Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire is a fascinating device! We got ours last week but this isn’t a review – opinions are still forming over here at the global headquarters of Bruceb Consulting.
For now I want to point out a single issue: some people are having trouble connecting their new Kindle Fires to wireless networks. The Kindle Fire is pretty useless without an 802.11 connection; it is not designed to connect to Verizon or AT&T networks, so a connection to a local 802.11 wireless network is required before you can download books or watch movies or install apps.
I pulled the Kindle Fire out of the box and admired it and turned it on and was led through an excellent startup wizard, which quickly found the wireless network and asked for the security key and . . . fail.
Tap tap tap, doublecheck the password, turn on the display of the characters so I can see what I’m typing and . . . fail. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I’ve heard from a couple of clients having similar problems. Over in the Amazon forums there are active threads with people venting and trading tips about possible fixes and describing their experiences with customer support – here’s one with more than a hundred comments, and here’s another one with forty more comments. There’s a story from a reviewer who was eager to write an early review: “Since I promised everyone that I’d do an unboxing/first impressions, then a full review later, I wanted to be true to that promise. Unfortunately, my Kindle Fire just didn’t want to connect to my home Wi-Fi network. . . . Now I’ve got about 2 hours of time invested in getting this thing to work. For now I sit with a $200 block of plastic and glass that won’t even let me read the user manual or dictionary without first connecting to a network to register my device online. Frustrating is an understatement right here.” (He eventually got the Kindle Fire online by replacing his old router.)
There is no way to know how many people this affects. You could find similarly active forum threads about problems with virtually every device on the market. (Do a search for “iPhone dropped connections” or “Android wireless problems” or any other variation you care to imagine – you’ll quickly be convinced that nothing works, ever.)
My advice: If you’re in the market for a Kindle Fire, buy one. This isn’t affecting very many people. If you’re one of them, you’ll be mighty annoyed, but there’s a chance that you would experience some infuriating problem with anything and everything else on the market. This doesn’t feel like a problem that ought to disqualify the Kindle Fire from being considered.
There’s no quick fix yet. Customer support will lead you through an upgrade to version 6.1 of the Kindle Fire OS, a tricky process that requires a lot of manual steps while the device is tethered to a computer. It helps some people, not others. A partial list of things that have worked for some people:
- Restarting the Kindle Fire by holding down the power button for 30 seconds until it goes black, then starting up again.
- Power cycling the wireless router.
- Changing the type of security on the router from WEP to WPA2.
- Changing the settings on the router to disable 802.11n and limit it to 802.11g.
- Changing the settings on the Kindle Fire to limit its wireless speed to 54Mb/second.
Your mileage may vary. Again, a list like this sounds dismal but my gut tells me that almost all of the seventeen million Kindle Fires shipped this month are happily connected to whatever network is nearby. Your odds are good.
For what it’s worth, I got our Kindle Fire connected by reconfiguring our Cisco WAP4410N wireless access point. It was set up in a plain vanilla way, broadcasting an 802.11n signal with WPA2 security. I thought it would be interesting to turn off the security, which led me on a sideways chase to discover why I couldn’t see the second “guest” network that the WAP told me it was broadcasting. It was a bug in the firmware installed on the WAP – wow, have I been there before with routers and WAPs! Install a firmware update, restart the WAP, and now all the devices can see a guest network isolated from the computers in the house. The Kindle Fire spots it, joins it, and everything is swell forever.
That’s not an answer that will fit your situation. Clearly Amazon has to make a deeper fix available – and presumably it will, probably sooner rather than later. In the meantime, if you get a Kindle Fire, I hope it connects to your wireless network without any complaints!
“This isn’t affecting very many people. If you’re one of them, you’ll be mighty annoyed, but there’s a chance that you would experience some infuriating problem with anything and everything else on the market.”
