Your Starlink says it’s offline — or your phone shows Wi-Fi connected but no pages will load. Nine out of ten cases come down to four things: a router that needs a proper cold boot, an obstruction the app can show you in sixty seconds, a regional outage that no amount of rebooting will fix, or a cable connector that’s quietly corroding at the dish end. This guide tells you exactly which one it is and exactly what to do.
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The questions people actually type at midnight when their internet drops. Answered directly, without the runaround.
It depends entirely on what the Starlink app tells you the reason is. Open the app first — before touching anything else. If there’s a service outage banner, the problem is on Starlink’s end and nothing you do to your hardware will change it. If the app shows “Searching,” the dish is hunting for satellites, which is completely normal after a power cycle and can take five to twenty minutes. If the app shows “Offline” or “No Signal Received” with no outage reported, that is a real local fault worth investigating. The app status message is the single most important piece of information — it separates a five-minute wait from an hour of troubleshooting.
This is the most common complaint Starlink support receives. What’s happening: your router is still broadcasting Wi-Fi and handing out IP addresses normally, but the dish itself has lost its link to the satellite network. Your phone or laptop shows “connected” because it’s connected to the router — not to the internet. The fix is almost always a cold boot of the router. Unplug the power cable from the wall, wait 30 seconds, plug it back in, and wait three minutes. The in-app Reboot Starlink button performs a soft reboot and does not produce the same result as a full power cycle — if you’ve been rebooting from the app without success, pull the plug from the wall and try again.
Open the Starlink app, tap Statistics, then tap Outages. This log shows every interruption your dish has recorded, labeled by cause. If most outages are tagged “Obstructed,” a tree branch, roofline, mast, or other object is blocking the dish’s view of the sky at that point in its tracking arc. The app also has an obstruction checker under the main menu — it uses your phone’s camera to scan the sky and shows exactly where blockages are coming from, marked in red on a 3D sky view. Even a single branch crossing the sky arc can cause twenty or more brief dropouts per day, enough to break video calls and cause streaming buffering repeatedly.
Starlink uses high-frequency radio waves that are more sensitive to heavy rainfall and dense snowfall than older satellite systems, but far less affected than traditional geostationary satellite internet. Light rain and mist generally cause no measurable impact. Heavy rain can degrade or briefly interrupt the signal — this is called rain fade, and it typically resolves in five to fifteen minutes as the storm front passes. Snow is the bigger problem: the dish has a built-in heater that melts accumulation, but heavy snowfall can overwhelm it. If you can safely reach the dish, gently clearing snow with a soft broom restores service immediately. You cannot fix weather-related outages through software — only waiting or physical snow removal helps.
Three things the reboot doesn’t fix: (1) the cable connector at the dish end — weather exposure degrades these connectors over time, and a loose or corroded connection at the point where the cable meets the dish is one of the most common hardware faults that looks like a software problem; inspect it visually and press firmly to reseat. (2) An ongoing regional outage — check downdetector.com and the r/Starlink subreddit to see if others in your area are reporting the same issue at the same time. (3) A firmware hang — if the dish LED is solid white but the app still shows it offline, the dish may be stuck in a state that requires a factory reset. Contact Starlink support via the app if none of these resolve it — a solid red LED on the router indicates a hardware error that support needs to assess.
When a single device fails while all others on the same network work fine, the problem is entirely on that device — not Starlink, not the router. The most common causes: a stale DHCP lease (an old IP address the router no longer recognizes), a VPN running in the background routing traffic incorrectly, or a corrupted browser or DNS cache. The fastest fix: turn the device’s Wi-Fi off, wait ten seconds, turn it back on. This forces it to request a fresh IP address from the router. If that doesn’t help, try manually setting DNS to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 (Google’s public servers) in the device’s network settings. A device-only problem is never a Starlink problem and won’t be solved by rebooting the dish or router.
Possibly, and there’s something specific you should know about this. In November 2025, Starlink announced it is ending software and security updates for Gen 1 routers — the hardware that shipped with early kits from 2020 to 2021. The Gen 1 router will continue to work, but Starlink has confirmed it can no longer guarantee long-term performance or reliability as the network evolves. The significant part: Starlink is offering affected customers a free Router Mini as a replacement, shipped at no cost. Check your email for a message from Starlink with an upgrade offer link, or log in to your account at starlink.com to see whether the free Router Mini offer appears. This is a direct replacement, not an upsell.
