topic Re: Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset in Nest Wifi

Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset

NoWifi — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 19:37:58 GMT

TL;DR Has anyone figured out how to resolve the “request failed” message after a factory reset?

Context
Our family installed a mesh system with one Nest Wifi Router and two Points about a year and a half ago, and it was generally working fine with some occasional connectivity issues.

Last night, one of our Points wasn’t working. After unplugging it and letting it reset multiple times, it still failed to secure a mesh connection so I initiated a factory reset from the device (not the app). When that didn’t work, I decided to reboot the whole system by factory resetting all three devices - that worked in the past to fix the intermittent wifi dropping issue.

Issue

As a result, the Home app no longer has the Wifi icon. When I attempt to set up the router from the app, I’m able to specify a Home, wifi name/password, and room but then it always fails while trying to “create wifi” and I get the dreaded “request failed” message. When trying again, I get a “connection” issue, as though the original “create wifi” step seeded a partial network.

Attempted Fixes

I spent over two hours on the phone with Nest Support last night and combed through all the Help Center and other forums. By now, I’ve performed a factory reset probably 20+ times.

We’ve confirmed that my modem is working by accessing the Internet with the default Nest wifi “setupXXX.X”SSID and don’t suspect I have a Double NAT problem because I only have a modem. I’ve also tried using a brand new “Home” and tried the setup using a different iPhone altogether, and even with different user logins.

At this point, none of our Google devices, like Chromcast, in our Home are accessible because we can’t set up and associate a wifi network with the home. It seems as though there’s a configuration issue. Lastly, we can’t even try the restart Cloud Services via Privacy settings workaround, because there’s no Wifi icon to bring up the setting.

Has anyone else gotten stuck at this point, with the “request failed” message after a factory reset?

Re: Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset

Ashepherdson — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 19:52:24 GMT

Have you tried clearing the cache for the home app, uninstalling said app, and reinstalling and trying once more?

Re: Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset

NoWifi — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 19:58:07 GMT

Thanks for the prompt response. How do I clear the cache in the app? I’ve already uninstalled and reinstalled the app, so would presume that wipes the data unless there’s some other user of home-level configuration that gets restored with a redownload.

Re: Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset

Ashepherdson — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 20:00:55 GMT

Open your iPhone's settings.
Scroll until you see the eligible app, then tap it.
Look for a "Clear cache" option. If the toggle next to it is green, tap it to clear the app's cache.

Uninstalling should do the trick but sometimes does not work quite right. Also a power cycle of your phone in between uninstalling and reinstalling helps as well.

Once when I factory reset my nest router I ran into an issue and this worked for me, but I also set up the wifi in stages, so did the router only, got it running, closed the app, then reopened and proceeded to setup the first point..so on and on.

Re: Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset

NoWifi — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 20:43:36 GMT

Appreciate the guidance. I tried those steps, and unfortunately am still getting a “connection failed” message in the app.

Purely a conjecture, but is it possible that my initial network reset didn’t go through properly and/or there’s a Nest server side (configuration) issue/bug that’s preventing the same router to establish a new wifi network?

I bring it up, because (a) the default wifi is working and so I don’t think it’s a local network issue and (b) the public docs imply that Nest uses Google Cloud Services (GCS) behind the scenes and GCS has a complex account and role architecture so I wouldn’t be surprised if something on the server-side needs to be cleared.

Alternatively, I wonder if there’s a firewall or block via my internet provider. However, I already called them to reset my IP and modem.

Re: Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset

Ashepherdson — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 20:49:01 GMT

Doubtful on your ISP side , but possible that the factory reset didn't take yes (has happened to me as well). Saying this want to catch onto something you said about the default wifi working, if that is the case then the nest wifi may be working in bridge mode, which would cause a bunch of issues. I setup my ISP modem to act as a modem only, so I disable the built in wifi and router function and have it as a gateway only, this removed my issues. Your isp should have instructions on how to do this.

Re: Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset

NoWifi — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 20:59:33 GMT

If the issue is with the initial reset not taking hold, do you know of any self service resolutions? Or is that something the Nest team needs to step in to fix?

Re: Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset

Ashepherdson — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 21:01:08 GMT

Doing another factory reset would be the best route, do it on the router first, and see if you can get it setup and running. If so do it on each point , and set them up one at a time. If that fails then yes it would need to go to the Google team.. give it a try and let me know I'll escalate if it fails.

