HT202068: Recommended settings for Wi-Fi routers and access points
Learn about Recommended settings for Wi-Fi routers and access points
Q: Connects to WiFi but does not use it?
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Jan 27, 2015 11:54 AMby Lawrence Finch,More thoughts: Check for a carrier update. To do this go to Settings/General/About. If a carrier update is available you will be prompted to install it.
Two more thing to try, to see if it is a problem with specific data on the phone. FIRST, back up a phone to iTunes on a computer. And probably back it up to iCloud also, just for extra safety.
Take one of the phones and go to Settings/General/Reset and tap Reset network settings. Other than requiring that WiFi passphrases be reëntered no data will be lost. If this does not resolve the problem, then go to Settings/iCloud and turn off Find my iPhone (you will need the iCloud password to do this). Next go to Settings/General/Reset and tap Erase all content and settings. This should complete in a couple of minutes, and will leave the phone in its New state. Go through the setup again, and set up as a new phone, without restoring the backup (you can still restore it later). Don't install anything on the phone, no email accounts, no apps. Then test the WiFi. If the problem is still there then there are no settings on the phone that are interfering.
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Jan 28, 2015 6:57 AMby edmuseer,One of my users got a brand new iPhone and I hadn't even set up his email until yesterday. His phone had the same problem even before I set up the email. I'm a bit skeptical of the idea that it is some app that is causing the problem. I don't see how this could be on 4 phones. And all these phones work fine on other networks. I am using a 10.10.0.0/255.255.0.0 network here in the office which is different than the typical home network. But I don't see how this could be a factor (and it shouldn't) as well as the fact that all other devices have no problem. It's going to be a bit of issue to get one of the users to reset their phone so I guess I'm going to have to go with turning off the cellular for now. Perhaps the latest patch will make a difference.
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Jan 29, 2015 6:16 AMby Lawrence Finch,If he had the problem before setting it up I think you can skip the step of wiping a phone. It's clearly some very strange incompatibility between your network and the phone. I've never seen a problem quite like this in the 7+ years of iPhone history. Phones that don't connect are a common problem, and usually easily fixable. But a phone that connects and CAN use WiFi (as evidenced when you turn off cellular data) but doesn't when cellular data connections are available is a mystery. I did notice that the screen showed LTE. Can you try turning off LTE, but leave cellular data on? There was some discussion when LTE first became available about phones using LTE when WiFi was available if LTE was faster. It was never verified definitely, but this may be a case of that.
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Jan 29, 2015 6:53 AMby edmuseer,I think I'm on to something now. Late yesterday I started checking to make sure everything was functioning correctly. First thing I found was that we couldn't send email messages from the company account. I had to open up a port on the firewall. Then one user couldn't receive messages sent to his AOL account. This required the SSL IMAP port to be open on the firewall. Then I started thinking about when I turn the cellular function on and the wifi icon appears briefly for 5 seconds or so. I am wondering if there is some essential service that is being blocked and this causes the iPhone to switch over to cellular? What about the chat function or iCloud? Is there anything you can think of that might require a specific port to be opened up in order for the phone to work?
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Jan 29, 2015 7:01 AMby Lawrence Finch,Two possibilities. When you connect to a WiFi network the phone attempts to go to an internal Apple site. If it gets there WiFi is established. If it does not the phone assumes that the WiFi network requires an http login (typical of hotels, public hotspots) and waits for the network to redirect to the login page. But why the phone successfully uses WiFi when cellular data is off doesn't entirely explain this as the issue.
As far as ports are concerned, here are all of the ports that Apple products might use: TCP and UDP ports used by Apple software products - Apple Support
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Jan 29, 2015 9:53 AMby Newbie314,I just read through this discussion -- very strange issue, indeed. I don't have any ideas to contribute but wanted to make sure you were aware of the following Apple Support articles (just in case):
iOS and OS X: Recommended settings for Wi-Fi routers and access points - Apple Support
Good luck!
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Feb 10, 2015 9:47 AMby edmuseer,Problem solved. I did not know about WPAD (Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol). I learned about it last week. I had a hunch the problem might have something to do with the way our proxy is setup which is manual. You must put in the URL for our proxy server in your network connection. The strange thing is that the iPhones appear to accept the settings (they are quite easy to configure) but apparently it was not working correctly even though the proxy was specified. However, once I setup WPAD and tested it on some other machines and Android phones, I went to one of my iPHone users and he promptly told me that his wifi started working yesterday (around the time I had set turned on the WPAD in my DNS server).