That is just insulting to write anyone off who has an offline problem with Kindle as some sort of an idiot when it comes to electronics. I have never had problems with any other device and suggest you clarify instead of making wild general statements
Actually, making wild general statements is pretty much what I do. But I promise I will learn from this and become a better, more nuanced person! And if you’ve never experienced an infuriating problem with any electronic device except the Kindle Fire, I want to live in your neighborhood, because you are the luckiest person in the world.
I have the KF and disappointed in its ability to function considering the amount of money Ive paid to purchase. Seems to always have an issue lately. Now, it wont configure the address to obtain wi fi……grrrrrrrrrr…I have wifi on other devices, so its not my net.
If you’re at home or a small business, always power cycle the router (unplug, wait, plug in, wait) when you have wi-fi issues. It’s kind of like restarting a computer – it doesn’t always help but it’s kind of surprising how often things start working after that. And carry the KF to a different location and try to connect to wi-fi there, just in case. Good luck!
I bought the latest edition of Kindle Fire for my grandson. It supposedly has a two year guarantee. Right. We opened the Kindle on Christmas Eve this year, and the piece of junk has yet to connect to wi fi. I’ve been online with amazon support three times and no go. I contacted customer support and told them I wanted either a replacement that works, or this one repaired. They sent my call to tech support once again. What happened to the guarantee??? I am P.O. ed to the ninth degree.
This is such discouraging reading above. My brandnew, out of the box KF HD does not even show any wifi-networks, anywhere, nothing at all, not at home, not at the local public library, not at work – and it seems that without the wifi it’s pretty useless, although it does play some mp3″s I transferred from my desktop computer.
I find it so strange that these devices continue to being sold when they simply don’t work. I’m returning it & buy a proper tablet in a shop where the assistant can show that it actually works.
My 1st gen Kindle Fire OS 4.3.3 would connect to the network and retrieve an IP address but would not register or connect to the web. After much experimentation and tests I found that if I set my NETGEAR WNR 2000 router to 56 Mb/sec then the Kindle Fire 1st generation would be able to register and access the web. Setting the router back to “allow 300 Mb/sec” restored the problem for the Kindle Fire 1st gen. I have a Kindle Fire 2nd generation OS 10.4 which does not have a problem.
Kindle Fire …. best suited as firewood
OK for youtube when it works but half the time it connects to a wi fi but not the internet. Very intermittent. Even did factory reset, no help. It will work for two days then suddenly disconnect from the internet for several days. Almost as if it has an inbuilt download limit per week.
Also when I want ebay, then I want real ebay not ebay mobile. …. Don’t get me started.
Well its official. I am returning this piece of poopy tomorrow. I spent countless hours trying to figure it out.
Someone should do a class-action lawsuit against Amazon LYING about it. They keep denying there is a “known” issue. This has been going on since they released this Kindle!! I get 97,000 hits on google when I search “Kindle Fire Connectivity Issues”. Shame on Amazon!!
This morning was the last straw, I spent the good part of 1 hour with a Amazon Kindle tech online, and they had me reset default settings. It worked for about 4 hours, then the same connectivity issues again.
I doubt if there will be any mention of issues with this version of the Kindle Fire but Amazon is set to announce the next version at an event on September 6, right around the corner.
I couldn’t connect immediately either. I thought about it for a few minutes and set wireless to g. No change. I went through the rest of my router’s pages and couldn’t think of anything else to do. I decided to change back to wireless n since it made no difference and realized I was only broadcasting in dual-band 5Ghz. Turned on 2.5Ghz frequency and I was in.
tl;dr – KINDLE FIRE DOES NOT SUPPORT 5Ghz DUAL-BAND
No kidding! I wouldn’t have thought about that but I have some experience with it. I wrote an article last year about a particular type of hell I went through when I first ran into an issue with the 5Ghz band – http://www.brucebnews.com/2011/05/whining-about-wireless/. Good job tracking it down!
Thanks. I will give it a try.
