Nexa Vega N4 – Lets Fix the WiFi MAC Address Issue – Ourselves
So we rooted the Nexa Vega N4, and we made a complete backup of the phone. Now for the final stage of fixing the WiFi MAC address issue ourselves – the actual editing of system files.
Now for those of you who don’t know what I mean by WiFi MAC address issue let me quickly explain.
As an additional level of security on my WiFi I use MAC address filtering. So if the WiFi does not get a request from a predefined list of approved MAC addresses to connect, it will just drop the request. Yes it is a lot of effort in maintaining a list of MAC addresses for each device but it is just one added step in “securing” the WiFi network.
Now while testing the demo Nexa Vega N4 I noticed that each time the phone rebooted it would change the MAC address of the phone…check it out
WiFi MAC Address Bug – BEFORE reboot of phone
WiFi MAC Address Bug – AFTER reboot of phone
So as you can see I had to fix it – or send to the supplier to fix (not with a new phone 🙁 )
After reading a LOT of posts on XDA Developers and trying a few things I was not having success. It was 01h45 on a Saturday morning and I needed to rest. The following morning after being woken up by my daughter at just after 07h00 I decided to give it another shot. I started doing Google searches and opening many tabs and then…I stuck gold!
I came across this website called GizBeat.com. On it Damian Parsons wrote about Fix NVRAM Err = 0×10 And Random MAC Address!
It seems there is a file called WIFI that is located in the \data\nvram\APCFG\APRDEBed folder of the phones system. It is inside of this file that the WiFi MAC Address is specified. If the default value is set to 00-00-00-00-00-00 in this file then the phone will randomly generate a MAC address for the WiFi to be able to connect. One actually had to go and SPECIFY the MAC Address in this file to make it static!
The tools that I used was: Solid Explorer (as I purchased it) and Hex Editor (also in the Play Store).
Adapting his instructions, do the following:
1. Note your current MAC Address (From home screen > Menu button > Settings > About > WLAN MAC Address) or the address you would like it to be.
2. Using Solid Explorer, navigated to the system room \data\nvram\APCFG\APRDEBed
2. Copy the WIFI file to the SD Card – keep one as a backup (name it say WIFIbackup) and another as the one you are going to edit (leave it WIFI)
3. Open now Hex Editor on the phone and edit the WIFI file on the SD Card
4. The MAC address starts row 1, column 4 and ends at row 1, column 9 – change the values from 00 to the value you would like it (or what your current MAC address is). Save and exit the tool.
5. Navigate back to \data\nvram\APCFG\APRDEBed and note the file permissions
6. Overwrite the previously existing WIFI file with your modified WIFI file
7. Check file permissions and change to same as the original WIFI file if required (it was in my case)
8. Reboot phone and check MAC address
9. Reboot phone again and smile when you realize that the MAC address is now staying the same 🙂
So going over our checklist:
Root Phone – Done!
Backup Phone – Done!
Fix MAC Address Issue – Done!
Regardless if you have a Nexa Vega N4 or not, I am sure that if you are sitting with an Android device that keeps changing its MAC Address of the WiFi card, this method will be the fix.
Special thanks to Damian Parsons from GizBeat
