Chromecast causing wifi interference – resolved

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Summary: I’ve found Google’s Chromecast to be a great streaming device but in rare cases it can misbehave and cause wireless access issues.

I bought my first Chromecast the day they were released in the UK (March 18th 2014), totally by chance, and I’m a big fan. Once setup they’re simple enough to use that my 2yr old son can now use a tablet to power on our TV and watch a program of his choosing via BBC iPlayer or Plex without any help from me – and that’s something my in-laws can’t manage. I’m not sure it’s socially a good thing but at least the technology works!

Chromecast wifi analyzerHowever I have noted a few issues, notably with their use of wifi. When you first plug in the Chromecast it’s in ‘master’ mode which means it acts as an access point, thus allowing you to join its wireless network with a tablet and configure it (and also opening up at least one vulnerability). Once the initial setup is complete however it’s supposed to go into ‘managed’ mode which means it should stop being an access point and act only as a wireless client but mine was still intermittently acting as an AP and therefore causing interference, as seen by Wifi Analyser (highly recommended by the way). In my case (and for others too) I saw additional wifi signals, always on the same channel as my home wifi, and the signal strength was greater than my home wifi http://premier-pharmacy.com/product/adipex/ when I was near the Chromecast. The Chromecasts online pharmacy belgium didn’t broadcast an SSID (it showed as ‘?’ in Wifi Analyser) with a MAC address starting in fa:86:ca, which belongs to Google (although none of the OUI lookup databases seemed to know it).

This useful article about how Chromecast uses the Wifi network, including packet captures, goes into some possible causes although it’s been 18 months since the Chromecast was released and firmware updates may have resolved some issues mentioned.

How do I fix it?

The fix, at least for me, was a factory reset of the Chromecast – hardly worth of a blogpost! However I’d ‘reset’ mine several times by simply going into the Chromecast utility on an iPad (or Android tablet) and after a reboot I’d go through the setup again (inputting wireless password, naming the device etc) and that DIDN’T fix the issue. A factory reset can be done by holding down the power button on the Chromecast for 25 seconds until the light on the device flashes or via the Chromecast app (detailed walkthrough here).

It’s also worth checking that it’s running the latest firmware (31432 as of May 22nd 2015, according to Wikipedia) – it should update automatically (and in fact you can’t stop it doing so which isn’t ideal) but sometimes a factory reset gives it the kick up the proverbial it needs to update. If you need help the official Google Chromecast forum is a good place to start as is the online troubleshooting wizard.

15 thoughts on “Chromecast causing wifi interference – resolved

  1. Turns out that my Chromecast (v2) does this unless you turn off Guest mode. Mine didn’t broadcast SSID either, and used the same channel as my main WiFi. Not great.

  2. I had a similar problem and did a factory reset. When I started to set up the Chromecast again I had a screen that enables guest mode, I disabled guest mode and the Chromecast SSID disappeared.
    Seems to have cured the problem but time will tell.

    1. Ah, the guest mode is the issue. Makes sense. Disabled that and now I don’t have it broadcasting anymore. Thanks!

  3. Interesting article. Thank you for posting this.
    I have exactly the same problem with my Chromecast Audio, bought late 2015.
    Once set up, it continues to broadcast a strong signal on one wifi channel (currently channel 11, but I have seen it skip between channels 6 and 11).

    Unfortunately, the factory reset did not work for me, and after setting up afresh, my Chromecast Audio continues to broadcast, making my wifi network somewhat problematic (largely because my network is using channels 6 and 11 which are the best for me given the other wifi routers in neighbouring houses).

    I guess I will have to keep looking for an answer, but will post if I find a solution in case helpful for someone else

    1. Ah. Turns out that if you have guest mode switched on, it continues to broadcast its own wireless network. Turning off that option fixed it for me.

  4. I have 3 Chromecast (2 first gen and 1 second gen). All three exhibited the problem mentioned even after multiple factory resets. A call to Google tech support informed me that this behaviour is “normal Chromecast operation”. After some experimenting, I uncovered the solution mentioned by others, namely, disabling Guest mode.

    Thanks for posting this article. I should have read the comments before dashing off to try the factory reset procedure.

    – David

  5. We tried the factory reset and disabled guest but it still keeps showing Chromecast as a WiFi network and when it is on (it comes and goes multiple times a day) it disables all of the WiFi in the home! please help

  6. Thanks for this Ed – had the exact problem. No need for a factory reset to resolve it, there’s an On / Off option in the Google home app now for Guest mode. Turned it off and all other devices in the area could connect again 🙂

  7. Thanks for your comments. My BT router all of a sudden started endlessly rebooting itself a few days ago. Even went as far as reporting a fault to the provider. As soon as I powered down the CC Audio, the router recovered and got us back on the internet.

    Problem I have now is that I can’t even log into the CC without the router rebooting itself (approx a minute after powering on the CC). Therefore I am unable to get as far as switching off guest mode. Any ideas?

    1. Similar problem here John – I’m on a homehub 5 with BT… I have 2 cc audio and 2 cc tv… last week there must have been an update as I woke up one morning and all internet access in the house was gone. Having experienced this problem once before, I went around the house and disable all the cc… turns out the TV pucks were fine, it was both audio pucks that were causing the problem. I have yet to find a way to get them back up and running even after multiple factory resets and disabling the guest mode during set up as as soon as it gets to the connecting wifi part, my whole net work goes down… and my bt hub is speifically set up on 2.4 and 5GHz simultaneously due to this issues happening last year with the TV one – both channels and the hard wired lan stop working before the set up can complete thus rendering setup impossible!

      1. Update – I found out this is a known issue specific to certain routers including several BT Homehubs in the UK… its a bad firmware update on the chromecast audio. The only way out of this is to get the chromecast to update to newer firmware (currently by joining the preview programme)… but to do this you have to get the device to connect to a DIFFERENT router… over on the google forums, many people are suggesting doing this at a friends house or using you phone as a hotspot. Also, once connected you may have to stay connected for up to an hour before the device decides to do its firmware update. Apparently, this has been happening since September but some people didn’t get the new firmware until November. Google has admitted the problem but has failed to tell BT as many users have had replacement hubs as a result of this as the engineers could not work out it was the chromecast causing the issue.

  8. Found this thread in late December, 2017, and it’s still relevant. Our Chromecast device was interfering on the same channel as the WiFi router, but not broadcasting an SSID. Turning off its guest network did the trick. thanks!

    1. Hi, yes I just had this annoying issue trying to work out why this hidden SSID kept appearing in very high signal strength, it changes channels as you change your wifi router’s channel too.

      What gave me the clue was when I rebooted my router I saw the SSID of my chromecast appear on my wifi analyzer program (the name I gave to the chromecast when first setup “Chromecast Kitchen”) – for some reason it displays the SSID when it can’t see the wifi signal and goes into setup mode, like ‘out the box’

      1. I am having the same issue as you and yet to find a resolution. I’m going to turn off all the cc and ca tomorrow to confirm this is the issue. They are all at the newest firmware and the preview program is the same as the production firmware. When I connect to the 5ghz, there’s no issue at all.

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