My Kindle fire works fine at home where I have wi-fi but when I go to the nearby park where there is no connection, the green power button just goes on for a few seconds then turns off. I never see anything but a black screen. Won’t turn on. Any ideas?
That’s weird! If you hold the power button in for 10-15 seconds, I think you can force a hard shutdown, then restart from scratch. Don’t know if it would help – that’s an odd symptom. Good luck!
I got my KF a couple of weeks ago….got it connected to my home WIFI with few problems. However, today, I had an opportunity to try to connect it at a local coffee shop (free wifi with login) – I log in there all the time. Could NOT get the KF past the ‘connected’ stage. In other words, it showed that it was connected to the WIFI, but I couldn’t log on and get out to the internet. Very frustrated. Will try a couple of other places, but if I can’t get it resolved, I’m sending it back. Otherwise, I love the thing….didn’t have the bux for a bigger tablet, but researched and thought this might meet my needs. If I can get it to do what it is *supposed* to do, it will. :-/
Lately (May 2012) I’ve started to wonder if wireless security is fragmenting, so that not all devices can connect to all networks. The blur of WPA/WPA2, Personal/Enterprise, TKI/PSK, Mixed, has to be contributing to the number of connections that just can’t be made. The Kindle Fire is the poster child – I’ve seen several that could only be connected to certain access points and not others, like your experience. But now I’m seeing it occasionally with laptops and Android phones and iPads. I can’t get a handle on it yet. I’m watching for something that will help me figure out where the blame lies.
I worked with someone that had a Kindle Fire that simply would not connect to her Netgear access point, no matter what setting we chose (and we tried a lot). Got a new router and bang, connected right away, worked flawlessly ever since. That’s not a very good experience but I’m not sure the blame lies entirely with Amazon.
I bought this KF for my grandson who travels to Houston and Austin. The Kindle Fire will not connect to wireless. I had no trouble until last weekend. I have tried to connect many time to other wireless networks, so it cannot be the routers. So, just ordered the IPAD 3rd generation! – So the next step it to have target practice with this $200.00 piece of junk! Time is money and I am not wasting anymore on Kindle
Jennifer I feel you same thing with my KF they suck I know that and I’m 12.Ive been working on it with my dad for days.THIS HAPPENS TO ALMOST EVERY1 SO DONT SAY THAT IT “RARELY” HAPPENS THATS A LOE BUT I GUESS YOU WERE HIRED TO LOE TO PEOPLE THAT LIKE TO READ
Non of the crap above helped my kindle fire ive spent fays trying to fix it I cant even buy books Wasn’t that the point of the kindle fire?Its stupid that you cant buy books on something made for books. I am so infuriated.I wqnt to finish reading my series BUT I CANT WITH A KINDLE FIRE NOW CAN I??? HUH HUH THATS WHAT I THOUGHT
I am able to log on to my ATT uverse wireless with three iphones and 1 ipad; but this kindle is a POS.
i had this kindle fire up for a while now nothing.
i did a reset and lost the few, but who cares now.
i have it plugged into the usb on my desktop now. you would think you could at leats access the internet this way, but no.
I would trash this but it is a christmas present from my daughter to my wife. you can guess who is in the middle.
surely there is a solution?
I now have two kindle fires and they ARE BOTH BROKEN!!!! D: MY PARENTS THINK I DONT TREAT MY KINDLES VERY WELL WHEN REALLY ITS ALL AMAZON’S FAULT!!! D’: I’m sick of kindles:( I’m officially giving up with their crap. I’m getting an ipad. BYE KF!!! wont miss you 😛 if anyone is thinking about getting a kf, DONT! its extra frustration that you don’t need
DISREGARD MY LAST POST FRUSTRATION GOT THE BEST OF ME.
