2022 M3LR won't connect to my phone hotspot

[NMystic]

Premium Connectivity expired, so I want to use my android TCL 20 SE phone as a hotspot so I can access the music streaming. I set up the hotspot and when I touch the LTE bars on my Tesla screen it searches for WiFi connections and shows my phone hotspot. When I select it the car tries to connect and then gives a message saying "unable to obtain IP address. Check DHCP settings" To troubleshoot I had my wife try to connect her laptop to my phone's hotspot and it connected with no issues. Next, I set up a hotspot on my wife's Samsung Galaxy phone and the Tesla connected on first attempt. I checked with my phone carrier and it allows hotspots, as does my phone. I tried the double scroll wheel reboot on the car to no effect. Same with restarting my phone.

The only thing that was different between setting up the two phone hotspots was on my phone it asked me to name the hotspot, so I typed in TCLphone and then made up a password. When I set up the hotspot on my wife's phone it didn't ask for a name, just a password, which I made up a new one. When I attempted to use my phone's hotspot Tesla searched and found the hotspot and listed it by the name I gave it: TCLphone. When I used my wife's phone and Tesla searched for WiFi connections it found her phone under the name of the phone (the official name her model Samsung phone goes by). When I tried to go back into my phone settings to replicate the process used with her phone (not making up a name, rather letting Tesla do a search and list the official name of my phone) I couldn't find any way to remove the hotpot I set up under TCLphone. All I can do is erase the name, but if I don't type in a new name it just puts the TCLphone name back in place. I tried searching my phone to see if I could find some official listing for my phone so I could type it in manually, but when I tried that I still got the same error message. Anyone have any ideas on what is going on?

 

[Zacster]

Is your phone's wifi on when you do this and does it have a cell signal? I've had one or the other turned off many times on mine, for whatever reason, and it doesn't work.

I'm not an Android person though so I otherwise can't help you.

 

[Rice&Curry]

I have connected my MY using the iPhone me as a hotspot to stream movies while I am waiting in the car, but I never used it while driving, so I cannot comment whether it works while driving.

 

[Zacster]

I have connected my MY using the iPhone me as a hotspot to stream movies while I am waiting in the car, but I never used it while driving, so I cannot comment whether it works while driving.

You need to set the "stay connected in drive" mode for the connection and it works fine once you do.

 

[fhteagle]

Same issue, 2023 MYLR, 2023.2.12 software. Phone is a OnePlus 7T on OEM Android 13. Personal hotspot works perfectly to my laptop and to other phones in the the family.

Even with "stay connected in drive" checked, the Tesla connects and then drops off the WiFi after ~20 seconds with the "cannot obtain IP address, check DHCP error".

doing sudo dhclient -v wlan0 gives a perfect DHCP exchange from the laptop to the phone, 192.168.x.y address assigned.

Tesla does connect to my home LAN with DHCP assigned by Dnsmasq.

This is definitely a Tesla software problem. Part of me wonders if it's intentional, to make you pay for premium connectivity instead....

 

[ewoodrick]

Same issue, 2023 MYLR, 2023.2.12 software. Phone is a OnePlus 7T on OEM Android 13. Personal hotspot works perfectly to my laptop and to other phones in the the family.

Even with "stay connected in drive" checked, the Tesla connects and then drops off the WiFi after ~20 seconds with the "cannot obtain IP address, check DHCP error".

doing sudo dhclient -v wlan0 gives a perfect DHCP exchange from the laptop to the phone, 192.168.x.y address assigned.

Tesla does connect to my home LAN with DHCP assigned by Dnsmasq.

This is definitely a Tesla software problem. Part of me wonders if it's intentional, to make you pay for premium connectivity instead....

I'm guessing non alphanumeric characters in the access point name or the password.

 

[fhteagle]

I'm guessing non alphanumeric characters in the access point name or the password.

Negative, all alphanumeric, no spaces, no symbols, nothing like that.

It's passing the WPA2 authentication fine, and shows up on my phone as such. It's incorrectly claiming it can't get a DHCP response, which I've proven to be not an issue with the phone, but an issue with the car.

