Question

Phone not automatically connecting to 5g internet

  • 23 September 2022
  • 10 replies
  • 1496 views
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I set up my new router yesterday and so far I've only connected my PC via extender and my phone.

When I connect my phone, I put in the password and it connects but every time I get disconnected I have to reconnect and enter the password again. Also it doesn't show connected on my list like my other network did - it just has the wifi icon at the top which is the only way I know I'm connected.

 I don't know how to fix this but it's not going to work long term since I turn my wifi off every night and of course leave the house sometimes. 

10 replies

E

I am having this same issue but my username and password save at least. Not quite as annoying but definitely frustrating.

P

I can’t logout of my t mobile network pass from the app 

E

My phone won’t automatically connect to my 5G wifi. When i go to settings it says unable to connect. I have to go into the app and connect that way. How can i fix this? 

S

Mine and my kids phone don't automatically connect to wifi. I ran out of data on my mobile carrier(diff than T-Mobile) cause I didn't know it wasn't auto connecting. 

 

While other networks like the spectrum I had before and the network I connect to at work - have a setting option in my phone to check "connect automatically" my TMobile network does not. 

 

I need to call tech support again. I can't always remember to go to settings and connect when I walk into my house. 

N

It appears that TMobile does not respond to problems posted on their site.

J

Same problem here. Connects fine manually, but if I leave home, it will not auto connect when I return. Network is saved, so I just have to select it and it will connect. The setting is turned on to auto-connect, but it will not. Auto connect works fine on other networks that I come in range of.

Apparently, this forum is only for customers to fix their own problems, not for T-Mobile to help us.

L

There has got to be a way for our Wifi to connect automatically to TMobile router, but I haven't been able to figure it out.  A little help please?

T
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Um. So, I’ve had the T-Mobile 5G Gateway for just over two weeks now. And I’ve discovered stuff.

First off: Regarding phones. Say that, before one got the 5G Gateway, one was running a router or something with a particular SSID. And said router would have been a decent router and all that, whether or not it comes with the cable connection is or something that one had bought before.

Now, with said pre-existing router, one would probably have been running with IPv4 (typically: 192.168.1.xxx addresses), with WPA/WPA2, or, possibly, WPA3. And it all would have been working.

So, first things first: Remove the cable modem, put in our handy 5G Gateway, fire it up, and, lo and behold, it kinda works. Now, one thing the app does right off is suggest that one go ahead and set the SSID and wi-fi password. No surprise: When I got the instructions to do that, I hauled out the SSID I was using for the dozen or so widgets in the house that had pre-programmed in (printers, the Chrome TV dongle, the Roomba, the PCs, and the phones) and used that; and, naturally, used the same password as was being used for that pre-existing SSID.

I had, shall we say, interesting problems. And now I cut to the chase:

  • The 56G Gateway is very definitely positively using IPV6. It does IPV4, too, but it’s kind of a sideline.
  • The 5G Gateway very definitely implements WPA3, as well as WPA and WPA2.

The dumb Internet of Things (printers, Roombas, and the like) don’t have a clue, or much of one, about IPV6 and certainly don’t know about WPA3. The cell phones and PCs, which are being kept up to date by various and sundry updates, Got Confused. And either wouldn’t connect, wouldn’t stay connected, or, if connected and got turned off/turned back on again, wouldn’t connect without having to put the wi-fi password back in again.

There turned out to be an easy solution. On both PCs and cell phones, it is possible to see the networks that one has connected to at one time and that the device has memorized. On an iPhone (for example), it’s Settings->Wi-Fi->Edit (top right corner), at which one is given a list of every wi-fi network one has connected to. On a Windows 11 PC, it’s Settings->Network & Internet->Wi-Fi->Manage known networks, which comes up with a similar list.

DELETE THE SSID FOR THE GATEWAY in the PC/cell phone/tablet.

Then, go back and connect the PC/Cell/Tablet to the SSID, providing the password when prompted. Ta-Da! No more connection problems.

T
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Near as I can tell, memorized characteristics of the older Wi-Fi network, even with the same SSID, are getting in the way of connecting to the same named SSID on the new Gateway. Go figure.

The second thing I figured out, eventually, was that the more elderly of the two wi-fi connected printers I was running was simply incompatible with the same named SSID. No amount of mucking with the printer settings worked. Found a hint on the web: The 5G Wi-Fi band signals, as generated by the 5G gateway, were not compatible with the 5G Wi-Fi on the printer. Some kind of backward compatibility problem. Solution was odd, but workable: Using the 5G Gateway App, created Yet Another SSID, a single character off from the main SSID I was using. Again in the App, rig it so that SSID is on the 2.5G Wi-Fi band, only. Give it a random but sane password and configure the Gateway.

That worked: The printer connected to the 2.5G Wi-Fi sans problems and was able to print.

One Last Thing. So, in this place, pre-T-Mobile-Gateway, I was running a Cable Modem; output of the cable modem was wired to the WAN port of a Netgear Nighthawk. That’s a dual-band (5G/2.5G) Wi-Fi router with four Ethernet ports. Half the gear in the house ran from Wi-Fi; the other half was hard-wired to 1GbE Ethernet, RJ45 and all; and there was a small  $15-dollar-special Access Point in the garage that provided some Wi-Fi coverage for some gear that needed it, hooked up to one of those Ethernet cables.

First mistake: Removing the WAN cable from the Cable Modem and putting the Ethernet cable from the 5G Gateway in its place. Um. That Won’t Work Well. Turns out that t-mobile is doing Carrier-Grade NAT; and the router was also doing NAT, resulting in everything in the house having to go through two stages of NAT to get to the Greater Internet. If you look up this kind of configuration on the Interwebs, you get shifty looking eyeballs from the cognescenti. It’s kind of.. well, it ought to work. But there are reports out there that, well, “working” is a relative term. And I can report that I saw weird behavior.

Solution: One can continue to use a router in this kind of configuration, but the best thing to do is to put the router in Access Point mode. When one does this, it turns off the router’s NAT (which is OK, the T-Mobile Gateway will do the job) and the router’s DHCP server.. which is also fine, the 5G Gateway will do the job there, too. Further, as I said above, that Gateway runs IPV6, natively: And, after the change-over, suddenly, everything in the house has a bunch of IPV6 addresses as well as some “backup” IPV4 addresses.. and everything starts working Much Better.

You’re welcome.

L

I created an account just so i could add my 2 cents. Had this issue when my network was set to hidden. What worked for me was to disconnect my wifi, open the t-mobile app, and when prompted to login in to the wi-fi, there is an option to auto connect the device. I’m not sure how to do this on other devices but hope this helps someone else with their phone. 

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