suggestions?

 

[xcat]

Same issue with google Wifi about 30 feet away, separated by one wall. Considering getting one more google WiFi repeater to place in the garage.

With my iPhone hotspot I get 2 of 3 bars while sitting in the vehicle.

 

[PhaseWhite]

I'm not with my 3 now (on a trip) but I was trying to instruct my wife on how to connect to wifi and nothing happens when she pushes the LTE icon at the top bar. My understanding is that should bring up the options for Wifi. Perhaps my screen touch sensor is not working properly. Any other ideas?

 

[AngelArm1110]

Okay well this makes me feel better, I'm having the same exact issue with mine, its got some random network name that I can't find anywhere in my neighborhood, and it can't even see my hotspot when I'm sitting in the car. My guess is its a bug with 8.1

 

[xcat]

Solved my issue.

Symptom: I have 2 Google Wifi's (GW), both hard wired. The 2nd repeater (bridge mode) is about 30 feet away from car, separated by 1 drywall. When the car is searching for it, it shows up with full bars. After entering my password, I usually get "Unable to Connect", however when I do connect, I'll see 1 bar and eventually will lose the connection entirely.

Solution: Suspected my mesh complexity has something to do with it so I pulled out an old Linksys EA3500 router (released in 2012), set it up in bridge mode (802.11N only, with unique 2.4GHz and 5GHz network names) and physically connected it next to the google with a 6" LAN cable.

Result after success connectivity:
2.4GHz - Full wifi bars with instant connectivity
5GHz - 3 of 4 wifi bars with some issues in connectivity. However once connected seems to stay connected.

Sidenotes:
I disabled 2.4GHz to minimize interference and am connected to 5Ghz. 5GHz has reduced range. If it misbehaves will switch to 2.4.
Ultimately I think it's a bug with the car as all my other devices connect fine to Google Wifi. I suspect the car is confused in seeing 2 networks with the same name.

Suggestions for others to try:
1) If your router uses the same SSID (network name) for both 2.4 & 5GHz, try creating 2 different names to see if it helps. (The Google Wifi does not have this option.)

2) Setup bridge mode with a spare router - Instructions vary by model:
Usually all the old routers have a bridge mode option and if you're lucky an access point option. My linksys only had the bridge option which required me to lookup how to configure bridge to AP mode for my particular model. Here is the link I followed:

Linksys Official Support - Setting up your Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Router to Bridge Mode using the Classic firmware

Hope this helps!

 

[dendenyc]

Im glad to hear it worked out, and good to know that someone got the car to connect to a 5Ghz network. I haven't been that lucky.

Couple points though
- The more access points you have the more you compound the issue of wifi interference
- See allot of you guys using Google Wifi, have you ever wonder why a company as big as Google who doesn't make alot of hardware devices has made a wifi router?

 

[Nocturnal]

If you are having trouble connecting to wifi, try adding your network manually. Entering in the SSID itself rather than searching for it in the list. I wasn't able to connect until I tried that. I have no idea why that should matter, but it did.

 

[dschase]

My Model 3 was successfully connected to my AT&T Uverse router (about a month ago) and had previously updated the software to V9 2019.16.2. However, when I failed to get any updates after that, I realized the it was no longer connecting to my network even though there had been no changes and it had a strong signal. Forgetting the network and re-adding it did no good -- it would find the network but would not connect after I entered the password. I then did the standard re-boot (foot on brake and both wheels pressed) and after that it connected fine and updated my software to the latest version 2019.20.4.2.

 

[TesBaby]

My model 3 is on sw version 2019.28.3.1
Had some issues with “unable to obtain ip address, check dhcp server settings”. The car can see my ssid with relatively good connection and tries to connect but keeps dropping out and giving me that message above.
My home network is a cox internet to panoramic router (main) —> nighthawk x8000 router (turned into access point) —> netgear x7000 wifi extender. The M3 is trying to connect to my ssid signaling from extender.
How i was able to fix this issue was go into router login page on the nighthawk and manually renew dhcp address. After that the car held onto connection. Weird but it worked for me. Hope this helps anyone.

