BlackBerry® PlayBook™

[Bevinwrath]

I received a Blackberry Playbook for my birthday today. Excited to try it, I connected it to the Wi-Fi at my parent's house and created a Blackberry ID so I could see what it does. Imagine my disappointment when I got it home, tried to connect it to my own household Wi-Fi, and received an error message. The message reads:

"There are error(s) on the form. WEP key must be 10 or 26 hexadecimal (0-9,
A-F) digits, or 5 or 13 characters."

I'm not entirely certain what this means, except that I cannot log in to my own personal Wi-Fi network with my new birthday present. I know I entered the password correctly, so that's not the problem. And all the other devices in the house have no problem with the password. Is there any way to fix this, (other than changing my Wi-Fi password, which I feel is an unreasonable requirement) or should I just return the Playbook to the store? Because if I can't connect it to my home Wi-Fi, there's no point in having the thing.

[ProLove360]

I have a NetGear router that I use for my home wireless network. Although your settings may be different, you can try to connect to your network using some of the following suggestions:

From an internet window, connect to your router using the address http://192.168.1.1 to view the current settings.

Make sure the SSID is entered on your PlayBook exactly as it appears on your router. (All CAPS makes a difference.)

Take notice of the Security Options on your router page. Match that option to your PlayBook setup. (It might be WEP or WPA)

The WEP key is also known as a passphrase on my router. This is a special code different from your personal password. When you change the Security Type on your PlayBook to select WEP or WPA, the "Password*" input field will be shown. Here you can enter the Passphrase that is defined on your router.

Don't give up so easily on the PlayBook. This is likely a problem that can be easily solved. Good luck!

[Lost_at_Sea]

I was helping a friend connect their PlayBooks and we received the same message. It turned out their router was quite old. To solve the problem we called the Internet Service Provider who walked us through the setup of the router and PlayBook which was quite involved. If your modem is old, why not consider replacing it. Read up on the best routers for the fastest response. Go with 802.11 N and a 5.0 GHZ settings. You will be happy you did.

[TroyTempest]

Wep is no longer recommended.

It is not unreasonable to change to a wpa password, I did it four years ago according to my ISPs recommendation.

[ProLove360]

I agree. However, my recommendation was not intended to suggest making changes to the router settings. Their network seems to be working for other computers. 

I suggest connecting the PlayBook to the wireless network by matching the tablet setup to what is shown on the router settings screen.