Wi-Fi & connectivity

[Anonymous]

How do you contact technical support?  I have looked all over this site and cannot find ANYONE that will help. I've got the same problem with Roku disconnecting from the network and my wifi.

[Anonymous]

Try Roku

You should be able to choose chat or email support.

[atc98092]

That one reply is worthless, but according to a checking site I use it wasn't AI written. 

The first thing to investigate if a WiFi was working well but suddenly stops connecting is if your ISP has control of your router/modem. If you are leasing your router/modem from your Internet provider, they very likely do have control of it, and they probably changed something that impacts your use. 

Does your Roku still see your WiFi, but not connect, or does your WiFi not even appear in the list of possible connections? If you can see it, that means they didn't change the channel on you. If you can't see it, then it was probably a channel change. Roku devices on 2.4 GHz can only see channels 1-11. There are channels 12, 13 and 14 that your router might change to but Roku doesn't support them. So confirm the channel is set to 1, 6 or 11 (the three channels that don't overlap each other. If your Roku is dual band, there are also channel restrictions on 5 GHz as well. The channel has to be 48 or lower, or 149 or higher. 

If your Roku sees the WiFi but won't connect, then perhaps your ISP changed your 2.4 GHz radio mode to G/N. For some unknown reason some Roku devices have problems with that mode on some modems/routers. Change the mode to B/G/N and you should be able to connect again.

[teddyfroop]

In order, the steps I would take. 

1. Check if other devices like your phone are still connected (may tell you right away if its the wifi  or the device)

2. Restart Roku, ensure it can see the wifi signal.

3. Restart Router - stuff goes wrong on Routers with no indication anything is wrong, Check if Roku connects.

4 Check router for changes.  99% of ISP updates reset or change things without saying anything.

I wouldn't rush to reset anything until I had powered all the network components down and up, and made sure nothing on the router changed and all my other devices were connecting.

[jb27]

how do you check your router for changes?? wasn't aware of that.

[teddyfroop]

Most times on an ISP's router you wont know except that the router restarts for unknown reasons or you are restarting and it takes it sweet time shutting down with a message not to turn it off.

If your ISP (I assume they supplied the router here.) does not allow you to save your profile, I would save a copy of my set up page by page as HTML files so if you suddenly can't connect you can go back and make sure your settings are the same. 

It's a little late now for that but once you get it working...

Nearly every device has an option to save your setup profile as a file.  So all my nas devices, my personal wireless access point, all have a file with their config info that I can reload if something goes wrong.

My ISP supplied router does not.  So I went through all the setup screens, one by one, copied and saved them as an HTML file, put them in a folder and if my router is reset, or updated and resets and something isn;t working, I can set it back to where I need it to be.

[jb27]

Except no support for Roku express other than reading a myriad of online support pages 

[Mr_Robusto]

Thanks for the great info!    I restarted/rebooted and made faces at my ROKU.   I verified 5G is on Ch 6 and 2.4G is on Ch 11.   Almost through the ROKU out the window.    Time for a fire stick.

[AvsGunnar]

@Mr_Robusto 

"... I verified 5G is on Ch 6 and 2.4G is on Ch 11".

Channels 1-11 are 2.4ghz band channels.  The 5ghz channels will be higher. (36-48 and 149-165).

If you are having disconnections while on 5ghz, try verifying that your router does not use DFS channels (52-140) as Roku cannot currently see or use these channels and will disconnect from the network as a result.

Feel free to post back with your Roku model number, your router model number, and ISP (internet service provider).  I read through your other posting but didn't see any details.

[Mdo]

So how do you verify 5g is on Ch 6 and 2.4g is on ch 11?