Brief dropouts of five to thirty seconds are inherent to how Starlink works and are not a sign something is broken. The dish maintains its connection by handing off between satellites as they move across the sky — these handoffs occasionally cause a momentary interruption. What’s not normal: drops happening every few minutes, or drops that correlate with a specific direction (which points to an obstruction in that part of the sky). Check the Outages log in the Starlink app Statistics panel — if outage causes are labeled “Network” rather than “Obstructed,” the issue is likely peak-hour congestion from oversubscription in your cell, which is a network-side condition Starlink resolves by adding capacity over time. The app’s Statistics panel is the fastest way to distinguish normal handoff drops from an actual fault.
Match your symptom to the cause, find the fix, and know how long it should take. Use the full sections below for step-by-step detail.
| Symptom | Most Likely Cause | First Fix | Time to Resolve | App Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wi-Fi connected, no pages load | Dish offline / firmware stuck | Cold boot from wall — 30 sec unplug | 3–5 min | Offline or Searching |
| Fully offline, no outage reported | Router / cable / firmware | Cold boot → cable inspect → app diagnostics | 5–15 min | Offline |
| Outage banner in app | Regional Starlink outage | Wait — nothing you can do on-site | Varies | Outage Reported |
| Frequent brief drops (30 sec each) | Obstruction or satellite handoff | Check Outages log → run obstruction scan | Immediate scan result | Online (with drops) |
| Slow speeds only, not offline | Peak-hour congestion | Check app speed test → test off-peak hours | Resolves with congestion | Online |
| Snow or ice on dish | Accumulation overwhelmed heater | Gently brush snow off dish (soft broom) | Instant after clearing | Offline or degraded |
| One device only can’t connect | Device DHCP/DNS/VPN issue | Toggle Wi-Fi off/on on that device | Under 1 min | Online on all other devices |
| Red LED on router | Hardware error | Contact Starlink support — hardware fault | Support ticket required | Error state |
| Dish won’t power on at all | Cable, outlet, or dish hardware | Check wall outlet → inspect cable connectors | Depends on cause | No LED |
| App shows dish online but still no internet | Router Wi-Fi / DHCP problem | Router factory reset → rejoin Wi-Fi network | 5–10 min | Dish Online, devices not |
Before anything else, this is the single step that resolves the majority of Starlink offline situations. The difference between a cold boot and the in-app reboot matters — they are not the same thing.
Pull the power cable from the wall outlet directly — not from the router end if possible. The in-app “Reboot Starlink” button performs a soft reboot that does not clear the same states as cutting power completely. If you’ve been rebooting from the app without improvement, this is why. Wait a full 30 seconds before plugging back in — the capacitors in the router need time to fully discharge for the restart to count as a true cold boot. If your router is plugged into a power strip, check that the strip’s switch is on and the breaker hasn’t tripped — a dead outlet is the most overlooked cause of a “router not working” call.
Plug the router back in and set a timer for three minutes. Do not touch the router, do not press any buttons, do not open the app yet. The router needs to fully boot, establish its connection to the dish, and the dish needs to acquire satellites. This process takes between three and twenty minutes depending on how long the system was powered off and current satellite geometry overhead. The LED on the router is your indicator: on Gen 2 routers the LED is on the underside; on Gen 3 and mesh routers it’s on the front. Solid white means online. Blinking white means still connecting. Solid red means a hardware fault.
After three minutes, open the Starlink app and look at three things in this order. First, the dashboard status — Online, Searching, or Offline, and any outage banner. If an outage is reported, stop here; the problem is Starlink’s infrastructure, not your hardware. Second, tap Statistics and look at the obstruction percentage — anything above zero means something is blocking the sky arc and causing dropouts. Third, tap Outages within Statistics and check whether the outage causes say “Obstructed,” “Network,” or something else. These three data points tell you whether the problem is hardware, obstructions, congestion, or a network outage — and determine every next step.
The Starlink app’s reboot button sends a software restart command to the router. It does not cut power to the hardware and does not clear the same memory states as pulling the plug. Dozens of users report spending hours rebooting from the app without success, then solving the problem in thirty seconds by unplugging from the wall. If the app reboot hasn’t worked after two attempts, always try the wall plug first before moving to more complex troubleshooting.
