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I just switched from AOKP to the latest CyanogenMod M-build, and I'm noticing that my WiFi and 3G/H+ icons never switch to blue. This is a bit annoying as usually the grey WiFi icon is an indication that the WiFi I'm connected to isn't actually letting me out onto the Internet, but now they seem to stay grey all the time.

Is there anything I can do to troubleshoot this issue? Is it a known bug? What does the grey icon really mean? I've tried looking around the sync settings as there are some indications this might have something to do with the device not being able to contact the Google servers to sync, but sync is working fine and I'm having no real problems except the fact that it's annoying that the icon is indicating what I've previously interpreted as a problem.

edit It seems that there is an actual problem aside from the cosmetic one: in Google Talk I am completely offline, I get my contact list but it's greyed out. I also don't get notifications from the Gmail app when new mail arrives.

edit2 This was solved by simply removing CM10 and going back to AOKP. I did a full wipe before every install, either this is a bug in CM10 or it's an issue caused by my Titanium backups. Not sure, but the backups worked fine with AOKP.

Matthew Read
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pzkpfw
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    What the color means is explained in What does it mean when the connectivity icons in the status bar go white/gray? – eldarerathis Oct 18 '12 at 16:28
  • Are you sure this still applies for 4.1? They quote the 2.3 user guide in the answer, and some forum posts I Googled insinuated that this might have changed. As mentioned, sync works fine by the way. – pzkpfw Oct 18 '12 at 16:41
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    Can't tell you about Cyanogenmod, but in Jelly Bean my wifi icon changes from blue to gray if it can't reach the Google servers. – ale Oct 18 '12 at 16:55
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    Yes, it's still the same. I can't find the updated documentation at the moment, but Google employees have said this is still the case: https://productforums.google.com/d/msg/mobile/sFcIIp2Q2cw/R7lZ1Jnb4HQJ – eldarerathis Oct 18 '12 at 17:04
  • Did you do a full data wipe when switching ROMs, and also not restore any settings with Titanium Backup or similar? – benwh Oct 19 '12 at 00:52
  • @bigbadonk420 Can you open the Google Talk app and make sure you are signed in? – Raghd Hamzeh Oct 19 '12 at 07:25
  • Full wipe yes, also some TB restore yes, so that might be it :( @rnh16 interestingly, I seem to be logged in (I get the contacts list) but everything is grey and everyone's offline. I also noticed yesterday that I did not get live notifications of mail appearing in my inbox from the Gmail app. Any way to troubleshoot without wiping again? – pzkpfw Oct 19 '12 at 08:34
  • @bigbadonk420 there are a lot of issues that may cause this, if I may ask you to try connecting on a different hotspot, or if you are trying to connect from work, check that they have not blocked communication with the Google servers used by Google Talk, or the port which Google Talk normally connects on. Note also that if you are connected on a WiFi hotspot that uses authenticated proxy, Google Talk, won't be able to communicate with Google. – Raghd Hamzeh Oct 19 '12 at 13:55
  • I finally caved in and removed CM10, wiped completely and installed the latest AOKP instead. Works like a charm, even with TB backups. – pzkpfw Oct 20 '12 at 11:40
  • Even I've grey icons when i'm using my college's firewalled wifi. But it turns blue when I use it at home. – varunyellina Oct 20 '12 at 13:27
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    When restoring with TB between different ROMs, make sure to either completely skip system apps and their data (such as e.g. SMS etc.) -- or enable TB's Migration options. Different ROMs might use different structures of their SQLite DBs; without the Migration activated, TB would simply copy the SQLite files (which would break things in those cases). With Migration enabled, it tries to merge contents instead. – Izzy Dec 16 '12 at 17:20
  • @Izzy: I did choose "XML" in TB because it's supposed to integrate better, but I'm not sure that's the same thing. Anyway, I'm pretty sure you're right in that TB caused this. Will be more careful with restoring system settings in the future. – pzkpfw Dec 16 '12 at 19:30

4 Answers4

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There is nothing wrong with it. Its the expected/correct behaviour of a freshly installed ROM that does not have Google Apps (gapps) installed. Thus, the telephony/wifi signal will show up as grey.

