Every new version of Android comes with its own fair share of issues and Lollipop is no different. The major overhaul has led to performance and stability issues on quite a few older devices. One of the most common issue, however, that is being faced by all users who have upgraded to Android 5.0 or Android 5.1 on their device is related to Wi-Fi.
After upgrading to Lollipop, most users have been unable to connect to certain Wi-Fi networks or are unable to browse the Internet even after connecting to a Wi-Fi network with a working Internet connection. While the recently released Android 5.1 update solved the Wi-Fi issues for some users, it ended up introducing the problem to thousands of other Android users using a Nexus 4 or Nexus 5.
While there is no exact solution to this problem, you can try the various methods mentioned below to see if they fix your problem or not.
Restart your Android device and Wi-Fi router
Sometimes, simply rebooting your Android device may help in resolving the Wi-Fi related problem that you might be facing. You can also try and restart your Wi-Fi router as well.
Change Wi-Fi bands
If you are connecting to a 5GHz Wi-Fi network, you can switch the Wi-Fi antenna on your Android device to look for Wi-Fi networks at that particular band. This will also help in improving the Wi-Fi performance of your Android device. Similarly, you can switch the Wi-Fi band to 2.4GHz for better performance and fix any connectivity issues that you might be facing.
To change the Wi-Fi frequency band on your Android device, head over to Settings -> Wi-Fi -> Advanced -> Wi-Fi frequency band and select the frequency that matches the one used by your router.
Remove and re-add Wi-Fi networks
In case the above methods don’t work for you, you can try and remove the Wi-Fi network from the known list of networks on your phone, and then try connecting to it again. To ‘forget’ a known Wi-Fi network, head over to Settings -> Wi-Fi and tap the name of the Wi-Fi network followed by the ‘Forget’ button.
Then, switch off Wi-Fi and switch it back on after 20-30 seconds. You should now, hopefully, be able to connect to the Wi-Fi network on your Android device.
Change the DNS
If your Android device is able to connect to a Wi-Fi network, but you are not able to browse the Internet through it despite a working broadband connection, you can try and change the DNS servers used by your Android device.
To do this, head over to Settings -> Wi-Fi and switch on Wi-Fi. If its a known network, you will need to ‘forget’ it first. Then, connect to it again, but this time when the window asking for password pops up, click on ‘Advanced options’ first, and select ‘Static’ from the IP settings drop down list. Scroll down then and enter the IP address of the DNS server that you would like to use in the DNS1 and DNS2 box.
You can now enter the password of the Wi-Fi network and connect to it.
Factory reset your device
As a last resort, you can also hard reset your Android device to see if it fixes your Wi-Fi related problem or not. In case you are facing the problem with all Wi-Fi networks and your Android device is relatively new, it is possible that it is a hardware issue, and you might have to take the phone to an authorised service center to get it fixed.
In case the above methods don’t solve Wi-Fi related issues on your Android device running Lollipop, you can root your Android device and install a custom kernel, which should possibly solve the issue. If not, your only solution is to wait for the next release of Android and hope that Google fixes the issue.
