Bought my 3G in September, WiFi operated perfectly everywhere automatically without any hassle including home where I use Linksys WRT54G router b/g connected to Freebox (service provider in France, provides second b/g router), also 2 pc’s, 2 eeepc’s, HP C6180 printer, IPAQ, and MacBook, all interact with WiFi no problem (absolutely no security since I haven’t seen a cow or chicken connecting to internet here yet). Updated to 3.0 sometime evening June 17. Since 3G functioned pretty good wherever I travelled I didn’t notice lack of WiFi until few days later at home, where I don’t even have telephone reception (outback country of France). WiFi didn’t connect, I continually received message “unable to connect to ... network” even though the phone showed both the Linksys and Freebox networks under “settings/WiFi”, but the checkmark didn’t show up next to the network and there were no addresses showing up when I opened the blue arrow showing DHCP. For several weeks I tried everything :
- updating all software, resyncing
- soft reset (turn off/on with off button and home button)
reset network
try to enter router info manually, as static, but info doesn’t save
- reset all settings
- erase all content and settings
- restore in iTunes multiple times, going back through saved backups, then several times as “new phone” (pain in the butt, 14 pages of apps to reorder, reenter codes and mobileme to resync each time)
- resetting the Linksys to factory default settings and updating the software (actually runs better with the other equipment now!)
- foraging through scores of websites trying to find a solution (and the problem is widespread)
- buying a Time Capsule 500 GB and setting it to b/g (iPhone doesn't work with 802.11n). I returned it.
I have to admit I didn’t try the freezer or oven solution, and I don’t like the idea of “prison” breaking.
None of this helped to get a WiFi address to show up
Apple admits the problem here
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1559 and suggests doing most of what I did above
So I went to their Step 4, I called Apple Technical Service here in France. The rep walked through the steps with me as outlined in the kb above (I told him I had done it all many times). He said this problem is related to version 3.0, it depends on the configuration of our phone at the time of updating, it is a known problem, we cannot go back to version 2x, version 3.0 was not tested enough under all situations, and HE’LL REPLACE THE PHONE.
In 25 minutes he took all the info he needed (neither of us spoke French as our mother tongue so yes it took 25 minutes). This was Monday evening. Tuesday noon a UPS rep picked up my phone, Thursday morning the same UPS rep delivered a new (read refurbished) iPhone 3G.
VERY IMPORTANT! He said DO NOT update to version 3.0 with the new phone! He said there will be notification when it will be safe to do so.
It’s working perfectly, yes it is again version 2.2.1 but I have WiFi, much more important than having Notes sync with my MacBook or a voice recorder (get iTalk or QuickVoice). Oh, and 7 apps (all free) were updated to 3.0 and they don’t function now. I’ll wait.
So, like someone said about, everyone’s phone should be still under warranty, take advantage of this undeclared recall to get a new unscratched phone, and hope that the new version comes out quickly. Good luck.