Starlink satellites orbit at 550 km and move quickly across the sky. The dish tracks them by rotating and tilting continuously. Any object that sits in the tracking arc — even temporarily, like a tree branch swaying in wind — causes a dropout every time a satellite passes behind it. This can happen dozens of times per day.
Open the Starlink app, tap Statistics, then tap Outages. Each logged outage has a cause label. “Obstructed” means an object blocked the signal path. “No Satellites” means the dish was between satellite handoffs — brief and normal. “Network” or “No Signal Received” points to a satellite-link or infrastructure issue rather than a physical obstruction. If most of your outages are labeled Obstructed, the dish location is the problem. The app also shows total obstruction percentage at the top of the Statistics screen — even 1% obstruction can cause enough dropouts to break video calls and disrupt gaming.
The Starlink app has an obstruction checker accessible from the main menu — it uses your phone’s camera to map the sky. Stand where your dish is mounted (or as close as you can safely get), open the checker, and scan the sky by moving the phone as prompted. The app displays the sky in a 3D view: blue areas have clear signal paths; red areas are blocked. The checker also estimates how many interruptions per hour your obstruction level will cause. Run this from your actual dish location, not from inside the house — the scan needs to capture what the dish sees, not what you see through windows or walls. If you moved the dish since installation or if trees have grown, rerun this check.
The dish needs a clear view of the sky cone from roughly 25 degrees above the horizon through straight up. Three fixes, in order of effort. (1) Raise the dish — a taller pole mount moves the dish above a roof edge or fence line that’s causing the block; Starlink sells extended mounting poles, and third-party options exist. (2) Reposition to a different spot on the roof or yard where the blocking object is outside the arc the dish needs. (3) Remove the obstruction — trimming a specific branch that the app shows in red is often faster than relocating the dish and requires no hardware. After any change, run the obstruction checker again and let the dish run for 24 hours before judging the improvement, since orbital geometry means some positions only reveal obstruction problems at certain times of day.
The cable connector where the dish cable meets the dish is the most exposed point in the entire system. Wind stress, UV exposure, and temperature cycling degrade it over time. A loose or corroded connector at this point produces symptoms — offline, no signal received, intermittent drops — that look identical to firmware or outage problems.
The cable runs from the dish down to the router, carrying both power and data on a single cable. The connector at the dish end — where the cable exits the dish housing — is the point most exposed to outdoor conditions and the most common hardware failure that gets misdiagnosed as a software issue. Look for: green corrosion on the metal contacts, the connector sitting slightly loose rather than fully seated, or visible kinks or pinches in the cable near that end. Press the connector firmly to fully reseat it. If the connector shows visible corrosion, contact Starlink support — corroded connectors need replacement, not cleaning, and Starlink provides cable replacements for hardware under their policies. Also inspect the router end of the cable for the same issues, though weather damage is far less common there.
Walk the cable from dish to router and look for three things: sharp bends (the cable should never bend at an angle tighter than a one-inch radius), spots where the cable is pinched under a mount or door, and sections with cracked or UV-bleached outer jacket from prolonged sun exposure. Starlink’s cable carries power as well as data — physical damage to the cable can cause intermittent connection loss that appears and disappears with temperature changes as the cable expands and contracts. Cable routing along exterior walls should use UV-resistant clips every 12 to 18 inches to prevent wind whip that stresses connectors at both ends. If the cable passes through a wall, it should use a weatherproof grommet — a bare hole through the wall allows moisture to wick along the cable into the connector.
A factory reset clears the router’s configuration entirely — including any custom Wi-Fi name, password, or network settings you’ve applied. This is the correct last step when the cable and connectors look fine, the cold boot hasn’t helped, no outage is reported, and the app still shows the dish offline. To reset: hold the reset button on the router for ten seconds until the LED flashes, then release. The router will restart and create a new default Wi-Fi network. Reconnect using the credentials in the Starlink app. After a factory reset, all devices in your home will need to reconnect to the new network name — note this before you reset if you have smart home devices, printers, or security cameras set up on the old network. If a factory reset does not restore connectivity, this is the point to contact Starlink support — the dish or router hardware may need replacement.