 

[Erleichda]

I just fixed this too, posting for others:
Upgraded to new Xfinity advanced gateway (XB6) with 6 xFi pods. Really ez, fast and great coverage.

Our Model 3 kept getting the Cannot establish IP, check DHCP error. The two button reset on the steering wheel solved.
Our Model X connected no problem.

The two button reset seems to be useful if everything else in your network is working.

 

[Jerry2]

New user - my first post! Luckily I read this thread to the end, and thus got to the people who suggested resetting the screen/car -- lots easier than screwing with my 2 Wi-Fi networks. I was nervous about resetting -- didn't even know resetting was possible until I saw it discussed here. So I tried the screen-only reset, and the immediate result was good -- just one missing bar of signal strength (even though phone shows all good bars), but that's way better than before the reset. We'll see what happens as time passes ...

 

[cRiordon]

Owner of a M3SR+ since April 2019. The only place it has ever connected to WiFi is at the Montréal Service Center, and elsewhere it cannot detect any WiFi networks, even with 3 out of 4 bars of signal strength showing on my phone when seated inside the car. I have been unable to manually enter the network name.

 

[Metalmanstan]

Solved my issue.

Symptom: I have 2 Google Wifi's (GW), both hard wired. The 2nd repeater (bridge mode) is about 30 feet away from car, separated by 1 drywall. When the car is searching for it, it shows up with full bars. After entering my password, I usually get "Unable to Connect", however when I do connect, I'll see 1 bar and eventually will lose the connection entirely.

Solution: Suspected my mesh complexity has something to do with it so I pulled out an old Linksys EA3500 router (released in 2012), set it up in bridge mode (802.11N only, with unique 2.4GHz and 5GHz network names) and physically connected it next to the google with a 6" LAN cable.

Result after success connectivity:
2.4GHz - Full wifi bars with instant connectivity
5GHz - 3 of 4 wifi bars with some issues in connectivity. However once connected seems to stay connected.

Sidenotes:
I disabled 2.4GHz to minimize interference and am connected to 5Ghz. 5GHz has reduced range. If it misbehaves will switch to 2.4.
Ultimately I think it's a bug with the car as all my other devices connect fine to Google Wifi. I suspect the car is confused in seeing 2 networks with the same name.

Suggestions for others to try:
1) If your router uses the same SSID (network name) for both 2.4 & 5GHz, try creating 2 different names to see if it helps. (The Google Wifi does not have this option.)

2) Setup bridge mode with a spare router - Instructions vary by model:
Usually all the old routers have a bridge mode option and if you're lucky an access point option. My linksys only had the bridge option which required me to lookup how to configure bridge to AP mode for my particular model. Here is the link I followed:

Linksys Official Support - Setting up your Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Router to Bridge Mode using the Classic firmware

Hope this helps!

Sorry to bring this thread back to life, but have you had success with the google wifi yet? I have the same setup. My car is about 15ft away through drywall and I get one bar and it disconnects a lot. I might have to call google and tesla and see what they both day. My car is a 2020 only 5 days old!

Stash

 

[Jerry2]

Followup to my Post #32 above (which I had forgotten about). I have no input re Google Wi-Fi, since I have LinkSys Wi-Fi and Comcast/Xfinity Wi-Fi, both of which were giving me the same connection problems as described by others. So as stated above, I did the screen reset (simultaneous depression of the 2 scroll wheels on the steering wheel until the screen goes black, as suggested in Posts #11 and #31, at least), and now, after almost 3 months of being connected to the LinkSys Wi-Fi, I have never noticed a resumption of the problems. (Don't remember if I tried the Comcast Wi-Fi after the reset.) I don't get full signal strength (2 or 3 bars/arcs out of 4), but that seems to be good enough. So give it a try (if you haven't already) - it's so much easier than screwing with your Wi-Fi system(s).