Can't connect to WiFi network

Question

I am new to android development and was trying to connect to WiFi network using the Android SDK. The code for disconnect works fine but re-connection fails. Here's the code that i have

try {
        WifiConfiguration conf = new WifiConfiguration();
        conf.SSID = "\"" + networkSSID + "\"";   // Please note the quotes. String should contain SSID in quotes
        conf.wepKeys[0] = password;  //WEP password is in hex, we do not need to surround it with quotes.
        conf.wepTxKeyIndex = 0;
        conf.allowedKeyManagement.set(WifiConfiguration.KeyMgmt.NONE);
        conf.allowedGroupCiphers.set(WifiConfiguration.GroupCipher.WEP40); 

        WifiManager wifiManager = (WifiManager)ba.applicationContext.getSystemService(Context.WIFI_SERVICE);
        wifiManager.addNetwork(conf);

        List<WifiConfiguration> list = wifiManager.getConfiguredNetworks();
        for( WifiConfiguration i : list ) {
            if(i.SSID != null && i.SSID.equals("\"" + networkSSID + "\"")) {
                 wifiManager.disconnect();
                 wifiManager.enableNetwork(i.networkId, true);
                 wifiManager.reconnect();               

                 break;
            }           
         }

        //WiFi Connection success, return true
        return true;
    } catch (Exception ex) {

        throw ex;
    }

I am wrapping this code in a jar file which I am using in different application. When I call this method and try to connect to WEP network using the SSID and password, I keep on getting the following error:

android.system.ErrNoException: recvfrom failed: ETIMEDOUT (Connection timed out).

The error does tell that there is a connection timeout somewhere, but I haven't been able to figure this out to fix my code. Any pointers and changes that I can introduce to code to make this work??

Paritosh

Attain

It is unclear to me at which moment you get the error. And why do you disconnect if you want to connect? – Doctor

I basically list all available networks using list view, and user can choose one from the list and enter password to connect to the new network. Hence the disconnection from the existing network and connection with the new network. – Attain

It is unclear to me at which moment you get the error. – Doctor

If you just use this code NOT from a jar file then how does it behave? – Doctor

Are you shure WEP encoding is used for this SSID? – Doctor

I get the same error if I call the method directly in jUnit test case in Eclipse. The disconnection works just fine, the error is thrown when trying to reconnect to the network. Could this be a masked error and the real problem is somewhere else? – Attain

Answer 1

Connection information can arrive asynchronously, so you cannot know in the code you mentioned wether the connection was successful or not. You can try to implement a BroadcastReceiver, that gets the information of the wifi connection.

public class ConnectivityChangedReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {

    @Override
    public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {

        ConnectivityManager conMgr = (ConnectivityManager) context.getSystemService(Context.CONNECTIVITY_SERVICE);
        NetworkInfo[] netInf = conMgr.getAllNetworkInfo();

        for (NetworkInfo inf : netInf) {
            if (inf.getTypeName().contains("wifi")) {
                if (inf.isConnected()) {
                    Toast.makeText(context, "Connected to Wifi", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
                } else {
                    Toast.makeText(context, "Could not connect to wifi", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Then, in your android manifest you should declare it as beeing a receiver, like this:

<receiver android:name=".YourPackageName.ConnectivityChangedReceiver" >
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.net.wifi.WIFI_STATE_CHANGED" />
        <action android:name="android.net.wifi.STATE_CHANGE" />
        </intent-filter>
</receiver>

I am just trying this on my own now, but I think that this is the correct workaround for this issue, as Wifimanager.reconnect() didn't really connected me to the configured network. Best of luck.

Zachar

I did try your suggestion, but that only improves the code, it still doesn't answer why I can't connect to new network (unless the its is stored in the Android wifi connection list). Try forgetting an existing connect and connect from within the app, it won't connect. – Attain

I have a similar app for connecting to wifi, but the only different line between my code and your is this one: conf.wepKeys[0] = password; I've put the password in brackets as well. For the rest, it's the same code. Additionally, you can try to iterate through the configured networks to see if the network you are trying to add already exists and if so, update it via wifiManager.updateNetork(config). – Zachar