All Google Nest Hubs display "Check Internet Connection"

[snbns]

I have 4 Nest Hubs and a number of Minis around the house that I've been using for years. Never had a problem with any of them up until yesterday. I woke up and noticed that all my Nest Hubs were displaying the message "Check Internet Connection". My first thought - "my internet is down". Checked other devices like my iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV and they were all working fine. Decided to unplug and replug the Nest Hubs from power, and when they came back online, they were back to normal. Great.

Fast forward about an hour, I noticed that 3 of them went back to "Check Internet Connection", but one was still working. Tried to unplug and replug again - issue solved again. About an hour later, all of them are back to "Check Internet Connection". At this point, I'm thinking maybe it's my router/modem, but it's odd since none of my other devices at home are having issues, and I've been streaming video all day with no issues. I restart the router/modem anyway. When the router/modem comes back online, all other devices reconnect, the Nest Hubs are still having the same issue.

I leave it alone since I don't have time to always be troubleshooting this. I've noticed that sometimes, they'll reconnect for like an hour, but then go back to "Check Internet Connection". Again, I leave it alone. Today, still the same issues on all 4 Nest Hubs and all the Minis. I decide to factory reset 3 of the 4 Nest Hubs that I have. After going through the setup process, they all connected fine and working normally. A few hours later, they're all back to "Check Internet Connection" even though I just factory reset them. I don't know what else to do. I've had these things for years without any issues and now all of a sudden none of them are working. 

Any suggestions?

[Muddi · Accepted solution]

Hey folks,

Apologize for the delays. Chiming in to ensure everything is covered here. Just to add we are getting similar reported issues about Google Nest (1st gen) that are having issues with the network. Our team is aware of this, and looking into this issue at hand.

We recommend trying to restart your devices once more then check if there's any difference. Also, please let us know if you have Hue Bridge installed and connected to the Google Home app.

Keep us posted.

Cheers,

Muddi

[Muddi · Accepted solution]

Hey folks,

My apologies for the late response here. I noticed an increase in reports here about the Nest Hub that have network issues. To eliminate network issues, please try setting up your device using a mobile hotspot. Please note that you will need two mobile devices for this setup (one will serve as a router and the other to be used to set up your Google Nest Hub).

Also, please check the current operating system and firmware version of your device. Follow the steps below to know-how:

1. Open the Google Home app Google Home app.
2. Touch and hold your device's tile.
3. Tap Settings and then Device information.
4. Under "Technical information," check for Cast firmware: "X.XXX.XXXXX."

Check the version on your Nest display:

1. Swipe up from the bottom of the display screen.
2. Tap Settings and then About device. You should find your "Software version" and "Cast firmware version."
3. Scroll to the bottom to see the “Operating System Version” 

Looking forward to your response.

Cheers,

Muddi

[Muddi · Accepted solution]

Hey folks,

I appreciate all the added information that you've sent. The team is aware of the issue on Nest Hub (1st gen) where it keeps on disconnecting from the network. Rest assured that they are looking into this issue at hand, and I'll update this thread as soon as I have more information to share.

Please make sure to eliminate network issues by setting up your device using a mobile hotspot. Please note that you will need two mobile devices for this setup (one will serve as a router and the other to be used to set up your Google Nest Hub).

For those users who are able to reconnect their devices to their network, please immediately send feedback by saying, "Hey Google, send feedback," then use the keywords:  "Check internet connection repeatedly." Visit this link for more steps. Please update this thread once you're done sending feedback.

For users having issues with Google Home Mini or Nest Mini, I suggest to create a new thread so we can focus on your devices. Please share it here so I can reply immediately. 

Cheers,

Muddi

[Muddi]

Hey rmackman,

Thanks for updating the Community forum of your resolution — it's a big help!

@Landelusen: To confirm, have you tried connecting your device to a mobile hotspot?

Cheers,

Muddi

[technopathy]

This issue has been driving me crazy for days. I had multiple Nest Hub v1 devices and google home speakers on my network, working fine, no issues. Received a new Nest Hub Max, had problems connecting every time. I was able to see in settings that the hub was getting an IP address from my network (and confirmed in my router) but kept displaying this error. In the end, it turns out that instead of using the DNS provided by my network, the hub attempts to call directly to Google's DNS servers.

I had a manual firewall rule that blocked all clients from directly accessing DNS servers so that all clients go via my local DNS. Disabling the rule resulted in the hub immediately working again. FWIW, it was not even enough to set Google's servers as the primary upstream service for my local DNS - apparently the hubs need to reach Google's servers directly or they simply won't work.

To Google - you should not be overriding local DNS servers with your own DNS. At the very least, falling back to whatever DNS server the local router gives you when you cannot reach Google DNS should be implemented. No single other device on my network has this problem.

Additionally, if you receive an IP address but have a problem resolving DNS, have the error message state something to that effect so that we know it's a DNS problem and not a network connection problem.

[MplsCustomer]

@Muddi

As the Google Nest Community Specialist involved with this issue, an you verify whether some Nest Hub Maxes are attempting to directly call Google's DNS servers, as reported by @technopathy ?

