iPad Mini 2 Disconnects from WiFi when Locked

With iOS 12.4, it was disconnecting. With 12.4.1, it is staying connected.

As I said in bullet point 1. above, I have tried leaving the wall power connected. It does not matter. It still disconnects from WiFi when it’s locked.

I wish that that was the solution, since it’s simple.

Anybody else have this problem?

When I open the cover and the screen turns on, the WiFi icon is not present. It doesn’t appear until after I unlock the iPad with my passcode.

Once I unlock it, the WiFi logo reappears and I get a flurry of push notifications from the time that the WiFi was off.

My iPhone 6s does not do this. The WiFi will stay connected all night. My iPad also did not do this until recently. This is why I am confused.

Very simple answer - I want to receive push notifications. I have security cameras around my home. When one of them detects motion, it sends a push notification to inform me. If my iPad is not connected to the internet because the wifi is disconnected, then I will not receive the push notification until the next time I wake it up. (When I have woken it up recently, I would get a slew of push notifications from overnight, including any camera warnings...) This doesn't work for me. All of my other devices at home (Android, Microsoft) stay on wifi while I'm not using them, so the behavior of disconnecting from wifi is new to me.

People keep saying "this is completely normal behavior". I've had the iPad for at least 3 years, and my company provided phone is an iPhone 6S. They both have ALWAYS stayed connected to wifi when locked at my home (while connected to power), until I started having disconnects with the iPad recently. Apparently, both my iPhone and iPad were acting abnormally for years until my iPad recently started to act normally, only to again start acting abnormally now that iOS 12.4.1 has been installed on my iPad???

If this is such a big issue for power, why can't Apple offer a simple option in their settings? "Keep wifi connected when locked (Y/N)?" Give us the option, especially if power is connected, and especially for devices like mine that don't have cellular to provide internet when wifi is disconnected. How does disconnecting from wifi save battery life when the unit is plugged into the wall, anyway? But I digress. For now, the iPad is doing what I want it to do (whether or not it's "normal behavior"), so I will be happy.

To hopefully close the loop in this...

I tried every "fix" I could find on the internet: reset network settings, did a full factory reset, assigned a fixed IP address, changed various network settings, etc. Nothing worked. I made a Genius Bar appointment at our local Best Buy - all the guy there did was reset my network settings (which I had previously tried) and told me that if this didn't work, they would have to send the iPad back to Apple. Of course, his "solution" didn't work, and I really didn't want to send my iPad back to Apple for this problem.

A few days ago, my iPad alerted me to the iOS 12.4.1 update. Having nothing to lose, I went ahead and installed it. Lo-and-behold, my iPad now stays connected to the internet when locked, as long as it is connected to wall power (like it is supposed to). There must have been some bug in the iOS 12.4 that was "fixed" with 12.4.1.

We'll see what the upcoming iOS 13 brings. Hopefully it will not re-create this problem. I will post back for the community if anything changes.

Regards,

Mike