IP Address Conflict on Home WiFi. Is There a Setting to Change?

[eg146]

I know nothing about IP addresses and conflicts so bear with me here.

I've been using my Droid 2 on the home Wifi for a 4-5 months with no issues. Then my husband told me about this conflict message he was getting on our main desktop.

We turned on the laptops one by one and it is the Droid 2 causing the issue. He said it's not causing a problem but I wonder what changed that made this message appear suddenly?
When he first saw it, he changed all the wifi passcodes, etc and I changed it on my Droid as well. The message went away for a couple weeks and today it's back.

My Droid 2 is not rooted and I don't use any other wifi networks with it.

Is there a setting in the phone I need to change to make the message go away? I don't have trouble using the home wifi but would like to make that message go away if it's something simple on my end.
I never use my phone as a router or tethered so if there is a solution, it needs to be dumbed down for me-lol.

Thanks as always!

 

[jaycemiskel]

More than likely it's not a problem with the phone, but the router. It's probably assigning the same ip address to more than one device and the computer is noticing. In your router there should be some settings for giving certain devices what's called a static ip address. Try assigning static ip addresses to all your devices and see if it goes away. It's going to ask for mac addresses to do this so you'll need to go to the status page of the settings and copy the mac addresses listed there. I hope that helps.

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[eg146]

Thanks. I showed your reply to my husband since I am not qualified to change anything-lol. I would likely make the issue worse.

I know the issue is not new but he was finally able to narrow down which device caused the issue. My son has a laptop and a PS3 plus my laptop and Droid so it was process of elimination. For some reason he has to ask me to turn off my wifi so he can get online. That problem is new. But seeing as all I know how to do is connect to my Droid's wifi, I know I didn't change anything on the phone that caused it.

If we do get it sorted out, I'll post the steps taken to fix it so if anyone else has the same issue, I can hopefully save them some time.
Thanks again for your help

 

[jaycemiskel]

No problem, I look forward to hearing whether it worked or not

 

[pool_shark]

Not all routers have that ability, but all are capable of assigning multiple IP's.
It's possible that your router is only setup to serve a set number of IP's and you're exceeding that number so it's assigning the same one to different devices.

 

[RW-1]

If the router reached it's IP limit using DCHP, then the Droid, or any other device exceeding the IP allowance wouldn't connect ... It would fail at attempting to obtain the IP from the router. Most are set by default for something like 50, so it would have to be changed (and there are good reasons for doing so!) to a lower number of devices than you currently have in your home to have this happen. But worth checking.

Your husband should check if the rouyter is performing DHCP (distributing IP's automatically) vice static first.

If DHCP is set, then reboot the router, and turn on your devices one by one, also check each device to see that it is obtaining it's IP address automatically, as you could have one PC or MAC set to grab an IP that matched the Droid when it tries. ...

 

[pool_shark]

If the router reached it's IP limit using DCHP, then the Droid, or any other device exceeding the IP allowance wouldn't connect ... It would fail at attempting to obtain the IP from the router. Most are set by default for something like 50, so it would have to be changed (and there are good reasons for doing so!) to a lower number of devices than you currently have in your home to have this happen. But worth checking.

Your husband should check if the rouyter is performing DHCP (distributing IP's automatically) vice static first.

If DHCP is set, then reboot the router, and turn on your devices one by one, also check each device to see that it is obtaining it's IP address automatically, as you could have one PC or MAC set to grab an IP that matched the Droid when it tries. ...

Not entirely accurate. My PS3 would remember the IP it was assigned by the router. When it was off and I fired up my other devices everything was fine, but as soon as I turned the PS3 on it would grab that IP and one of the other devices (usually my or my gf's work PC) would drop it's connection because of the IP conflict.
That's when I started assigning IP's per MAC address.

 

[jaycemiskel]

If that's the case though, wouldn't the router automatically assign a different address other than one that's already been assigned?

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

 

[pool_shark]

In the case of the PS3, it didn't matter because it remembered. Should it have grabbed a new one, yes, but it didn't.

 

[jaycemiskel]

In the case of the PS3, it didn't matter because it remembered. Should it have grabbed a new one, yes, but it didn't.

That's why assigning based on Mac addresses is a good idea. Static ip is perfect for situations with stuff like that.

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