Its only when that Google Apps (gapps) are installed, then it will show up as blue, this is for ICS upwards.

In Gingerbread, if no gapps is installed, and there's wifi connectivity, its white, when gapps gets installed, it changes to the typical green that is known under Gingerbread.

To resolve this, please install the appropriate gapps suitable for your CM10 ROM.

Edit

I am under the impression that GTalk application and service is part of the GApps hence my comment below to Izzy about this...and seems to backup the fact that if gtalk service is not present, the signal colours do appear different.

Community
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t0mm13b
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    Gapps was installed, if you read my question you'll see that I tried gtalk. You'll also see that the issue has been resolved by reinstalling. – pzkpfw Jan 06 '13 at 21:23
  • t0mm13b: Just having gapps installed doesn't do the trick. I have it installed and it was working fine until a few days back, now it turned white again due to "server timeouts" on Google's end. So the color does not say "gapps installed", but "in-sync with Google Services". – Izzy Jan 22 '13 at 17:09
  • @Izzy am not sure, have one handset here running gingerbread, that has no gapps, read no gtalk, gmail etc, and the wifi/telephony signal is white all the time... gtalk is part of the gapps that's what I think... :\ – t0mm13b Jan 22 '13 at 17:14
  • Sure it's white all the time with no gapps installed -- how should it be "in sync" with Google services without them? It's part of it to have gapps installed, it's just not the complete thing :) – Izzy Jan 22 '13 at 19:07
  • :) I know ... but I elected not to install it as it does not sync to anything - its more of a test-bed handset... :D – t0mm13b Jan 22 '13 at 19:10
  • I have gapps installed, and my icons are gray only on my work network. I asked a separate question, but it was closed because it was alredy answered here. But I have no idea why it happens – That Brazilian Guy Oct 13 '13 at 22:18
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Since you are using cyanogenmod, this may be the case with your device and it is an issue with the RIL part of your device. This is a bug that needs to get reported to the developer of your cyanogenmod builds

cnfw
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    This answer would be better if you supplied some information on how to get that information and where to report the bugs. For me personally, the problem has already been resolved by reinstalling, but if someone has a similar issue it would be good to have here. – pzkpfw Jan 06 '13 at 21:24
  • You would find the official thread on XDA (its usually XDA) and post there if anyone else is having the same issue. If people are having the same problem, make a post asking the author of the thread to get help with the bug – cnfw Jan 26 '13 at 18:49
  • What's a RIL part? – That Brazilian Guy Oct 13 '13 at 22:17
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For me the WiFi signal turned gray and I was unable to connect to all Google apps like Playstore and Gmail.

I found out that it was because I installed freedom app and uninstalled it. So I installed it again, and in the app settings I clicked the check-box where it says "don't install playstore updates," and uninstalled the freedom app again. Now everything was fixed!!!

Don't install freedom app!

It messed up my phone luckily I was able to turn it back easily to the state it was before.

Izzy
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Sabooki
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  • Thanks for the hints, Sabooki! Could you please [edit] your answer and include a link to that app on Google Play? I was searching for "freedom app", but couldn't make out which one you might have meant. – Izzy Feb 22 '14 at 19:59
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I tried to reset phone,clearing cache,Data but it wont work but now I have a quick solution on this issue and grey wifi becomes blue in some minutes.

All you need is "Rooted Phone"

1.Install : Root Explorer

  1. Grant SuperSU permission to Root Explorer

  2. Mount Root Explorer into Read/Write (R/W).

  3. Go To System > etc > locate "HOSTS" file in etc folder.

  4. Edit Hosts file using root explorer

  5. Insert the symbol # before the second set of IP address numbers then save the changes and exit.

  6. Reboot your phone...

  7. wifi icon will be blue as you start your phone back and some apps like Google play store,keep,etc will be start as normal.

Thanks.

Devendra Kulkarni
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  • I'm downvoting this because it's non-specific, I looked into my host file and it had nothing but "localhost" in it. I have no idea why yours would have stuff in it, but that doesn't seem like standard behavior from Android if you ask me. – pzkpfw Nov 19 '13 at 13:38