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The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

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Re: The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

#91

Post by bombcar »

macshome wrote: post #83

Back when I had cable internet we had a bizarre problem where the service would often stop working if it was very cold and raining. It had to be that specific combo as well. - Just rain == good internet - Just cold == good internet - Cold + rain == bad internet After a lot of head scratching the provider finally sent someone with a ladder to climb the poll. What they found was that the protective boot on the coax con…

I had a cable connection that would reliably drop during snowmelt. No other time. Snow? Fine. Rain? Fine. Only continued snowmelt would cause it to drop.

Eventually got fiber.

Re: The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

#92

Post by olivia-banks »

vghaisas wrote: post #13

I've collected a list of fun stories of this form and post them when this comes up: - Car allergic to vanilla ice cream: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wkw/humour/carproblems.txt - Can't log in when standing up: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3v52p... - OpenOffice won't print on Tuesdays: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/255161...

This one about a singly-wired switch is in the same vein:

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/magic-story.html

Re: The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

#93

Post by Graziano_M »

vghaisas wrote: post #13

I've collected a list of fun stories of this form and post them when this comes up: - Car allergic to vanilla ice cream: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wkw/humour/carproblems.txt - Can't log in when standing up: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3v52p... - OpenOffice won't print on Tuesdays: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/255161...

In a very strange coincidence, I happened to read that first story in a book[1] I'm reading, just last night! What are the chances?

[1] https://debuggingrules.com/

Re: The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

#95

Post by pak9rabid »

bentcorner wrote: post #46

My only unsolved networking mystery was that my computer would experience high packet loss when a Roku in the other room was streaming Netflix. My PC and the roku device were both wired to two different ports on a router (iirc an Edgerouter X running openwrt at the time). This didn't repro when the roku streamed other services (hulu/youtube tested), only netflix. This also didn't repro if the roku was connected over…

Here's a fun one that I still haven't figured out:

I recently purchased a Banana Pi 4 with the 802.11be Wi-Fi 7 module to be used as an access point. It generally works well as an AP and I'm getting full speeds. However, for some reason whenever I try to communicate directly with the router/firewall (separate device on the same network) through this AP, it will intermittently drop 3/4 packets. It only happens when communicating with the router/firewall device, and only over the wlan interface on the bpi-r4. I have a similar AP setup on another embedded system (PCEngines APU2) and this has never been an issue.

I suspect there's some sort of bug with the internal 4-port switch of the bpi-r4 not playing well with the wlan interface when they're all bridged together, but digging through the logs hasn't revealed anything obvious.

It's driving me nuts!

Re: The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

#96

Post by taolson »

vghaisas wrote: post #13

I've collected a list of fun stories of this form and post them when this comes up: - Car allergic to vanilla ice cream: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wkw/humour/carproblems.txt - Can't log in when standing up: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3v52p... - OpenOffice won't print on Tuesdays: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/255161...

Also this one, which originally came from Usenet days:

https://old.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/cp48t...

Re: The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

#97

Post by colechristensen »

cookiengineer wrote: post #28
colechristensen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your microwave uses 2.4 GHz specifically because it's particularly well absorbed by water :)

A friend told me once that his mouse stops working when someone is using the microwave. His room was on the backside of the kitchen. When I took a look at it, it turned out that his (proprietary) wireless USB adapter for the mouse was very close to the band of the noise of the microwave. The microwave was also not properly grounded and shared a circuit breaker with his room, as apparently the kitchen was formerly lar…

Mysterious radio astronomy signals turned out to be the breakroom microwave:

Sadly, it's never aliens

https://www.nature.com/nature-index/news/its-the-microwave-h...

Re: The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

#98

Post by wang_li »

Jean-Papoulos wrote: post #57

>With a bit of work, my dad set up a line-of-sight Wi-Fi bridge — a couple of high-gain directional Wi-Fi antennas pointed at each other — between the office and our apartment. How was that not the first thing to be checked ? OP must have hit themselves over the head for not thinking of that one sooner

It makes a much shorter and boring story that obviates the entire "the wifi only works when it's raining" title.

Re: The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

#99

Post by jasomill »

vghaisas wrote: post #13

I've collected a list of fun stories of this form and post them when this comes up: - Car allergic to vanilla ice cream: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wkw/humour/carproblems.txt - Can't log in when standing up: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3v52p... - OpenOffice won't print on Tuesdays: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/255161...

Can't send email more than 500 miles away: https://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html

And my personal favorite, "more magic": https://web.archive.org/web/20260103114654/http://www.catb.o...

Re: The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

#100

Post by jasomill »

nkrisc wrote: post #72
thedufer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can't log in when standing up This reminds me of a recent issue I had. I had just gotten a new laptop from IT. While picking it up from them, I had generated myself a password, put it in my password manager on my phone, and then entered it twice to set it on the laptop. Everything worked great. But when I got back to my desk, the password didn't work! I tried a bunch of times, watched myself hit each key to elimina…

I’ve done this before as well. It truly baffled me because of how much in undermined me sense of being totally aware of my body. I truly believed I was hitting the right keys (I know how to type after all) and I never noticed any issue when writing normally, but only when typing my password. But of course I couldn’t see my password as I typed, while in other cases I would subconsciously correct any resulting typos be…

I somes subconsciously correct typos even when not looking at them. It drives me crazy when UI design breaks this, like fixed-length security code / PIN entry UIs that automatically submit when you enter the last character of the code.

I also tend to memorize long (8+ digit) PINs based on the physical layout of the keys, so if I need to enter a PIN set up on a phone-style keypad on a normal keyboard or numeric keypad, or vice versa, I need to visualize entering the PIN on the original input device to remember it.

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