Chromecast Causing Wi-Fi Issues For Users

Chromecast users are finding that their device is causing network issues for their Wi-Fi systems.

These issues have been ongoing for weeks with users making note of the problem on the Google Product Forums and forums of router companies including Linksys Netgear, Tp-Link and Synology . One user posted statements on the Google Product Forums from both Linksys and and Tp-Link explaining the problem.

Linksys says: ‘I will keep the overall description short here, but this firmware incorporates a new WLAN driver that will help mitigate an issue that was discovered where Android devices coming in and out of sleep mode would crash the Wireless Network.’

A post in Tp-Link also runs down what is going on: ‘Following initial research and investigation, our Engineering Team is confident that they’ve determined one of the key origins of the issue. From what we have gathered so far, the issue appears to be related to some recent releases of Android OS and Google Apps. This issue stems from these devices’ “Cast” feature, which sends MDNS multicast discovery packets in order to keep a live connection with Google products such as Google Home.

‘These packets normally sent in a 20-second interval. However, we have discovered that the devices will sometimes broadcast a large amount of these packets at a very high speed in a short amount of time. This occurs when the device is awakened from the “sleep mode”, and could exceed more than 100,000 packets in a short amount of time. The longer your device is in “sleep”, the larger this packet burst will be. This issue may eventually cause some of router’s primary features to shut down – including wireless connectivity.’

Google has not given an update to the current issue but watch this space for further developments.