Unable to maintain wifi connection

[ninjess]

I received my Z3C this past weekend, and set it up over my mobile data connection as I was away from home. Thought everything was great and was loving my new phone until I tried to connect to my home network. First off, it was difficult to get the network list to update, as it still showed me the list of available networks from when I first started up the phone - I was over 80km away at this point. Manually scanning for networks did not work, it still showed the list of networks that were 80km away. After rebooting the phone twice, it did bring up the list of local networks. I set up my home network, and connected fine, but the connection dropped less than 30 seconds later. This began a cycle of connecting and redropping, never maintaining the connection longer than about 30-60s, but usually dropping within 10 seconds of connecting. I run a dual band router, and tried with both my home networks with the same issue. I reset the router. I tried using a static ip. I "forgot" my networks and reattempted, I reset the phone (during this process, i did both soft reboots and hard reboots (using the "off" button located beside the SIM slot), I checked all my wifi settings (stamina mode off, wifi optimization disabled, turned off security on my router, disabled google backup and forgot all networks and readded them, prted the phones mac address through my router), I connected to my neighbours guest "open" netowork, I connected to my other neighbours secure network - same issue every time. It would detect, connect, drop, reconnect with a maximum 30 seconds of connection. I went through everything I could find online, including trying a wifi fixing app, and ultimately, doing a hard factory reset of the phone. Same issue. Actually, on the factory reset, it was unable to detect any wifi networks during set up, and needed to be rebooted twice to bring up the list of available connections - turning wifi on/off and attempting to manually scan did nothing.

This morning I tried to connect to wifi at work and had to turn wifi on and off multiple times and manually scan no fewer than 4 times to detect any wifi networks (I am in downtown Toronto - there are no fewer than 20 available hotspots in my location), and when it finally did and I connected, the connection was dropped in less than 30seconds as before. So, I tried all kinds of other things I found on here for suggestions - I reset all my app settings, uninstalled the single third party app I had installed after factory resetting yesterday. I bought my phone unlocked from Sony Canada, and am using a nano sim from virgin mobile canada to operate it. I have no issue with my LTE connection, calls work great, no other issues with the phone aside from the wifi problems.

My phone is a D5803 using Android 4.4.4

Baseband 8974-AAAAANAZQ-00022-21

Kernel 3.4.0-perf-g1b1963a-02930-g23f7791  

Build number 23.0.1.A.5.77

Any other ideas or am I the lucky recipient of a "dead" handset?

[SophiaW]

Hi ninjess

Welcome to the community! Since you're new please be sure that you have checked out our Discussion guidelines.

You could try running a Software Repair on the phone to see if that helps. To do this you need to download the PC Companion software and install it on your PC. Once installed, you can back up your data (what contents will be backed up may differ depending on phone model) as the Software Repair will delete everything. 

To back up your phone using PC Companion 
1. Go to Support  to install PC Companion on a Windows computer. 
2. When installed, start PC Companion on the computer. 
3. Connect your phone to the computer using a USB cable. 
4. Click Start under Backup & Restore. 
5. Follow the on-screen instructions

Running the software repair

Note: The phone needs to be turned off during this part of the process

1. Install and open PC Companion then select Support Zone.

2. Phone Software Update.

3. Start.

4. Repair Phone

5. Continue

6. Accept data removal

7. Next

8. Wait for prepare

9. Select Phone

10. Follow the connection steps

[ninjess]

Hi,

Thank you for your response. Since it took over a week to hear anything back here, I had already contacted sony mobile support over the phone and they had provided me the exact same steps as you did. I had already done this myself with no success, but did it again with a sony rep directly, and again, this did not fix the issue. My phone drops every wifi connection it makes within 30 seconds, and does not refresh available wifi network lists without multiple reboots. On the resets, it actually will not detect any wifi networks at all on initial set up, and requires multiple reboots to start seeing any wireless networks. Manually scanning for wifi networks never works, and just keeps the "current" list, which can be days/100's of kms old. It had this problem out of the box as soon as I turned it on.

I have now spent over 4 hours on the phone with various people at Sony, and have had to fully describe the issue no fewer than 5 times, despite there being a lengthy amount of input included with my support ticket number. Last week Thursday I was told its a "dud" handset, and someone would contact me on Friday for a direct exchange. That never happened, and we had to call back, to which another 2+ hours on the phone led to the exact same claim, and the idea that I am specifically eligible for an exchange, and someone was supposed to call me back yesterday about this, and again did not. They will not provide me any information about sending it in for service, as this is somehow a known issue, and they 'know that the phone is unable to be repaired, and that the problem existed since initial set up, and I need to have the unit exchanged'. I just want a working phone, and cannot believe how difficult and time consuming this has become

Thank you for your answer, I wish it had worked or been something not yet tried