"netsh wlan show networks" only shows the currently connected WiFi network

I am using Windows 10 Pro. Often when I run "netsh wlan show networks" it only shows the currently connected WiFi network. Here is the output from that:

Interface name : Wi-Fi
There are 1 networks currently visible.

SSID 1 : Island Dreams
Network type : Infrastructure
Authentication : WPA2-Personal
Encryption : CCMP

When this happens I have found that if I hover over the WiFi icon in the taskbar I can see all of the available networks. After hovering over the WiFi icon and showing those networks, if I run "netsh wlan show networks" it will now display a list of all of those networks. Here is the output at that point:

Interface name : Wi-Fi
There are 6 networks currently visible.

SSID 1 : Island Dreams
Network type : Infrastructure
Authentication : WPA2-Personal
Encryption : CCMP

SSID 2 : DIRECT-6E-HP OfficeJet Pro 8710
Network type : Infrastructure
Authentication : WPA2-Personal
Encryption : CCMP

... and so on

If I wait a few minutes and try again netsh will be back to only showing the connected network. And if I hover over the WiFi icon again netsh will once again show all of the networks.

I have verified with a wifi analyzer on my phone that the other networks are always there and have strong signals, even when netsh is only showing the connected network.

Any ideas?

Follow up: I asked three of my co-workers to try the command and it showed all of the available wifi networks for them.

1 Answer

Try this in some bash snippet (ie. bash.sh).

netsh wlan disconnect
sleep 1
netsh wlan show networks
sleep 3
netsh wlan connect ssid="<your_ssid>" name="<your_ssid>"
sleep 120