An exclamation mark is an indication that the connection to your router (your local network) is working but there’s an issue with your internet (external network), which means troubleshooting efforts can likely be focused on your modem. A cross or no WiFi bars at all indicates no WiFi connection, while an exclamation mark means there’s a connectivity problem. If you’re on a WiFi device, check to make sure you’ve got the wireless bars showing on your computer or device (without a cross or exclamation mark). Check out our troubleshooting guides for Telstra and Optus. If the issue is related to speed, run a speed test using our tool below.Īre they up to snuff with the speeds advertised by your provider? If not, there are steps to try before contacting them. If results come up, even slowly, then an internet outage isn’t the problem. Try to visit a popular search engine like Google, then search for anything. No matter what you want to do online, check that your internet connection is working first. It’s true that, without internet access, you can’t send or receive emails, but you also can’t do anything else online, so focusing on fixing potential specific email problems is the wrong first step because the internet isn’t online. For instance, they wanted to send an email, so they’d report that their email wasn’t working when, in reality, it was because their entire internet connection was down. One of the common themes I came across during tech support was people thinking in terms of the task instead of the actual problem. This is the first and most important step, and it doesn’t always require a database of tech knowledge to crack.

No internet connection