Tell me more ×
Android Enthusiasts Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for enthusiasts and power users of the Android operating system. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 1 down vote favorite

My mac address keeps changing when ever I turn off the phone or turn on/off the wifi card. This use to never happen. I have sbf back to .340 tried multiple roms (now im apex). This was never a problem before. Its a big deal cause i have to register my device on my network at school, and if it keeps changing it doesnt know who I am.

Thanks Mike

share|improve this question
Does it switch between two values or many? (And just to confirm, it's definitely not your IP address that's changing?) – Matthew Read♦ Sep 6 '11 at 21:05
Definitely not my ip :) it keeps the manufactor id at the beginning (the first 6 digits) but the last ones are all random – thegreyspot Sep 7 '11 at 14:40

2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

Do the MAC addresses repeat, or are they new randomly generated ones every time? It sounds like whatever ROM you're using has MAC spoofing enabled by default.

share|improve this answer
Random, except first 6 digits. I have been on stock rom and had same result thanks! – thegreyspot Sep 7 '11 at 14:41
absolutely sounds like spoofing then to me. the first 6 digits are the company identifier (OUI) I believe, so that would explain why that stays the same. – Ryan Conrad Sep 8 '11 at 17:49
i mean obviously it is being spoofed. But I have gone back to SBF and installed liberty and apex and they all have the same problem with the mac address – thegreyspot Sep 10 '11 at 15:42
up vote 1 down vote

Poking around on google there are a lot of other folks with this problem (MAC address is re-generated on wifi/phone resets). It seems to mostly be Motorola hardware.

Normally a MAC address is burned into the WiFi device. So it seems very, very odd to generate MAC addresses on the fly like this. Too much software (technically incorrectly) relies on MAC addresses as a stable identifier for an endpoint, so this seems likely to cause more problems than it fixes...

Here's a post about the problem from 2010: https://supportforums.motorola.com/thread/38758

The only useful recommendation I saw on the internet was the obtuse 'WiFi Fixer' app, that is known to work around some problems on early Android wifi handsets. I saw no concrete evidence that it 'fixes' this problem.

Alternatively, you could look into the tools for MAC spoofing (AFAICT, these all require a rooted phone). Then just "spoof" a stable address all the time. Here's a highly manual method: http://blog.thecodecracker.com/hacks/spoof-mac-address-in-android/

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.