Samsung S20 Plus 5Ghz WiFi Connectivity issue.

[Imam2079]

Hi, My new Samsung S20+ wouldn’t find my access point’s (Ubiquity APAC Pro) 5Ghz SSID network, very upsetting when you’re excitedly exploring your brand new phone. We are actually an “iPhone family” and there are about 30 devices those access both 2.4 and 5Ghz SSID without any issue. Although the S20+ connects to my 2.4Ghz SSID. After a lot of trials and errors I found out that all channel frequencies  of 5Ghz band isn't accessible by S20+; my router’s channel selection was on Auto and that was the problem. When I changed the channel to 153-157(US) it worked and found the 5Ghz SSID. Later I tried with all other channels and it can’t detect the 5G SSID. I think this is a bug in the WiFi adapter of the phone and I would appreciate Samsung to resolve the issue may be though a firmware update ASAP.
Cheers!

[Kobor]

Definitely there is a problem with choosing the better network (5 GHZ) on S20 phones.

We have only Samsung devices (phones and tablets alike) at home with Ubiquiti APs, where using same SSID with both 2.4 and 5 GHz network. ALL the other devices working most of the time (95% or over) on the 5 GHz network only switch to the 2.4GHz one when behind a lot of wall or in the garden. We are set up fixed Channels, separate for both floors (other end of the range).

BUT our new S20 FE phone is most of the time connect to the 2.4 GHz network. If we are lucky 1 out of 20 connection (or even lower times) will connect to the 5GHz network. Phone is bought from official Telenor Telco provider in Hungary (Europe). Only installed 1-2 application and few days old the phone, did the system update, Android 11 on it as Remember, latest one for sure. When finally managed to connect to the 5GHz SSID the speed is very good, around 500 mbit/s or even over, while only 80-100 on the 2.4 connection.

Tested many-many time side-by-side with other phones (A5,A7,S7) the connections, and all the other ones did well around 300 mbit/s speed, on the very SAME spot in the house, very same time (1-2 minutes later or earlier, not did the test parallel).

So S20 have difficulty to choose the 5 GHz network over the 2.4 GHz. When lowered the 2.4 signal power it went better. Can you set the Band selection strategy same as other model? When a 5G power is a bit lower it will still outperform by 5x the 2G signal.

Thank you!

[Members_yREaICX]

This **bleep**, the only way I can get my S20 Ultra to connect to 5Ghz wifi is if I put it into safe mode then connect to the wifi in safe mode and turn off safe mode. The problem is that for whatever reason, if the phone gets disconnected from the 5Ghz Wifi, I have to redo the steps which is so annoying. I tried all the other stuff like restarting, clearing cache.. etc except for a factory reset.

[mithucste30]

I am having exact same issues here in S21 FE 5G, Your solution seems like the only workaround. But why samsung is not responding this old issue? I just bought first samsung device in my life, came from Sony Xperia. I thought in terms of software samsung is superior to sony. Very very frustrating.

[trixone]

My Samsung S20 FE (SM-G780G/DS) on Android 12 apparently completely loses the 5GHz wi-fi radio after a day or two. When that happens It can't even see the SSID of any AP on 5 GHz and  applications like Wifi Analyzer do not even display the 5GHz band. A phone restart / reboot immediately fixes the problem for some time - so it's likely a software problem, or at least a problem that could be fixed by software. It's not an issue with connection / authentication, the 5GHz radio simply stops working. I have tried resetting network settings and disabling 120Hz display (never enabled it. Just tried wiping the cache partition, now I need a couple of days to check if it worked, but I'm not too hopeful.

[trixone]

Yeah, just as I suspected, clearing the cache partition didn't work either.

[a_a_ron]

I have exactly the same issue with the S20 FE 5G (SM-G781B) on Android 12.

5Ghz  wifi is working fine, and then randomly after some time (could be an hour, could be half a day) I see it switches to my 2.4Ghz network. If I open a WiFi scanner, NO 5Ghz SSIDs in range are visible, not mine or my neighbours'. Signal strength is not an issue; it's well within range of mine and others. The 5Ghz channel number also not a factor since I noticed in the past there was a limitation with some in the higher range and now force my AP to ch 36. Turning off and on WiFi makes no difference; only after a reboot is 5Ghz capability restored. I've tried wiping cache partition and also seen the suggestion about dropping screen res from 120 to 60hz, which I am testing today but not expecting any miracle, especially given that you tried this too. 

I've twice submitted an error report to Samsung through the Members app and had the same response each time that no issue could be found. Definitely feels like a software bug but I fear I will be stuck with a premium phone being forced to use legacy network technology... 

[CrushBug]

I know this is an older thread, but it shows up on Google searches for things like this.

I was having the same problem of my Samsung Galaxy S20FE preferring my 2.4 GHz connection over the 5 GHz on my Ubiquity U6 Lite AP. I found another article which stated that it was all about signal strength.

I went into the Radio settings of the U6 Lite AP and I changed the 5 GHz Transmit Power to High and the 2.4 GHz Transmit Power to Medium, and *boom* my Samsung Galaxy S20FE is now connecting at 5 GHz and showing the WiFi 6 logo on top.

It does occasionally drop back to the lower channel, but only when I am well away from the AP. I might consider changing the 2.4 GHz Transmit Power to Low if it gets bad, but I will have to see if my older devices would still be able to connect.

[Hasdolce]

Here is a little video to help people fix this problem depending on there S20+ model cause not all of them uses the same channels for 5ghz.

https://youtu.be/ycc3nAl_P6I 

[Anton_s0s]

Even though Samsung might have fixed the bug, I had a problem to connect to 5Ghz, too. 

Phone S20+ 5G

Network: Arris SURFboard w133 - two WiFi 6 routers (router and access point all-in-one)

These are bot manageable! You can't setup channels or rules. One SSID for both 2.4 and 5 Ghz.

My phone connected only to 2.4Ghz regardless of how close/far it's to the router.  And speed was 150Mbit at best

Solution for my case was to change WiFi settings on my phone. I setup to used phones MAC address instead use random MAC address (was selected by default for security purposes?? I don't know) .

Now it connects to 5Ghz and speeds up to 450Mbit (my internet plan is 400Mbit)