Updated to Android 17? Some Google apps may stop working over Wi-Fi

With the arrival of Android 17 on Pixel devices, many users now have access to even more features on their smartphones. Bubbles bring more multitasking to the device you carry in your pocket, and foldable smartphones have also adopted a new gaming feature. However, it’s not all celebration and cheers, as it seems some Pixel users have encountered a few annoying issues along the way, including a new bug that prevents some apps from recognizing Wi-Fi connections (via Android Authority), forcing users to rely on their mobile data to use them.

There are several reasons why this type of bug is annoying, beyond its drawbacks. Many smartphone plans these days include a limited amount of mobile data, which means people tend to rely on Wi-Fi as much as possible to keep costs down. Comments shared on Reddit indicate that Google apps appear to be most affected by this strange bug, although some have reported that TikTok won’t open over Wi-Fi either.

Although Google has yet to share an official fix, some commenters on Reddit appear to have managed to change a setting on their routers to resolve the issue. In response to one of the articles discussing the Wi-Fi issue, the original author later explained that when he enabled IPv6 connections in his router settings, the issue was resolved. This has led some to believe that the problem might be related to Google services. However, when others tested the issue specifically by disabling IPv6 support on their router after installing Android 17, they did not have the same problem. So while the problem may be related to IPv6 in some way, it doesn’t seem like that’s the only thing affecting these apps’ connection to users’ Wi-Fi networks.

Android 17 has been in beta for several months, so seeing a bug of this magnitude affecting so many users could be frustrating for some. Hopefully, Google will release a fix sooner rather than later, especially as other major bugs like disappearing widgets continue to plague Android 17 users who recently updated to the new version. If you’re using a Pixel 10 or older device with the new Android 17 update and experiencing any of these issues, you can always submit a bug report to the Google Issue Tracker to help provide more information to developers.