We changed internet providers a few days ago and got a new gateway/router with the service.
Everything seemed normal at first. My PS5 connected right away and I played online for most of the evening with no issues.
Then the next day it randomly dropped offline and now it basically refuses to use the home WiFi.
Phones, laptops, TV, etc. are all fine.
I’ve restarted the PS5, rebooted the gateway, forgotten the network and added it again. Sometimes the console sees the WiFi and starts connecting, but then I get either an internet connection error or an authentication error.
One possibly relevant thing: we reused the same WiFi name we had with an older router a while back. Different router, same SSID, new password.
At this point I’m not sure if the PS5 is confused by an old saved network or if the new router just doesn’t like it for some reason.
Can you connect the PS5 to a phone hotspot? That’s the easiest way to stop guessing whether the console’s WiFi itself is broken.
@CodeWizard Couldn’t use my phone for it, but I shared the connection from my laptop. PS5 connected immediately and went online. So… router problem?
Router/network side, at least. Doesn’t necessarily mean the router is defective. Could be security settings, DHCP, band behavior, device blocking, etc. But the PS5 radio obviously isn’t completely dead if it works through the hotspot.
I wouldn’t reuse the old SSID while troubleshooting this. Give the new router a completely different WiFi name for ten minutes and connect the PS5 to that as a brand-new network. Cheap test and it removes any possibility of stale saved settings doing something weird.
@Skeptical.pragmatist Yeah that’s worth trying. I reused the name mostly because I didn’t want to reconnect every smart device in the house.
Are 2.4 and 5 GHz combined under one SSID? I’d also test each one separately if the router lets you. Not because 2.4 is automatically “better”, but because you’re trying to find out whether the failure follows one particular radio/band.
@Skeptical.pragmatist This is where a WiFi analyzer can at least help you see what the new gateway is actually broadcasting instead of relying on the PS5’s little signal percentage. NetSpot will show the BSSID, band, channel, signal and security info for the network. I’d compare the 2.4 and 5 GHz radios and see whether anything looks different from what you expect. If the PS5 works on a hotspot but keeps throwing authentication/internet errors on both bands, though, I wouldn’t assume channel congestion is the whole problem. Then I’d keep digging into the gateway config.
@Dilemma_Fixer Yep. Analyzer is useful for the RF side, but “authentication failed” makes me look at configuration before I start obsessing over channels.