Tinder reproducibly crashes my WiFi

by sauere on 4/3/2015, 6:31 PM with 6 comments

It sounds absolutely absurd but Tinder reproducibly crashes my WiFi Network.

Network:

- Technicolor TC7200 Router

- AP WA801N v2 (2,4GhZ, WPA2 encrypted)

Clients:

- Apple MBP 2011, OSX Yosemite

- Moto G (First Gen), Android Lolipop

Scenario:

- I give all devices (AP, Router, Phone and Laptop) a full, fresh reboot and wait 10 minutes

- MBP is pinging the Access Point, the Router any site (say Google/Facebook whatever)... all fine. No drop outs, packet loss or whatsoever.

- Moto G has active Internet Access... i can browse sites, load content in Apps... all good.

- I open Tinder, scroll thru my Matches... still all good.

But the moment i open a profile, all pings to the Internet on my MBP fail and the Phone also can't make any connections whatsoever (browsing, loading in-app content... it all fails).

Im sure by now you think i've gone crazy but i can reproduce this behaviour at any time.

How is this possible?

  • by nikanbo on 4/3/2015, 9:45 PM

    FWIW, the Technicolor router I have from my ISP (Telia) is also deeply flawed. It sometimes tampers with TCP sessions from specific apps, setting the TCP sequence number to 0 for specific packets (same every time). A reboot helps for a short while. Another thing it does is spew massive amounts of garbage datagrams out on Wifi - it looks only pseudo-random, but it's nothing that Wireshark can decode beyond the IP layer. (IP addresses are there but looks like random public IPs.)

  • by hydrogen18 on 4/3/2015, 7:09 PM

    Can you try using Tinder from a tablet or a friends phone and see if it can be reproduced with another device?

  • by MichaelStubbs on 4/3/2015, 7:17 PM

    Are the latest updates installed on all involved devices? My immediate guess based on the information you've given is that it's likely a firewall or some other traffic inspection service that is - for unknown reasons - not liking the requests Tinder is making.

  • by fragmede on 4/3/2015, 10:48 PM

    1. Disable wireless security on the router (just for now) 2. Install and run Wireshark on the MBP 3. Run tinder and open a profile 4. Share pcap file from Wireshark. (5. Reenable wireless security on the router.)

  • by NextPerception on 4/3/2015, 8:21 PM

    Have you eliminated the Access Point as the point of failure? Try plugging your MBP directly into the router via ethernet after you have reproduced this error and see if you get connection that way.

  • by _RPM on 4/5/2015, 4:09 AM

    why don't you go ahead and cry about it?