‎Camera not recognizing WiFi password | SimpliSafe Support Home
 
medicsawyer's profile

Saturday, January 6th, 2024 11:29 PM

Camera not recognizing WiFi password

I’m on my third doorbell camera. I go through all the steps for installing. The app has my network name autofilled. I add my PW carefully. With now three new cameras, it keeps coming back that my PW is incorrect. I’ve double checked my WiFi PW, I’ve checked the PW with the base station. I carefully enter and check and double check. The last oddity is everything thing else on the SimpliSafe system works fine. Also, it doesn’t matter if I’m one foot from the router or at the door. I’m on a 2.4 network too. Any suggestions would be great. Thanks 

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11 months ago

@medicsawyer Does your Wi-Fi network's password happen to have a semicolon and/or backslash in it? Our engineers are working on resolving a rare issue where the Video Doorbell Pro cannot connect to Wi-Fi networks with either of those characters are in the password. If you do have a semicolon or backslash in yours, I would recommend adjusting the password to remove those characters.

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3 Messages

Unfortunately that’s not the case. It’s just numbers. 

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@medicsawyer​ Understood! Another question, does your network's SSID or password exceed 31 characters? Our devices cannot connect to networks if the SSID or password are longer than 31 characters, so if either was recently changed and made longer that could be the reason why the Video Doorbell isn't accepting your password. 

If that is not the case, I can then get you connected with our team of Specialists for some deeper troubleshooting.

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1 Message

Exact same problem here

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Same here!!! I’m so frustrated!

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@marchbanksterri What happens if you create a separate guest network, set to WPA 2 or WPA2/3 Mixed Mode and locked at 2.4GHz? Is your camera able to connect to that network?

 

If it can not, we may need to replace the device all together. Our Support team can help with that.

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9 months ago

Exact same problem here

This comment was created from this reply

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@datainmotion​ Has your Wi-Fi network's SSID and/or password changed recently? SimpliSafe devices require the SSID and password to be 31 characters or less. If they're any longer and you try to connect a device to your network, you can receive a notification that the Wi-Fi password is incorrect. 

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Hi Emily. My PW is well under 31 characters. I did change the PW during the struggle to get it to connect, just to see if that made any difference. It didn’t. I put the PW back to what it was. Still nothing. My doorbell sits useless. 

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@medicsawyer​ You should only be seeing that erroneous "Incorrect Password" error if the SSID and/or password is 31 characters or longer, or if the password has a backslash or semicolon in it.

What happens if you create a secondary Wi-Fi network on your router with a completely different password? Does that allow you to finish setting up your Video Doorbell?

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3 Messages

I am having the same situation with an interior camera. Everything’s been restarted, password is pretty simple and short, keeps saying I have the wrong password. This one camera is the only part of the system with an issue. I was able to get it to connect to the Wi-Fi extender (which uses the exact same password) rather than the main wifi but the signal because of locations is weak and not how it should be for this. Is there a better fix for this issue coming? This camera previously worked fine on this same main Wi-Fi  with the same password and just stopped. 

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7 months ago

I am having the same situation with an interior camera. Everything’s been restarted, password is pretty simple and short, keeps saying I have the wrong password. This one camera is the only part of the system with an issue. I was able to get it to connect to the Wi-Fi extender (which uses the exact same password) rather than the main wifi but the signal because of locations is weak and not how it should be for this. Is there a better fix for this issue coming? This camera previously worked fine on this same main Wi-Fi  with the same password and just stopped. 

This comment was created from this reply

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@MaggieDavis​ What indoor camera are you experiencing this with? The SimpliCam (which is black), or the Smart Alarm (which is white?) This is something I might need to bring to our engineering team. And what happens if you create a secondary Wi-Fi network with a completely different SSID and password? Does the camera connect then?

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@emily_s​ Sorry, I just saw this reply. It’s the black one. It also only worked briefly on the wifi extender and now gives the same password error when trying to connect to anything. I did try trouble shooting with customer service chat but we hit midnight and it disconnected before we were able to get to a resolution although I think we had already tried everything that could be tried, and haven’t had time to try talking to them since. 

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@MaggieDavis​ One last question, when working with our Support team, did they recommend resetting your SimpliCam? You can reset the camera by following the steps in this Help Center article. But if that does not help, please let me know and I can forward this to our engineering team for further investigation.

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Yes I did that and it did not work. Thank you

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@MaggieDavis​ thanks for updating. I do have a couple more questions as well.

When you said that it "keeps saying that you have the wrong password", do you mean the SimpliSafe app? That error might also pop up even if you did have the correct password, but if your WiFi router rejected the connection for some reason.

Did you happen to upgrade your WiFi router recently, or make changes to any of the settings? There's something about the router itself that is preventing the connection, which is why the extender is doing better.

That's why we recommend creating a secondary or guest WiFi network on your router, to maybe bypass any incompatibilities. I'd also suggest setting the security to WPA2 or WPA3 Mixed Mode, and locking to 2.4GHz if possible. Please consult your WiFi router's manufacturer on how to do that, because it differs between models.

But if you've already tried the above, the next step may be a replacement camera (in case there's a hardware issue that's the cause). Our Support team can help with that; you can tell them you've already done the troubleshooting here as well.

2 Messages

7 months ago

I have the same problem with a black indoor camera. I had to factory-reset my wi-fi router, and now the camera will not connect. I created a secondary 2.4ghz network with a completely different SSID and password--no joy. The password is short and simple. The rest of the Simplisafe system works.

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@murph67​ What happens if you completely reset the SimpliCam? Does that help it re-connect to your Wi-Fi network? You can find the steps to reset the SimpliCam in this article in our Help Center.