Starlink handles light weather far better than traditional satellite internet but is not immune to severe conditions. Knowing what weather actually does — and doesn’t — affect helps you avoid half an hour of rebooting a system that just needs to wait out a storm.
Starlink’s radio signals operate at high frequencies (Ku and Ka band) that are naturally attenuated by heavy rainfall — this is called rain fade. Light rain and drizzle typically cause no measurable impact. Heavy rain, dense thunderstorm activity, or an intense squall can degrade or briefly interrupt service. Most rain-fade disconnections auto-recover in five to fifteen minutes as the storm front moves past the dish’s sky view. There is nothing you can do to accelerate this — rebooting the router during active heavy rain will not restore service and will reset the connection timer, potentially extending the outage. The only action that helps during heavy rain is waiting. If you live in a region with frequent heavy rainfall, a cellular hotspot as a backup connection is the standard recommendation from satellite ISPs.
Starlink dishes have a built-in resistive heater that activates automatically when the dish detects snowfall — it melts accumulation before it blocks the signal in most conditions. Heavy, wet snow falling faster than the heater can melt it will eventually cover the dish and interrupt service. If you can safely reach the dish, gently sweeping the accumulated snow away with a soft broom restores service immediately. Never use a rigid tool, scraper, or any method that could crack the dish’s outer cover or scratch the lens. Do not spray the dish with water to melt ice — the thermal shock from cold water on a heated dish can damage the housing. The dish heater itself draws power from the system; in extreme cold where snow is persistent, service interruptions during heavy snowfall are expected and normal.
Wind itself does not affect Starlink’s signal — the dish is designed to operate in high-wind environments, and its motorized tilting and rotating are unaffected by gusts. What wind can do over time is loosen mounting hardware, causing the dish to shift from its optimal position and either introduce obstructions or move the dish off its tracking axis. After any significant wind event — especially the first one after installation — visually inspect the mount for loose bolts or brackets. A dish that has shifted even slightly can develop obstruction patterns that didn’t exist at installation. Also inspect the cable for wind-whip damage after storms: an unsecured cable that flaps in high wind will develop stress damage at the connector over time.
When the Starlink app shows the dish is online but devices still can’t reach the internet, the problem has moved from the satellite link to the router, the Wi-Fi network, or the device itself. These are different problems with different fixes.
If the Starlink app’s dashboard shows the dish status as Online but your phone or laptop shows no internet, the satellite link is working and the problem is between the router and your device. Start with the closest device to the router — if that device works fine, the issue is Wi-Fi range or a dead zone, not the router itself. Walk closer to the router and test. If no device works regardless of proximity, the router may have a DHCP service fault — devices can connect to Wi-Fi but the router isn’t assigning them internet-routable addresses. A cold boot of the router (from the wall) typically resolves DHCP faults. If the router has a third-party router in bypass mode connected to it, check whether the bypass mode configuration is still correct after any recent firmware update.
When a single device can’t reach the internet while every other device on the same network works fine, the problem is always on that specific device. The most common causes: a stale DHCP lease where the router assigned the device an IP address that it no longer recognizes, a VPN app running in the background that routes all traffic through a server that’s down or blocked, or a corrupted DNS cache that’s pointing to addresses that no longer resolve. The fix in order: (1) Toggle Wi-Fi off on the device, wait ten seconds, turn it back on — this forces a fresh IP request. (2) If that doesn’t help, open the device’s network settings and manually set DNS to 8.8.8.8 (primary) and 8.8.4.4 (secondary). (3) Check whether any VPN app is active and temporarily disable it. These three steps resolve nearly every single-device issue without touching Starlink hardware at all.
In November 2025, Starlink announced it is ending software updates for its original Gen 1 routers — the hardware included with kits from 2020 to 2021. The Gen 1 router will continue to function, but Starlink has stated it cannot guarantee long-term performance or security as the network changes. Starlink is providing affected customers with a free Router Mini replacement — a newer dual-band router supporting Wi-Fi 6 — shipped at no cost. Eligible customers received an email from Starlink with an upgrade link. If you haven’t checked your email in a while, also log in to your Starlink account at starlink.com and look for the upgrade offer in your account dashboard. You do not need to return the Gen 1 router to receive the replacement. If your Gen 1 router is currently offline and not connected, Starlink has noted you may need to connect it and let it reach the network before the upgrade offer appears in your account.
