Galaxy S23 Ultra phones affected by WiFi bug that stops internet access

More and more Galaxy S23 Ultra owners are complaining of a WiFi bug, causing them to lose internet access, and the problem can only be fixed temporarily by restarting the phone.

Having first learned that the One UI 5.1 update can cause battery drain on Galaxy S22 phones, we now learn that the new flagship S23 Ultra is not exempt from bugs that can ruin the user experience either. According to numerous reports appearing on Reddit and Samsung forums, the phones are plagued by intermittent issues with WiFi connectivity.

Although the connection is not hindered, the internet connection over the WiFi network doesn’t work for long, stirring confusion among users who unsuccessfully try troubleshooting the WiFi network first, only to discover that the lack of connectivity is only on their own phone.

Raising some suspicions of a hardware issue, the loss of connectivity only manifests on the Ultra model, not the Galaxy S23 and S23 Plus versions. In addition, only WiFi 6 (802.11ax) network connections are affected, so until a firmware fix is provided the inconvenience can be avoided by switching the network router to WiFi 5 mode, at the price of slightly slower connection speeds. Another possible remedy could be to reset the phone to factory settings, or to disable the MAC address randomisation function (useful for improving privacy) in favour of setting a fixed MAC address.