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Resetting the camera solved the problem. Thanks!

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6 months ago

After a power outage, I tried everything suggested all over the internet many, many, many times to get my Simplisafe indoor camera back online (doesn't use a base station, just internet).  I finally removed it from the app and reset it, only to be told that the Wi-Fi password is incorrect when clearly it is not.  I repeat, I tried an enormous amount of troubleshooting, all to no avail.  I have other cameras from two other brands that connected back immediately when the power was restored (and they recognize the Wi-Fi password that SimpliSafe rejects).   

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@jwenzinger​ And just to confirm, nothing had changed with your Wi-Fi network recently? It's SSID, password, or settings haven't changed? SimpliSafe devices cannot connect to networks with an SSID or password that are longer than 31 characters, or that are set to WPA3. 

But if nothing has changed with your network, then we may need to replace that camera completely. In that case, please reach out to our Support team and they can assist you further. 

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Nothing had changed. I verified all the parameters you describe above are correct.  Other branded cameras reconnected immediately.  Only SimpliSafe failed.

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6 months ago

I am having the same issue. I have 5 indoor cameras all connected to the same WiFi for some reason one of them went offline and won’t reconnect. The camera itself says the wifi password is incorrect. Not sure why. I had the same issue with doorbell and gave up and purchased the new Ring doorbell instead. I just need this to connect. Not sure why these SimpliSafe products are so difficult. 

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@arpadilla1324​ Since your other cameras are connected to your network, we can of course rule out your network's settings.

If you haven't already, I would recommend resetting the SimpliCam by pressing and holding the button on the top of the camera for 20 seconds. Once the button is released, it should begin to flash white - prompting you to set it up in the SimpliSafe mobile app again. 

It can also help to reset your router by unplugging it for 30-60 seconds and then plug it back in.

3 Messages

Follow up:  After an update to the app, the camera finally recognized my password.  Not sure why that worked...

1 Message

2 months ago

Has the issues of not recognizing semi colons and backslashes been resolved

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@terminator44​ Our cameras will not recognize a Wi-Fi password that has a semicolon or backslash in it. When setting up your network, we do not recommend using either of those two characters in your password.

But if you want to use one of those characters, I would then recommend setting up a separate guest network with a password that doesn't have those characters in it and only connect your SimpliSafe devices to it. 

1 Message

10 days ago

I am having the same problem and happy to see others are too because I am tired of being made to feel its something I am doing wrong! We have tried everything to get our doorbell to work, ALL THE OTHER CAMERAS WORK FINE but the doorbell keeps saying its the wrong password and ITS NOT! We are on our 3rd one now, even though its refurbished when they send another and I dont like that, would rather have a new one. In any case, seems this is an issue that simplisafe wont or cant fix. We are considering going with another system as we are tired of not having the security we are paying for!

12 Messages

8 days ago

I have this same problem. The doorbell just quit working altogether, so I brought it inside and reset it. Now it will not take the wifi password. 

Then as is typical SS says it is our networks, adjust our settings, buy an extender, create a guest network. I have 20+ devices on wifi that work just fine. And this dumb thing worked just fine until it didn't. And now with nothing changed it is my network?

Same kind of response as with my base station losing wifi every few hours. "Oh well, that's just how it is."

What a joke! 

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12 Messages

8 days ago

After some network sleuthing I think I discovered at least part of the problem. I do not believe the problem is actually the password, that is just what the unit says. I think it has to do with the way it handles IP/MAC affinity.

This will be a TLDR for many people. 

If you are router savvy, after a failed connection attempt you can go into your connected device list and look for AMPAK. This is the doorbell, which means that even though it says "password wrong," it actually did connect and was assigned an IP. Note the IP address. 

Hard reset the doorbell to kick it off the network. You should no longer see an AMPAK device. Go into your DHCP IP reservation list on the router and force reserve the IP you noted (depending on your router you may have to assign to another device) so that it is no longer in the DHCP pool.

Now if you go through the connection process, it should work. In your router device list you instead of AMPAK you will see a huge string of letters and numbers with a different IP. This is the properly connected doorbell.

When a device connects to a DHCP network, it has an affinity to the IP address it was assigned before and it asks the router for the same address again. The router checks the MAC (hardware) address and if the address is still available in the pool it will assign it. 

I don't know exactly what is going on, but it looks like the device initially provisions itself as AMPAK, gets an IP, and then somehow "hands off" to the actual camera unit which gets another IP. In my case, AMPAK was assigned x.x.x.23 and it just sat there and failed (red light, bad password announcement). 

After forcing the 23 address to be out of the pool, the AMPAK device did not seem to appear. Instead, the doorbell connected properly in less than 5 seconds and a device with a huge string of letters and numbers as the name appeared, with x.x.x.178 as the IP. This IP was the previous affinity for the doorbell when it was properly connected before all this happened.

I think the AMPAK did appear, but whatever it does to "hand off' happened so fast I didn't see it. 

My theory is that somehow, the affinity requests go sideways during this process so the IPs are not provisioned properly. Forcing the selection of a brand new address lets everything start over. 

No idea if this is right or not but there is definitely something strange about how it is connected to the network but thinks it isn't, and how 2 IPs happen.

Anyway, food for thought. 

1 Message

Same problem here. Two black indoor cameras. Camera states wrong password. For one of them, I tried removing it from the system, reboot and adding it back on. Camera continues to say wrong password. The other was not removed from system and continues the same problem. 

There have been no WiFi router or password changes recently. 

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@pippin8173, @jcmaedl, and @jmbrown1402  thank you all for reporting this issue. We have gone ahead and escalated your cases to our devs for further investigation. A member of the team will be in touch soon to get to the bottom of this.

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