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S5e connectivity problems - WiFi performance and Google Play Services

(Topic created on: 15-10-2020 10:14 PM)
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I bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e a couple of months ago, and although it's an impressive device in may ways, I'm having some pretty bad connectivity issues with it.

 

Firstly, it struggles to hold onto my home WiFi signal. My house is a 'new build', i.e. fairly lightweight construction with no thick internal walls and not particularly big, but when I'm downstairs (router is upstairs), it's not unusual for the tablet to drop off the WiFi. Then, if I try and reconnect, it usually doesn't find my WiFi until I actually carry it upstairs to within a few feet of the room where the router is, and then it will reconnect and I can take it back downstairs and use it for as long as the connection holds up.

 

Although the router's signal maybe isn't the best, this is a distinct contrast from the other WiFi devices we have in the house (laptop, smartphones, radio) which all cope fine most of the time, so obviously there's some problem with the tablet in particular. I did wonder if the (Moko) case was causing the problem, but it's pretty thin and removing it has usually made no difference.

 

NB: I am aware that the S5e has (or has previously had?) a well-documented problem with WiFi when one particular corner is obstructed, but my problem seems to occur however the tablet is held (or not held) and I read that the problem in that case was specific to 5GHz as opposed to the 2.4GHz that I'm using. However, I've just read some some not-dissimilar threads about more general WiFi problems with this model, so I guess this may or may not be related.

 

So that's the first issue. The second seems a bit more unusual, and is maybe some kind of Android bug, not sure. Very often, we find that some apps report being unable to connect to the internet, even when the WiFi is actually working and other apps are online. I *think* this seems to relate to apps using Google Play Services in particular. For example, the Play Store or YouTube. It usually applies to the browser too - e.g. Opera won't work, but Chrome will, and yet sometimes it has been the other way around (maybe depends which is set as default?). Usually we end up rebooting the tablet and then it works fine again for a while (WiFi issues aside). As the tablet is shared within our family, we have several user profiles on there and I think I may have spotted a pattern with the problem occuring after we've switched between profiles, although I'm not 100% sure of that.

 

Both of these problems mean our otherwise-brilliant tablet is actually barely fit for purpose, but before I get on to Samsung Support (and probably get asked to perform a factory reset and/or send it in for repair, which I'm reluctant to do for obvious reasons), does anyone have any experience of either issue or suggestions of potential fixes to try please?

 

 

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waspattack
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Did you do the update to Android 10?

 

If so, that is causing your problems.  We all seem to be waiting for Samsung to fix the Android 10 software.

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I think the tablet was shipped with Android 10 if I remember correctly, or if not it updated to it pretty much straight away. I've read about the problem where the WiFi deactivates when the screen turns off after updating to Android 10, but this issue seemed to me a bit different, as it doesn't necessarily turn off when the screen does (sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't), it seems to be a more general problem with poor WiFi reception in general, especially as there is very often only one SSID found when turning WiFi on (from my neighbour's router!) where other devices will show a list of several.


As for the other issue with connectivity problems in specific apps (Google Play etc), I've so far not found other reports online that sound exactly the same, so it's an odd one, but it feels like I will end up doing a factory reset to try and resolve it. I just hope most of my customisation is reapplied when I log back into my Samsung account afterwards, but it'll be the first time I've done that so I'm not sure.

 

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waspattack
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Yes, exactly the same as me.

My WiFi wasnt turning off randomly as others report but it was an issue with the speed of the wifi connection on the tablet. It was much slower than any other device on my network.

 

I sent it back and got a replacement and this time didn't update to Android 10 and stayed with Android 9. I no longer have slow WiFi speed on it so the issue is definitely the Android 10 update.

 

Do Samsung read this board?   They need to rollout a fix asap.

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I found a thread here which relates to the second issue I mentioned - lack of connectivity for certain apps when there are multiple user profiles in use.

https://eu.community.samsung.com/t5/tablets/samsung-galaxy-tab-5e-sm-t720-no-internet-for-random-app...

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