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I never turn my WiFi on because I have an unlimited data plan. I recently noticed that it is autonomously enabled randomly.

How can I find the culprit that keeps turning my WiFi on? Is there a way I can catch the application that launched the WiFi enable Intent?

I have been going on a blind search thus far and I still notice my WiFi turning on. Thanks in advance! I have a Nexus 4 running Android 4.4

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    In my case, it turned out to be the Anti-theft feature of Avast because I recently changed my sim card. Hopefully this saves someone the pain I went through...
    – Freedom_Ben
    Commented Oct 22, 2014 at 22:23
  • I had the same thing happening on my Huawei phone. Turns out it was the Wi-Fi+ feature. Settings -> Wi-Fi -> Wi-Fi+ -> Off.
    – Antoni4
    Commented Nov 18, 2017 at 12:12

3 Answers 3

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KitKat has a feature where, when Wi-Fi is turned off, it periodically scans for networks to allow Wi-Fi-based location detection to work. To turn this off:-

  1. Go to the Wi-Fi settings
  2. On the overflow menu (the three dots) select Advanced
  3. Uncheck Scanning always available

Even when an app turns on Wi-Fi fully, this isn't done with an intent; rather, it's done by calling the method WifiManager.setWifiEnabled. Only apps with the permission "connect and disconnect from Wi-Fi" can do this.

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    Thanks for the response! I have previously unchecked this option, but the issue remains.
    – Miron Veryanskiy
    Commented Jun 4, 2014 at 22:35
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If it's not that KitKat feature Dan mentioned, and the intervals are reasonably short (so e.g. it happens at least once while you're sleeping at night):

  • enable USB debugging
  • connect your device to your PC via USB
  • on your PC, run adb logcat | tee wifi.log
  • go to bed
  • next morning, press Ctrl+C
  • check wifi.log to see when it was triggered (and hopefully, by whom)

This should at least help narrowing things down. Even if it doesn't explicitly state "App X triggering WiFi", you can check for patterns, like "evertime WiFi had been turned on, I find event Z of app X mentioned a few lines before". Good indicator it might have to do with X then. So check whether X has some network (or "coarse location") permissions requested (and granted), as if not, it's unlikely to be your candidate. Otherwise, try disabling/freezing/uninstalling it, and see if your issue is gone. If so, you found it – if not, repeat with the next.

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  • @Izzy can I simply find the applications with the Wi-Fi change state permission and then simply un-install the app on Android 4.1.2.The same problem only occurs regular time intervals.
    – user285oo6
    Commented Aug 8, 2014 at 6:12
  • If you want to use that approach, see my answer here. Combining the two approaches might be a little safer, so you don't uninstall the wrong app ;)
    – Izzy
    Commented Aug 8, 2014 at 8:38
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I had the same issue with my device (Note 3). T-Mobile doesn't seem to have a "Connection Optimizer" feature in its line of phones. In T-mo's case the feature that needs to be disabled is the "Wi-Fi Manager".

To disable this feature you need to do the following:

  • Access your T-Mobile account (for me I just press on the "T-Mobile My Account" App).
  • Press the menu button on your device, then select "Options".
  • Under "Notifications" uncheck the box marked "Display Wi-Fi Manager notifications".
  • Under "Connection Assistant" select "Open Wi-Fi manager".
  • Uncheck the box for "Manage Wi-Fi Connections".

That's it...

I talked to T-mobile tech support about an unrelated issue and offhandedly mentioned this problem. The rep informed me that this was a known issue and stated that this issue was being addressed. In the mean time disabling the "Wi-Fi Manager" is a temporary fix to address this problem. Here is the shorthand way to disable the Wi-Fi manager:

T-Mobile My Account -> Menu -> Options -> "Display Wi-Fi Manager Notifications" (Uncheck) -> "Open Wi-Fi Manager" (under "Connection Assistant") -> (Uncheck) "Manage Wi-Fi Connections".

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