Just looking for a little troubleshooting or feedback. I am SO NOT a tech-savvy person. Just going to start with that so everyone understands. I seriously want the Star Trek computer that does what it’s told to do. This is a new problem I’m having. Every time I turn my glowforge on it tells me it’s offline. The wifi on my computer, phone, etc is all working. I followed the recommendation to turn everything off, restart the computer, restart the router, and that does fix the problem, BUT this is happening EVERY TIME I turn it on. I get that stuff gets quirky occasionally but I shouldn’t have to do this every time. It hadn’t been doing this until this past weekend. Is this a glowforge issue or our sucky internet equipment issue? Or is it something else that I’m missing? Just frustrated. Thoughts?
If it’s offline, it’s either broken, or having issues connecting reliably to your wifi. It’s as simple as that.
Whether other devices can connect is irrelevant.
Try using a phone as a hotspot to eliminate your router as the issue.
It most definitely could be your wifi. The GF is particularly fussy and may not connect even though other devices are having no issues.
@eflyguy beat me to it 
Do you know what’s providing your WiFi? Ultimately I think a lot of these problems can be addressed by getting a better router, but I’m hesitant to recommend anything specific because then it’s my fault when someone spends money and can’t get it to work or it doesn’t help.
I am “tech savvy”, and I can say I’ve never had a single incident of my Glowforge going offline in all the time I’ve had it (which is basically since day 1). But I’m using a Ruckus ZoneFlex R710 for my WiFi, and that’s not something I’d suggest most people invest in. Still, if you’re using the box you got for free from your cable company, or something that’s 8 years old, or it’s all the way on the other side of the house, those are things that can be factors.
Glowforge should have better WiFi than it does, and it should have better diagnostics for when something goes wrong, but it is, as has been said above, picky. But there’s nothing any of us can do to make it have a better antenna or better wireless chipset. Giving it the best possible chance, with a high quality base station located nearby, is about the limit.
When I first got my GF, I was having a similar issue. The machine worked great at first, then wouldn’t connect. It ended up being my wifi router. It hit its useful lifespan. Bought a new router and perfect connection every time…until that one started to burn out…I don’t think it likes the heat and dust here.
Now I have one from the fiber company, works great, but defaults to 5G, which GF can’t connect to. I made a separate WIFI log on just for 2.4ghz (I’m not tech saavy, so please don’t quote my terms…I’m making it up as I go along), and now I don’t have issues.
In order to find out if it’s your machine or your wifi, use your phone as a hotspot and see if your Glowforge will connect to that. If it does, then your wifi is the issue. If it doesn’t, you will probably have to contact support.
I totally missed this when I was skimming through responses! You said it first 
I am merely affirming that it’s a good next step.
Thank you all. I figure it is the router. We have basically one internet provider in our town and they are terrible! I’ll try the hotspot. It stays connected once it does connect, but if I turn it off and come back later, I have to reset everything. Just wanted to make sure there wasn’t more to it than the obvious.
Oh man, having a limited provider is the pits, but based on what you describe, it certainly sounds like your wifi is the issue. Good luck, hope you get it sorted out!
Ugh that’s such a bummer to only have one provider available. We only had two available where I am (CenturyLink and Comcast, it’s so strange) but thankfully, I finally was able to switch to TMobile Home Internet a few months ago.
I was also going to suggest to check whether it’s trying to connect to a 5.0 ghz connection instead of a 2.4 ghz connection. Like @CMadok mentioned, we had to make a 2.4 connection to be able to use it with the Glowforge and also with a couple of other things (like our hub for smart bulbs or something like that). But if you’re connecting ok until you reboot, that doesn’t seem to jive with what I’d expect in that situation.
You can usually still turn off the provider’s WiFi and bring your own. I’ve heard good things about the mesh systems like Eero, Google WiFi, etc., though I haven’t used them personally.
If you go that route, though, I’d recommend borrowing a nerd to get it set up. Sometimes you have to jump through a few small hoops.
My guess is that those may not be available in their area either.
I can’t get Google even, and I’m in the Denver metro area. I was just checking this about a week ago.
You can connect every wifi router I’ve ever known (and I work in a related industry) to any broadband modem. They all have ethernet ports for “external” and “internal” side.
It just so happens that most broadband modems (often provided by the ISP) include wifi, but it can be disabled.
oh I think I previously misunderstood what you meant. I mean, if the service sucks, I don’t think it matters what router you use. 
You can put frosting on a dog poop but it doesn’t make it taste like chocolate cake. ROFL
We bought a mesh system when we used Comcast and it made it even worse. We returned it. We’ve had some issues with TMobile Home Internet but overall it’s blazing fast and working fine for everything. (Streaming on many devices, working from home, two kids in remote school and one doing remote therapy sessions, the GF, Xbox, etc.) But until we got TMobile internet, it was hit and miss, and it was so much slower.
Not really.
I have one of the top Gbps broadband services but my router would not support the lid camera calibration process. I had to hook up a different one to get thru it. I had no issues prior to running it, nor since.
Right, but I’m talking about the opposite situation. When the service sucks and it doesn’t matter what you do, you can’t magically make it work great.
Got it.
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