error 101305 WiiConnect24 Service

[NoahsMyBro]

Last night my in-laws bought a Wii, for their 43rd anniversary. (Side note - they are in their 60's - that is just so cool!) This was my first chance to get familiar with a Wii up-close and personal, and I've got to say it was really very cool, and a very impressive system.

Anyway, I had the pleasure of setting the system up. Despite my approximately 15 years of experience with computers and networking, and my professional expertise, knowledge, and skill with regard to networking, I was unable successfully connect the Wii to the network.

I tried everything I could think of - I let the Wii find the wireless network automatically, I entered the settings manually, I specified my IP address manually, I reconfigured the router to broadcast the SSID, changed the wireless channel, I even read the manual!

I didn't plug in to the router using a wire, as that was impractical at the time. For that matter, I don't recall seeing any ethernet jack on the Wii, in order to connect wired is it necessary to buy a USB ethernet adapter?

No matter what, the result was an Error 101305, Unable to connect to the WiiConnect24 service, Please try again later.

Finally, I called Nintendo Support, and was told that many OptimumOnline users have been having this problem lately, and I should call OptimumOnline about the problem.

The router is a Linksys BEFW11S4 - listed as compatible on Nintendo's site. The router has the latest firmware. The Nintendo support agent agreed with me that everything was set correctly, and there was nothing wrong with the router or the Wii.

Is anyone else familiar with this problem? Any idea what may resolve the problem? Can anybody tell me specifically what the error means? I suspect it IS able to connect to the network, but fails afterward when trying to connect to Nintendo's servers.

Troubleshooting last night was constrained due to others using the only available PC on the network. I'll be returning there this afternoon to see if I can get this going (bringing a different router, long ethernet cable to try a wired connection, maybe try to attach through a neighbor's wireless to see if there's a difference), but am hopeful someone here might have other info that may help.

Thanks.

[skaar]

There's no built-in ethernet on the Wii.

I did have some issues with it having troubles with WPA2-PSK, WPA seemed more compatible. If it works with a new router and no security on the wifi connection... then you may need to pare down the wireless security settings on the Linksys.

If they've narrowed it down to an ISP problem you may be SOL...

[djlr181]

You might want to try changing the channel the wireless router is broadcasting on. I would frequently have internet trouble until I changed the channel.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

I'll second changing the wireless broadcast channel ... I use channel 1. In the event that there are other wireless routers in the immediate area using channel 6 (default) it may interfere.

Other than that, I'll say that the Wii has a prett crappy built in WiFi.

If at all possible I'd reccomend buying an ethernet adapter and running a cable.

[JohnnyBlaze]

If you cannot connect, try buying and using the official Wi-Fi connector for the Wii. My friend has Optimum Online and he tried to connect to a router too. The manager at GameStop suggested to buy the piece and use that, and he's had no connection problem at all now. It's worth the $40 to avoid any future hassle. Plus, it also works with the DS, if your in-laws ever decide to get one.

[NoahsMyBro]

Update:
Called Nintendo twice, once last night, once a few minutes ago. Each time, without my suggesting or supplying the info, the Nintendo rep has asked if I happen to be using OptimumOnline. They then explain that many OO users are seeing the problem, and I should call OO.

Each time, I've called OptimumOnline, and been told that they are aware of no issues, and if the computers work OK there is nothing wrong with their service, and I should call Nintendo.

I've swapped the router, no change.

This is frustrating. Argghhh.

[NoahsMyBro]

Another update:

While at the in-laws' home this afternoon, I swapped the router, changed settings again to juggle things around, and still had no success.

Called Nintendo again, and before mentioning the ISP, the agent asked if I happened to be using Optimum Online. Ha! Then, called OO again, and was basically told that they've got no idea, and nothing about WiiConnect problems are on their radar. If the PCs work, there's no reason the Wii shouldn't, and so they had nothing to fix on their end.

I brought up my laptop, and proceeded to use Wireshark to capture all of the WLAN traffic that resulted when I brought up the Wii wireless settings and tried to test the network connection. I saw activity, but didn't understand it well enough to pinpoint any clear problems.

I saved the results to look at more in depth later.

I then disconnected the Wii, packed it up, and brought it to my house for more 'testing'. (Hee Hee. No, really.)

Not surprisingly, when I set it up in my den, it connected to my WPA2 WLAN immediately, and I proceeded to update the firmware in the Wii, configure the weather and news channels, and download the 'Nintendo Channel'.

SO, the unit seems to work perfectly using my ISP, Speakeasy.

Tomorrow evening it goes back home to it's rightful owners, and we'll see the update has allowed it to work properly with Optimum Online. Fingers crossed.

Possibly the worst thing about this is that I am getting seriously tempted to shell out cash of my own to get one too, and I really shouldn't.

[NoahsMyBro]

FINAL UPDATE

Returned to my in-laws' apartment this evening, and the Wii went online perfectly, first try.

The only difference I'm aware of is that now the Wii is running firmware 3.3, instead of 3.1.

[Rolan]

Same thing happened to me with the Wiiconnect24 error. I also have OptimumOnline. My little one went into the Wii settings, formatted the thing and it would no longer connect to the internet. The Linksys router showed that it was successfully grabbing an ip address from the DHCP, but the Wii could not fetch an update. I brought the thing over to my nephew's house (verizon DSL), connected, logged onto the wireless and performed an update there - and the problem went away.

I suspect there is a bug in the wii firmware which uses the ip address combined with the Wii's MAC address to generate a authentication key. Somewhere in the process it deadlocks. The only way to clear that situation is to log the Wii in from a different ip address. I did not try from a second OptimumOnline ip so I can't confirm wether it's a network issue or an ip address releated issue.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

glad to hear that you're no longer having issues with the online connect.

My Wii was a launch Wii and I had given up on the wifi connect (with Comcast) due to its flakiness back then ... now that I'm all updated with the latest firmware I might give it a go just to see how long it connects without dropping or needing to be reset.