Re: Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset

NoWifi — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 21:09:14 GMT

Thanks. I actually went through that (factory resets) many, many times - at least twenty. And a good number of them were with the help of the support team on the phone. We ended up exhausting all the Tier 1 triage steps, and they escalated on their side. So I’m reaching out here in parallel, to see if there’s anything else anyone in the community has information on.

If there’s anything you can do to further help raise the issue, that’s be great.

Re: Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset

Ashepherdson — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 21:10:07 GMT

Did you try setting your ISPs modem to gateway mode ?

Re: Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset

NoWifi — Sat, 25 Dec 2021 00:01:15 GMT

Looking into that. We’ve got an Arris TM3402a modem with internet and phone, which according to an online article states that it’s in bridge mode by default. Could that be the issue?

It’s not yet clear to me how to access the modem’s (NAT) settings, so that’s what I’m investigating.

Re: Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset

NoWifi — Sat, 25 Dec 2021 06:52:57 GMT

Update: I ran out to buy a new modem, a Motorola MB7420, to test if my Arris was the issue. I’m still getting the same results, namely a “request failed” error during the Wifi creation step.

After calling support once more, they informed me that there may be an issue with recent iOS Home app versions. Is there a way to escalate this issue further, to help build the case and raise its priority/severity?

I’m happy to provide more details on the steps taken to help reproduce the problem, especially if it is a widespread issue.

Re: Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset

Ashepherdson — Sat, 25 Dec 2021 10:56:24 GMT

Good morning, I have escalated this so that a Google team member can respond, saying this being the holidays it will take a couple of days for them to return to work I believe.

If you are using iOS , I have to ask do you have access to an android device at all that you could try? Would be curious to know if this indeed is the workaround solution.

Re: Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset

JJK — Sun, 26 Dec 2021 13:40:44 GMT

I recently moved and now that I’m trying to set this up in our new place I am having the same exact issue and I have done all of the same things and I still can’t get it to get past the failed connection message. 😭 The Google WiFi app was so much easier to use than Google Home and none of these tips have worked. So frustrated that I now have 4 WiFi pods that worked just fine last week and now they might as well be paper weights.

Re: Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset

NoWifi — Sun, 26 Dec 2021 16:16:39 GMT

Unfortunately, we don’t have access to an Android device right now. I’m curious too if anyone else out there with this problem was able to use that workaround.

Regardless, it seems unreasonable to expect every customer to have an Android on hand.

Re: Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset

Ashepherdson — Sun, 26 Dec 2021 16:23:22 GMT

Oh completely agree it should work on both android and apple, just trying to think of a quick solution to get you back online. Do you have a Windows based PC? If so you can install a program called bluestacks and install Google home on that. Just another option until the Google team can respond.

Re: Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset

NoWifi — Sun, 26 Dec 2021 16:30:38 GMT

Considered Bluestacks as well… we have a Mac, which also has a variant of BS. But, I’m not sure (based on some preliminary research) if the emulator can access Bluetooth in order to perform the initial connection to the router. Or is that not the case?

FWIW, I saw other community posts about using an emulator to manage the Home app, which sounds clever, but doesn’t seem applicable in an initial setup situation.

Re: Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset

Ashepherdson — Sun, 26 Dec 2021 16:36:04 GMT

I was able to access Bluetooth on bluestacks, but that was in a windows computer and I had to enable Bluetooth via the bluestacks settings. Again hopefully Google will be able to offer a solution for you!

Re: Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset

NoWifi — Sun, 26 Dec 2021 17:04:11 GMT

Again, appreciate all your help. I tried it for myself by installing Bluestacks on our Mac, downloaded the Google Home app, and can confirm that Bluetooth won’t turn on for us. I think we’re stuck with a bunch of coals until we hear back.

Re: Request Failed When Setting Up Router After Factory Reset

Jeff — Mon, 27 Dec 2021 17:30:34 GMT

Hey, NoWifi.

Sorry for the issues you're having with your WiFi setup. I know this is a frustrating thing to deal with. The issue you're seeing is something that we're looking at internally. I have seen our internal teams working on this and I'm hoping to have news soon for a fix. I'll update the thread here when I know more.

Thanks.