Google Nest Hub disconnecting from WiFi.

[Soulscode]

I have a Google Nest Hub that's been sitting on my kitchen counter for over 2 years working fine.  Last week it disconnected from the wifi, said it couldn't connect, and I ended up doing a factory reset with the unit plugged in near the Wifi router to make it go again.  Resetting it up again was a pain.  It has now done it again, sitting in the same place on the kitchen counter, it says it can't connect to the wifi.  My phone(Pixel 5) says the wifi signal is plenty strong(even tested with a wifi signal app), it detects it if I try to re-add it in the Google Home app, but still won't connect.  Here's what I've tried:

1) Change Wifi to 2.4Ghz SSID, no change.

2) Checked the password(hasn't changed in ages but technology...), all good.

3) If I move the Hub to the same room as the wifi router, even without a factory reset, it comes online with no issues.

4) Move it to it's original location, back to unable to connect.  I even held it up away from anything that might block/scatter the wifi signal, still no dice.

5) Reset the Wifi router, twice, still won't connect.

6) Left the Nest Hub unplugged for 15-20 minutes, then plugged it back in, still can't connect.

7) Moved it to a new outlet in the kitchen(power line noise?!), no bueno.

I've tried all the basic stuff, and a few more advanced things, and I'm still stumped.  It's almost seeming like an intermittent hardware issue, maybe something with the antenna.  Wifi is an Amplifi HD in AP only mode, with no mesh APs, just the base unit.  Any help would be appreciated.

[Ashepherdson]

When was the last time you rebooted your router itself?  

[Soulscode]

Today, twice.  The list of things above were all done today.

EDIT: Sorry, if you mean the internet router, my cable modem hasn't rebooted in a while, and neither has my standalone firewall.  There is no router per say, and I have no internet issues with anything else.  None of my other Google nest/home devices have had any issues, wifi or internet related.

[Ashepherdson]

Does your wifi router have band steering ? If so, try disabling it...that can cause issues (although I admit that it's unusual that it would only affect one device)

[Soulscode]

I did notice band steering was already turned off when I was looking at the WiFi AP this afternoon.  After I got frustrated and left it alone, I came back a couple of hours later and it appears to have reconnected on it's own.  I have no idea what is going on, nothing had changed in those two hours.

[Ashepherdson]

Fingers crossed it was a fluke , keep an eye on it and if it happens again let us know!  

[GCMartin]

Posted on wrong thread. Sorry!

[Ashepherdson]

I can promise it wasn't anything I did , I'm just a community member trying to help.  Sorry you said best buy branded units...are these not Google nest hubs we are taking about?  

[GCMartin]

The other home units I own have NOT had the problem I posted about. The Google units and the Lenovo Home display have always been stable.

In fact, until the Bestbuy units started exhibiting the problem in June, ALL Home units were stable with NO issues. In June, suddenly, the Bestbuy units started daily (often multiple times daily) going off requiring a power-cycle to return them to service. Sometimes it was ONLY for a few moments and other times it was for hours.

In July, I moved one of those units from behind the router to the modem's Wifi. That moved unit went stable, while the remaining unit continued erratic behavior. I did try some router config changes, but, nothing help the remaining unit. In frustration, I sent an appeal to this forum. I got your response of forwarding the problem:  AND WITHIN DAYS the remaining unit has gone stable and has not been touched, restarted, or tampered since.Its been weeks now with NO issues on the remaining unit.

Tomorrow, I will consider moving the unit connected to the modem back to behind the router. I have been hesitant until now: I wanted to be sure that stability was sustained behind the router before moving the modem unit back.

All HOME units are stable; no matter if in front of the router or behind.

[GCMartin]

Posted on wrong thread. Sorry.

[Lonicker]

I have a similar issue. I've had 5 Nest Hubs, Nest Doorbell, Nest Thermostat, and several Nest mini's for almost 3 years with no issues. In the last 3 weeks, the Hubs will constantly display "check internet connection". I have had the same internet and network setup the entire time. I have a Unifi system and it's updated and rebooted monthly.  No other devices have an issue with Wifi or connectivity. 

I have tried everything I can think of. 

- new Wifi network

- separating the 2.4 and 5Ghz bands

- changing one Wifi setting at a time to see if it has an impact

- reset and moved Hubs around several times

- the only thing that has worked is moving a Hub to another Wifi router completely, this makes no sense because everything was working for the last 3 years. 

[GCMartin]

---

@Lonicker wrote:- the only thing that has worked is moving a Hub to another Wifi router completely, this makes no sense because everything was working for the last 3 years. 

---

Exactly, my findings. IN my case, to test, I moved 1 of the 2 Home units to Wifi via the ISP modem-router and it has never failed, since the move. The other unit has remained as before with NO changes. Also, each unit continues to get their IP assignments from their respective routers.

One interesting thing which I cannot label is "WHY" the remaining unit went back to a point of "reasonable" stability after receiving a forum response. "Reasonable" means that instead of requiring it to be restarted multiple times per day BEFORE I RAISED the issue on the forum; the week AFTER I got a forum response indicating this problem is forwarded to development, the remaining unit settled to only having a restart requirement about once every other week. now. Before this dilemma started, these 2 units NEVER  needed a power-cycle restart.

I hope this info is useful IFF development is reviewing this problem. I hope development sees our updates.

[Lonicker]

At this point I’ll take any solution I can get even without an explanation because the next step is replacing these with something else. 