 

[ewoodrick]

Than try another hotspot, even McDonalds.

 

[pubmic2023]

Is your phone's wifi on when you do this and does it have a cell signal? I've had one or the other turned off many times on mine, for whatever reason, and it doesn't work.

I'm not an Android person though so I otherwise can't help you.

I hope this helps others. This reply did help me.

I have a pixel 6. For some reason, hotspot with phone wireless turned OFF does not work. I get an error message that states: The Internet is unreachable. Please check your firewall settings and Internet connection.

But once I turn ON phone wireless, the hotspot seems to connect. One caveat though. Because I was testing at home with limited time, my phone is also connected to my home network router. I'm not sure what will happen once I drive out of my network range.

But I will update once I test this as well.

 

[pubmic2023]

I hope this helps others. This reply did help me.

I have a pixel 6. For some reason, hotspot with phone wireless turned OFF does not work. I get an error message that states: The Internet is unreachable. Please check your firewall settings and Internet connection.

But once I turn ON phone wireless, the hotspot seems to connect. One caveat though. Because I was testing at home with limited time, my phone is also connected to my home network router. I'm not sure what will happen once I drive out of my network range.

But I will update once I test this as well.

I can confirm the hotspot connection still works even when I am out of my home network range.

 

[Zacster]

The reason it doesn't work with phone wifi turned off is that is it the phone's wifi that becomes the hotspot.

 

[pubmic2023]

I can confirm the hotspot connection still works even when I am out of my home network range.

Nevermind, my Pixel 6 hotspot only works consistently from home while my phone is still connected to my home network. When I drive away and my phone hotspot start using the cellular network the hotspot continues to work on my Tesla. But if I try using my Pixel 6 phone hotspot. Wow. My phone is not connected to a network, basically using the phone network, it will not consistently connect. This only sporadically connects.

 

[Zacster]

Nevermind, my Pixel 6 hotspot only works consistently from home while my phone is still connected to my home network. When I drive away and my phone hotspot start using the cellular network the hotspot continues to work on my Tesla. But if I try using my Pixel 6 phone hotspot. Wow. My phone is not connected to a network, basically using the phone network, it will not consistently connect. This only sporadically connects.

Does your phone plan include hotspot? I know that Verizon does not automatically include it at speeds high enough to stream. You can connect, do some texting or other low usage things, but to stream audio you can exceed that. I pay for high speed hotspot, and specifically to use for music in the car. I've never tested the actual speed but it is plenty for car audio on Tidal. It is limited to 40gb/mo but I've never exceeded that.

 

[pubmic2023]

Does your phone plan include hotspot? I know that Verizon does not automatically include it at speeds high enough to stream. You can connect, do some texting or other low usage things, but to stream audio you can exceed that. I pay for high speed hotspot, and specifically to use for music in the car. I've never tested the actual speed but it is plenty for car audio on Tidal. It is limited to 40gb/mo but I've never exceeded that.

Yes. Hotspot works fine for iPad and other devices. I tried safe mode and factory reset on my Pixel phone, but the error persists only with Tesla. Funny though. When I activate the hotspot while still connect to my home Internet network, but then drive away from my network, the Internet connection hotspot continues to work for the remainder of my trip. My hotspot changed from home network Internet to either 5G or LTE. Very weird.

 

[pubmic2023]

Yes. Hotspot works fine for iPad and other devices. I tried safe mode and factory reset on my Pixel phone, but the error persists only with Tesla. Funny though. When I activate the hotspot while still connect to my home Internet network, but then drive away from my network, the Internet connection hotspot continues to work for the remainder of my trip. My hotspot changed from home network Internet to either 5G or LTE. Very weird.

Sorry. To answer the question. I also get 50gb of hotspot every month. When I can sporadically connect my Tesla away from the house, it seems to have a higher rate of success with LTE. But I would say still less than 50% of the time.

 

[Zacster]

Sorry. To answer the question. I also get 50gb of hotspot every month. When I can sporadically connect my Tesla away from the house, it seems to have a higher rate of success with LTE. But I would say still less than 50% of the time.

It must be a setting somewhere. I don't know Android so I can't help with that,.