Need Help Diagnosing the Source of Instability

[solburn]

I am using a Kindle Fire HDX 7" 3rd Gen to connect to xfinitywifi with my comcast login. Every few minutes my connectivity bar goes from 2 up to 4 and I lose connection for about 5 seconds (Just enough to cause a disconnect in whatever online game I happen to be playing at the time, hence my frustration.)

It happens at every single xfinitywifi hotspot, but never at any non-xfinity hotspots.

Is it comcast? My tablet? Any information I can gather will help.

I would provide all the hardware details, but I don't know what kind of modem/router they are using, and apparently the exact specifications of the Fire HDX are some kind of top secret Amazon info.

 

[Ralston18]

Could be just the traffic on the Xfinity hotspot(s). Or other wireless interference in the local area.

Not necessarily Comcast - but if the bandwidth is not available or otherwise "in demand" all user's suffer. And wireless can be problematic in many settings.

Add on the traffic to gaming sites and you have the classic "traffic congestion" that very much parallels roads and automobiles.

Do you get any error messages that would be related to your Kindle per se and not the hotspot?

 

[solburn]

There are no error messages, the connection simply goes dead (0% data transfer) for a few seconds every ~7 minutes, then reconnects. I've tested at mutiple times, morning, afternoon, evening, and night, with the same result. When I was connected to McDonald's wifi the other day the connection stayed strong for 2 hours before I was kicked and had to press "Get Connected" again, but I believe that is normal for public portals if I'm not mistaken.

 

[Ralston18]

Thanks - that there is a "pattern" of sort may be helpful. Double check all your settings: Maybe disable any that are time or energy savings related.

Just for testing purposes to see if one of those settings is problematic.

How many apps do you have running? Turn off as many as you can and just work with one long enough to see if connectivity stays constant.

Then start adding back apps one at a time and keep testing accordingly. You may be able to identify the offending app accordingly.

Could be more difficult if multiple applications are involved, i.e., a "perfect storm" scenerio.

Tedious and time consuming. However lacking any diagnostic software or system log information limits the options available.