The only solution I don’t want is having to run a separate router just for these. 

[GCMartin]

In your descriptions, I am surprised that NEST hasn't responded to your blog.

In the packaging for your NEST units, did you get direct support telephone numbers? If so, try them and reply back here.

[Azarco]

Hi All,

Thanks for visiting the Community. 

Since this thread hasn't had activity in a while, we're going to close it to keep content fresh.

If you're still having trouble, feel free to submit another post and provide as many details as possible so that others can lend a hand.

Thanks,
Alex

[MilenApostolovM]

Hey guys I am from Bulgaria but I’ve bought my nest hub 2 from uk. I never had any issues with it until today. It’s constantly reconnecting from the network. I’ve done all the things from the above but nothing helps… It is a pity. Do you have any suggestions? I wonder where and what is the google support exactly! I can not contact the, nor anything . This forum is all I have…

[Ashepherdson]

Google support is here https://support.google.com/googlenest/gethelp?hl=en

As for the disconnects, there are so many possibilities, we always suggest a router reboot, device reboot / factory reset, as first steps to see if that clears up the issue.  

[GCMartin]

y "NET" problem on my router LAN has re-surfaced. Each day, at least once, the unit shows "NET" and requires power-cycle.

At this point, I am convinced it is a unit-router problem, but NOT SURE what I am looking for.

I have a modem with the router connected to the modem's LAN (not in a DMZ) over it's WAN interface. The router does not have Wifi! The ruter does provide DHCP and LAN services to the home. On the internal LAN there is an AP providing Wifi service to HOME units that need it. This 1 HOME unit is one of the units that use LAN's Wifi. The other WiFi units are NOT having any apparent issues and DO NOT require a power-cycle at all.

The HOME unit with the problem on this LAN network arrangement is the unit with the problem.

Again, this is a problem which appears to have gone away, that is now back???

[MilenApostolovM]

I’ve done that.Still no result…

[NerdShowAndTell]

Having the same issue..  using ubnt access points, things worked fine then last week or so 2 nest audios stopped connecting and now today a nest hub.. we have 6 hubs and 4 nest audios, and the others aren't doing it yet.

[GCMartin]

Hello @NerdShowAndTell, When you power-cycle the units, did they reconnect for any period of time? (Mine reconnect...for some period of time.)

[NerdShowAndTell]

The nest audios, no.. the hub would seem like it connected then drop.. I've factory reset all the devices with the issue again and they are connected.  I'll wait and see if it happens again.  

[Soulscode]

So, it's been fairly stable recently, though in the last week or so something has glitched when I have the Nest playing music and it's reset.  Both times it's done it, it's back to not being able to connect.  I'm a Network guy by trade, though wifi is not my area of expertise, based on some other wifi experiences I've had lately I'm going to toss out some educated guesses and/or wild speculation.

Due to some other wifi speed issues, I've recently become aware that the Wifi spectrum around me is super busy.  Lots of APs/SSIDs all stacked in all the available channels, presumably making for a very noisy wifi environment.  All the times I've had issues have been late in the day/early evening, when presumably is the busiest time for wifi use.  So I'm wondering if the Nest netcode doesn't tolerate noisy spectrum very well, or when it's looking for the handshaking to connect to an SSID, it's not waiting long enough.  I've got a puck, an original Google Home and a Lenovo G Assistant clock, and all connect/reconnect without issue, some are even farther from the AP than the Nest is.

My Nest is disconnected right now, and won't reconnect.  I've tried a couple of manual resets(unplugging), and tried re-adding it from the Home app on my phone.  The phone sees it, and initiates the wifi set up without issue, but the Nest won't connect to either of the SSIDs I have.  I'll try again later, maybe see if it'll reconnect in a few hours before I go to bed, or maybe tomorrow morning early and see what happens.

I may be talking completely out my ass here, but it's about the only thing I can think of that might explain this.  I also realize that this is a workaround at best, and even if I'm right, I don't see a fix coming from Google any time soon, if at all.

[Spams911]

The only reliable feature of the Nest Hub is the clock. Nothing else. I would not buy another Google product.

Tech support is from India. Good luck on that too.

I have tried everything from reboot, moved it next to the router, reset to default etc etc., my camera streaming still got cutoff a few times a day. It's good when it works. When it does not work, all you get is the run around. Google bought Nest cameras which made great products and turn them into bricks. Unfortunately I am no longer trust Google's products.

[NerdShowAndTell]

After updates from google and ubnt all my issues are gone and connections have been great for months now.

[GCMartin]

My issues with disconnects requiring a poweroff-poweron cycle to reconnect, have disappeared since November 2021.

I have reached a conclusion that the problem is partly related to one's home network in my WiFi tests of various configuration. But, I do not know the actual wifi component contributing although I do know which of my Wifi configurations exposes my unit's specific problem.

Now that the disconnecting behavior has diminished on the one unit, I CAN share this reality (evidence based) on the main WiFi network I use at home. I have 2 Wifi networks, one for visitors/guest and the other for my main home LAN.

1. My Google Home unit (non-display,non-mini) NEVER had any issue requiring a power-cycle.
2. My Lenovo Display 10 had only 2 instances in 2021 requiring a power-cycle.
3. My 2 Best-buy Inspiron units (non-display) had continual problems until November 2021.

Hope this info is useful. I feel for my problematic units, reliability has returned.