PlayStation WPA Password Problems: Solved

My son was having a hard time with his PS4. For some reasons (perhaps after an upgrade?) his PS4 wouldn’t connect to our WiFi acccess point. It was working before and suddenly it could not. It said that WPA password is wrong and gave NW-31297–2 error code.

We browsed the internet and went through several forums. Most of them said that we should restart the PS4 (which we did several times) and restart the access point (which we also did several times). Didn’t work.

So, I decided to look into this. First, I turned the WiFi password off. The PS4 connected easily. I guess it has something to do with the encryption. We could not let the WiFi without password. Then I played with the acceess point’s security settings; starting with WEP, WPA, then WPA2. Finally found the problem!

For some reasons, the PS4 would not connect if the encryption is using AES. With WPA2, there is a selection of TKIP or AES and the PS4 (for some reasons) could not connect. With WPA, there is a choice of either TKIP or AES. With WPA+AES it didn’t work. With WPA+TKIP … it works!

So, for those out there who are still having problems with your PS4 and WPA password thing, reconfigure your WiFi access point to use WPA and TKIP as the encryption algorithm.

Enjoy your PS4.