Surprise: Pixel phones are once again having Wi-Fi problems

Pixel phones are having connectivity problems again. Over the last 24 hours or so, several users have taken to Reddit to say their phones are failing to connect in the internet in various ways.

It’s not clear how or if these issues are actually related. We’ve clocked three separate posts about connectivity problems from the past day: a Pixel 10 user who says their phone keeps flip-flopping between Wi-Fi and mobile data; another who says they keep losing mobile data; and a 7a owner who was able to resolve their issue by resetting connectivity settings.

Commenters on each post say that they’ve been having similar problems. We saw some early Android 17 adopters having trouble with Wi-Fi in certain apps a couple of weeks back, but this latest batch of complaints includes some reports that say connectivity problems have been going on for months.

Google’s responded, suggesting that affected users might be able to fix their connectivity problems by resetting their network settings. If you’re having similar trouble, you can try that by going to Settings -> System -> Reset options -> Reset Bluetooth & Wi-Fi. That’s what user Any_Day_1270 did, and it evidently solved their problems on Pixel 7a.

Connectivity problems are hardly new for Pixel phones; it seems like something breaks for a significant portion of the user base every couple of months. An update this past January seemed especially gnarly, with more than half of 795 readers who responded to our survey about the update indicating it messed something up on their Pixels.

Earlier this year, a repair shop in Vancouver was able to get a Pixel 8’s broken Bluetooth and Wi-Fi working again by swapping out the wireless module inside the phone. It’s interesting that, in at least one user’s case, flaky wireless connectivity was down to faulty hardware — but that’s probably not the issue for most people.

It’s worth noting that online reports don’t necessarily reflect the average user experience — anecdotally, I’ve never had any connectivity issues on Pixel phones, and I’ve used a bunch of them. Still, something is happening to all the users making these posts. Here’s hoping Google ironed it out in time for the upcoming Pixel 11 series.