Wi-Fi & connectivity

[sulingman]

 I would bring my Roku to my Mom's house sometimes to watch a movie or something with her. It doesn't work anymore and I seemed to have missed the memo. I get an error when I try to connect to internet it asks me if I am in a dorm or hotel room, or at home. I try selecting at home and follow the steps to connect wirelessly on my laptop but it will not connect. I even got a splash page on my browser saying something about illegal streaming. I don't get that at all. The PBS app requires no login, I can stream on my laptop, the Roku seems designed to be portable... what has changed that trying to connect to my Mom's internet is causing these errors?

[renojim]

Who is your mother's ISP (Internet service provider) and what is the model number of your Roku displayed under Settings->System->About?

[sulingman]

Its Spectrum. 3900X Roku Express is the model. I used to log in there no problem. She did get a letter from Spectrum about illegal streaming/downloading but it wasn't specific. We don't think there should be any issue with streaming on the Roku, that we are aware about.

[RokuDanny-R]

@sulingman

Thanks for the post regarding internet connectivity issues with your Express device.
If your internet service provider is Comcast, we would recommend changing your router settings for 2.4 GHz band from g/n to b/g/n, as customers have stated that this helped resolve their issue.

In addition, we would recommend trying the following troubleshooting steps:

- Have you ensured your router is broadcasting a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network for the device to connect to? The Roku Express/Premiere is only compatible with wireless b/g/n networks on the 2.4 GHz spectrum. 
- Have you tried changing the wireless broadcast channel on the router to see if this will allow your device to connect? 

Please keep us posted what you find out.

Thanks,
Danny

[sulingman]

I didn't see anything on the router to indicate g/n or b/g/n settings. There was a letter she received that the internet was temporarily shut off due to streaming/downloading... but nobody noticed that happened except for the fact I was there trying to show her something using Roku and that triggered some problem none of us understand.

[DBDukes]

@sulingman 

The notice from the ISP, and them interrupting her service may be part of the issue.

It may be that someone riding her network is doing illegal downloading. Neighbor, wardriver, someone.

You'll want to change the network password. You'll want to check for any strange devices connecting to her WiFi. Since you don't know how to check the settings for b/g/n, you'll need to do some research for that. You'll want to search in a browser for information about your ISP's router admin interface. The adminID/password may be stamped on the router, or it may be a default used universally.

If someone wardriving found the network accessible, they may have even changed the admin credentials if they knew what to look for (ISP, router model). But look into that, and change the network password.

You may feel better getting your ISP to do that.

And don't give it out to anyone. Kids like to get on grandma's WiFi, sure. But kids also tell their friends. And their friends may not be people that need to know the information. Kids are trusting. They haven't learned to not trust anyone yet.

Anyway, the fact her ISP has detected illegal downloads means someone is on her network doing that. You'll need to prevent that. She could be held liable. (You don't have to tell her that, just tell her people are using up her Internet.)

That may need to be resolved before the ISP undoes whatever action they took to deal with illegal downloads.