No worries. If a problem like this keeps you offline, it’s bound to drive you mad. It’s small consolation if I tell you that I run into equally infuriating problems with iPhones, Android phones, tablets, Nooks, PCs, Macs, printers, wireless connections, programs, web services – such an incredible array of mind-sucking problems that it amazes me that anyone is able to operate anything. The Kindle’s problems seem pretty typical.
This isn’t affecting very many people. If you’re one of them, you’ll be mighty annoyed, but there’s a chance that you would experience some infuriating problem with anything and everything else on the market. This doesn’t feel like a problem that ought to disqualify the Kindle Fire from being considered.
WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!! THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF COMPLAINTS OVER THE WIFI CONNECTION AND GROWING BY THE DAY….
Wish I had got an Ipad instead. My KF connected to the internet just fine when I got it. A week later and it was intermittently connecting. Now it will not connect to my WiFi at all. I understand products having bugs, but this one is entirely unacceptable. I will never buy another amazon tablet again.
Yup same thing! I bought a warranty so I’m gonna make them fix it or give me a mew one. I’m so disappointed 🙁
I can search the web,but can’t go to the app store or use any of the apps saying there is a connectivity problem.
I am having the same problem as Erica. Think I might return it.
I don’t have a problem connecting but after 2 weeks of having it and using it with wi fi just fine. Now it brings this screen up on every web page saying its insecure and now it wont let me use my Pandora app, weather channel app, or angry birds saying there is a connectivity issue. What is the problem?
I don’t know. That’s a new one. I’m disappointed – I thought Amazon would have acknowledged problems and sorted things out by now.
Similar story – bought it for Christmas for wife – driving me crazy except my wifi works intermittently! What’s up with that? Over 1/2 the time it works beautifully! Then randomly won’t work properly. In settings it says “connected”- (and my weather app is updating) but has the x by the wifi icon and won’t access the web. Very crazy-making. – Steve
I am having WiFi connectivity problems as well. I have contacted Amazon asking if I can get my money back. I had high expectations when I recently bought it but I am very disappointed in it’s lack of versatility, performance, poor connectivity. It is basically an E-Reader with a colour screen.
i am so upset with my kf ,its killing me i spent 200$ on a pile of crap that will not connect no matter how hard i try it is really stupid!!!
I bought a KF for my mother for Christmas. I am now on the 2nd one and still cannot get it to connect to he wireless network. I am going to purchase a new router and giv ethat a try. If that doesn’t work, it’s going back and I’ll spend a little more $$ on something that will connect. my iPad doesn’t have an ssie and my Android device doesn’t have an issue and my laptop doesn’t have an issue….just the KF. Very frustrating!!
How do you limit the wireless speed?
well i followed the intructions and nothing happen these are stupid intructions
well i read your comment and nothing happen this is stupid comment
Best wishes,
Bruce
Even my cousin faced the same issue with his Amazon Kindle Fire, You can check his explanation here:
http://www.androidnew.com/news/kindle-fire-having-wi-fi-issues-are-you-facing-the-same.html
I have the same problems with my Kindle Fire. I started by getting a new Router and I got sd micro usb cable to connect to my home computer. I downloaded and transferred the update ver 6.2. transferred that to the fire and ran the update – still no connection.
So, even if I can get it to work on my home wifi, after all th epossible reconfigurations, what about when I am at a library, a university bookstore, a coffee shop or any other usual WIFI location then what do I do?
If Amazon does come out with a fix that does work, how will I know about it?
Why tell everyone to go buy this piece of glass and plastic if it does not work – out of the box?
I got this as a step towards the wifi world, so I could be more mobile with my reading, and perhaps start to do some wifi surfing. When I did go onto the Amazon site, I found less information regarding solutions, than what I was able to trip across on the Fire unit itself. However when I checked the Amazon bookstore to see if I could at least download Stephen King’s latest novel to my desk top, I was informed the e -version price is substantially greater than the paperback copy. Go figure! This is definitely not intended for the aging generation.
Time to sell the Amazon shares?
I think I will go renew my library card.