[Muddi]

Hey technopathy,

Thanks for sharing, and we appreciate your feedback. To confirm, are you pertaining to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4?

@MplsCustomer: Good suggestion! I'm already checking it with the team.

Cheers,

Muddi

[cmm]

today is 12/04/22, I’m now having this same issue. Was fine while on Xfinity cable. On 11/19/22 I switched to AT&T Fiber and DirecTV Streaming. Now I have this problem several times a day. The only fix is to disconnect power, reconnect and the Hub is fine. I see most of these posts are from June 2022, yet I don’t see a solution. What’s up?

[CityCabin]

Having the same issues on nest hub dropping connection which sometimes is resolved with resetting and sometimes is not. If the connection is restored, it drops again within a short window (5-30 mins).  I have the google router and other devices are working, but my Wi-Fi points and hubs (mini, nest mini, max) are not.  Has a solution been found for this yet?

[cg49me]

Add me to the list of victims. This had been happening infrequently (once every few weeks) for the past several months, but it's now occurred three times over the last two days. I can usually bring the hub back online with a factory reset, but now it's dropping out again after several hours.

This is only my 1st gen hub. I have two 2nd gens and a Max that are working fine.

I'll follow the requested troubleshooting steps later when I have more time. For now I just wanted to add my name to the list.

[Chippoly]

Have been on with Google support for some time. You need to disable ap isolation….bear in mind that you cannot do this with Google WiFi so their products are no longer compatible. Terrible really. Am waiting for feedback from senior team…..

[cameronlewis]

Our Nest Hub (1st Gen) has been rendered useless, and is now a paperweight. 

Fix this, Google. This stupid forum is a seriously small sampling of people who are experiencing this bug. For each person in this forum, there may very well be hundreds more people out there having this same problem. 

Really not a great look. 

[mr-atlantis]

Here to share my "fix" for my brand new Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen), using Google Nest Wifi Mesh router (+3 mesh nodes).

I have FiOS from Verizon, and my modem is also a 5g wireless router, but I don't use that wifi network directly. Instead, I have a Google Nest WiFi plugged via ethernet into the Verizon router, and all my home's devices connect to the Google WiFi mesh:

fios -> fios router/wifi -> google nest wifi -> (all my devices)

Well, I kept having the same network disconnected issues everyone else is complaining about.

What turned out to be my fix was to connect my Nest Hub directly to my Verizon wifi/router and not my Google Nest WiFi. 

I should note that none of the many devices connected to the Nest WiFi ever have any issues whatsoever. But, this new Nest Hub device... can't stay connected to it! What a joke! 

I'm glad I have a workaround, but if I ever want to make config changes from the Google Home app for the Nest Hub, I have to switch WiFi networks on my phone to be on the Verizon modem/wifi and then adjust the Hub settings. 

[MplsCustomer]

@mr-atlantis 

I could be mistaken, but it seems like a lot of the customers reporting "Internet connection" issues or streaming issues have Google Nest Wi-Fi. We do NOT have such issues, and we have an Xfinity router/modem and two Linksys wired routers configured as access points.

[mr-atlantis]

Indeed it seems the Nest Hub is not fully compatible with Nest Wifi (!!!?!?!) - but perhaps there are other wifi routers out there configured similarly to Nest Wifi that cause similar connection problems.

I don't have other wifi routers nor the time to try various AP configurations to test this theory.

[rmackman]

I see a lot of people requesting updates & tagging me. I will say that since my original post on Dec. 03, 2022, my Google Max still works. For reference:

ORIGINAL POST - 12/03/2022

For me it had absolutely nothing to do with the DNS from what I could tell. Basically my steps were (and they're kind of stupid, but it worked)...

1. Disconnect my Google Hub Max
2. Reset my entire network
3. (Whether you like it or not) flip on a hotspot from my wife's phone
4. Hard reset the Hub Max (it retained most of its settings in the end anyway)
5. Go through the entire set-up process again, but tell it to connect to the hotspot from my wife
6. This took longer than expected so just let it run through its progressions (it took like 15 minutes, I don't know why)
7. Reset the entire network again
8. Transfer the Hub Max from the hotspot to the proper network

It doesn't make much sense to me why this works, but it did. The entire process took far longer than I expected.

UPDATE - 06/06/2023

The only update that I have since then is that Google as made a bunch of updates to everything from Google Photos to the Google Home app. While my Google Max still works, it does have an issue with the camera locking up from time to time. I have to reboot it at least once a week so this doesn't happen. It's not a perfect solution, but it does work. It's definitely better than the "No Internet Connection" problem from before.

If I had to guess, it's that Google isn't done with all the changes they're making. Thus, there's probably no update to the Google Max internet connection issue because if they fix it, the next Google update might break it again. From a project management standpoint, they likely want to finish their whole overarching project before addressing this. That's just  my opinion as a regular user, though.

As always, thank you to @Landelusen, @Muddi, @MiniShyam, @maximman, @Breyes12, and everyone else that's been trying to help, troubleshoot, etc.

[abp]

The hub is at the line of sight with the wireless router and keeps disconnecting several times a day. Even a firmware reset did not fix it. Likely it pulls the buggy update after the firmware reset.