Nothing on-site will help during a confirmed Starlink network outage — the infrastructure issue is upstream of your hardware. What you can do: (1) Cross-reference the outage at downdetector.com/status/starlink/ and the r/Starlink subreddit to understand scope and how many users are affected. Regional ground station fiber cuts typically affect users in one geographic area; constellation issues affect a broader area. (2) Use a cellular hotspot as a temporary connection if you have one available on your phone plan. (3) Do not reboot your hardware repeatedly during a network outage — it does nothing and resets connection timers. The Starlink app’s outage banner is updated in real time as the situation develops; check it periodically rather than refreshing other status pages.
If two cold boots from the wall haven’t helped, shift focus from the router to the three things a reboot cannot fix: (1) Check the cable connector at the dish end — press it firmly to reseat and look for corrosion or physical damage. (2) Run the obstruction checker in the app from outside near the dish — even a recently grown branch can be causing every dropout. (3) Look at the app’s outage log causes — if they say “No Signal Received” rather than “Obstructed,” the dish is failing to acquire the satellite link and the fault may be the dish itself or a regional ground station issue. If the LED on the router is solid red, do not continue troubleshooting on-site. Solid red LED is a hardware error signal that requires a Starlink support ticket, not further rebooting.
Frequent brief drops — especially ones you can set a clock by — almost always mean an obstruction at a fixed point in the sky arc. The dish tracks satellites that move predictably; if a tree sits in the path of one part of that arc, the drop happens every time a satellite passes behind that tree — which may be every three to seven minutes at certain times of day. Open the Starlink app, tap Statistics, then Outages. If the cause is “Obstructed,” run the obstruction checker from the dish location, identify the red area, and either reposition the dish or remove the specific obstruction. If the cause is “Network” or “No Satellites,” the drops are normal satellite handoffs that occur when the dish is briefly between two satellites — these are usually five to twenty seconds long and not a fault you can fix.
Weather-related outages fall into two categories with different responses. Heavy rain causing signal degradation: wait five to fifteen minutes — rain fade auto-recovers as the front passes; rebooting doesn’t help. Snow accumulation on the dish: the built-in heater handles most accumulation, but if service is completely out and snow is visibly covering the dish, carefully clear it with a soft broom if you can reach it safely. Never use a scraper or spray water to remove ice — thermal shock can damage the dish. Wind itself does not affect signal — if the internet went out during a storm and there’s no rain or snow, check whether the mount shifted or a cable was pulled loose by wind rather than assuming the signal is disrupted by weather conditions.
This is the “connected but no internet” state — one of the most common Starlink complaints. The router is working and broadcasting Wi-Fi normally, but the dish lost its satellite link and can’t route traffic out. First, check if other devices in the house have the same problem — if they do, it’s a dish or router issue, not your phone. Cold boot the router from the wall (not the app). Wait three minutes. If every device was affected and the cold boot fixed it, you’re done. If only your phone is affected while other devices work, the problem is on your phone — toggle Wi-Fi off for ten seconds and back on, then check whether a VPN is running. If the problem returns regularly at the same times of day, check the app for peak-hour congestion patterns — the Statistics panel shows if speeds drop consistently during specific hours.
Contact Starlink support through the app when: the dish LED is solid red (hardware error that software troubleshooting cannot fix); the dish won’t power on at all despite a confirmed working outlet and intact cable; the app shows “Offline” or “No Signal Received” for more than 24 hours with no outage reported; you hear grinding or clicking from the dish (motor assembly may be failing); the cable connector shows visible corrosion or physical damage; or a factory reset of the router did not restore any connectivity. Starlink support is ticket-based through the app — there is no phone number. Open the Starlink app, go to Support, and file a ticket with the specific symptom, what you’ve tried, and what the app shows. Include your router LED color and the status message in the app. This significantly shortens the back-and-forth that delays resolution.
This guide is for general informational and troubleshooting purposes only. Starlink hardware specifications, software features, and support policies are subject to change — always verify current information at starlink.com/support before relying on specific steps described here. Do not attempt to disassemble, modify, or repair Starlink hardware yourself, as this voids warranty and may create safety hazards. For confirmed hardware faults, contact Starlink through the official app support channel. This content is entirely original.