I have a problem that seems to have started in 16.4 but has continued in 16 5. My iPhone 14 pro max disconnects from WiFi once or twice a day and I have to reboot it to get the WiFi back. I have a max ok air and iPad Pro that are on the same WiFi network and they haven’t had this problem
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For your edification: Wi-Fi normally connects to a router, which assigns an IP address using a protocol called DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol). But it’s possible to also use Wi-Fi to connect a group of devices to each other rather than to the Internet in what is called an ad-hoc network. Ad-hoc networks use IP addresses in the range that starts with 169.254.0.0. Each device in the ad-hoc network creates its own IP address in this range. When you connect a device to a network it will "ask" the router for an IP address using DHCP. If it doesn’t get an IP address assigned within 30 seconds it assumes that it is an ad-hoc network and assigns itself a random address in the range 169.254.x.y.
There is a common failure mode in many routers where the DHCP “daemon” process in the router fails, and it stops assigning IP addresses, so a new device connecting to the network will self-assign. But any device connected to the router that already has an IP address will continue to work. This makes it look like the problem is the phone, because everything else connected still works, but it’s actually the fact that the router is no longer assigning IP addresses. While it can happen to any device using the router the problem is more common with phones that disconnect when they go out of range, and reconnect when you get “home” and thus get a new IP address assigned. Rebooting the router restarts the DHCP daemon and resolves the problem.
The reason it happens with many different routers is that most routers have the same underlying open source operating system. It’s primarily a problem with routers more that a few years old; newer ones from top tier manufacturers rarely have this problem.
For your edification: Wi-Fi normally connects to a router, which assigns an IP address using a protocol called DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol). But it’s possible to also use Wi-Fi to connect a group of devices to each other rather than to the Internet in what is called an ad-hoc network. Ad-hoc networks use IP addresses in the range that starts with 169.254.0.0. Each device in the ad-hoc network creates its own IP address in this range. When you connect a device to a network it will "ask" the router for an IP address using DHCP. If it doesn’t get an IP address assigned within 30 seconds it assumes that it is an ad-hoc network and assigns itself a random address in the range 169.254.x.y.
There is a common failure mode in many routers where the DHCP “daemon” process in the router fails, and it stops assigning IP addresses, so a new device connecting to the network will self-assign. But any device connected to the router that already has an IP address will continue to work. This makes it look like the problem is the phone, because everything else connected still works, but it’s actually the fact that the router is no longer assigning IP addresses. While it can happen to any device using the router the problem is more common with phones that disconnect when they go out of range, and reconnect when you get “home” and thus get a new IP address assigned. Rebooting the router restarts the DHCP daemon and resolves the problem.
The reason it happens with many different routers is that most routers have the same underlying open source operating system. It’s primarily a problem with routers more that a few years old; newer ones from top tier manufacturers rarely have this problem.
I found the solution to my problem. The Motorola modem offers WPS as one of the security modes. It states that Apple stopped supporting this in March of 21. I left it enabled in case one of my other devices was using it. Today I disabled the use of WPS and the iPhone now behaves as it should. After months of chasing this, all I had to do was turn off WPS. I hope this helps someone else out there.
needleman_mark Said:
"WiFi disconnect problem in 16.5: I have a problem that seems to have started in 16.4 but has continued in 16 5. My iPhone 14 pro max disconnects from WiFi once or twice a day and I have to reboot it to get the WiFi back. I have a max ok air and iPad Pro that are on the same WiFi network and they haven’t had this problem "
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Report back if anything here helps...
Troubleshooting iPhone WiFi:
A few thoughts to try:
I. Start Here: If your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch won't Connect to a Wi-Fi Network - Apple Support
II. Clear the Temporary Internet Files:
III. Restart your Router:
IV. Reconnect to your Network:
V. Add Back the Network:
What worked for me:
I had an intermittent WiFi connection. When I looked at the VPN control [General Settings: VPN & Device Management] I found that the current VPN config. was shutting off, and then restarting itself several times each minute. I could manually click the VPN to OFF; but within a few seconds the switch would turn itself back ON. Then within another few seconds, the VPN would turn itself back OFF. This behavior would continue -- effectively gating the WiFi connection ON and OFF every 15 seconds or so. (And that's what my apps were doing--Weather would initially report No Internet, then after a wait it would update and report current conditions.)
I went to the current active VPN config. and clicked DELETE, and confirmed that command. Poof went the bad VPN configuration; and WiFi has been solid ever since. In my case, the VPN is done entirely in the TCP/IP connection software; there is no dedicated VPN hardware. So no hardware reset/restart was needed. I deleted one defective VPN config. from my iPhone settings, and the problem vanished. I have not yet tried to configure a replacement VPN. The one I was using was Google's free "1.1.1.1" VPN. But any VPN config. can go bad, any time any participant in that config. sends an update. In my case that was Google (VPN vendor,) and Apple (iPhone and iOS vendor.) Even if Apple were the vendor for the entire configuration, we still couldn't bet that an in-use configuration would survive every update. Hope this helps!
Jerry, take a look at your wifi settings. If you have WPS turned on it causes a problem with the phone. I had this problem and turned off WPS because Apple dropped support for it. All my Apple devices work fine now. Hope this helps,
Paul
If your router is dual band (2.4Ghz and 5Ghz), try creating only a 5Ghz network. You will have to Forget your current network from all devices, then connect to the current 5Ghz network. The 2.4Ghz network gets congested very easily with multiple devices and also from interference with microwaves, wireless phone, baby monitors, etc.
Perhaps its a VPN issue? Are you using VPN on the iPhones? Have you tried forgetting the network, then reconnecting? This really seems to be a local problem, because with 2 billion iPhones in use if it was a widespread problem you would see millions of posts about it. If you consider that only about 500 million of those 2 billion have the latest iOS version of 16.6 that would still result in millions of posts.
I posted a solution on page 2. If you WPS turned on for the wireless, the iPhone will randomly drop. With WPS turned off, everything works as it should.
I hope this helps others out there.
This works best for me. I just disable the VPN and the wifi was restored.
I have the same issue and it is really annoying when doing video calls the phone will loose connection for a second or two. I watched it side by side with an iPhone that has the problem and an iPhone that does not have the issue. The problem phone will disconnect wifi (sometimes also loose the one wifi connection from the list altogether) while the other phone still happily works and does transfer video and audio data in real time. If I plug it into a wired connection (with dongle) it works flawlessly again (so it’s not router settings). I also took one of my two access points offline and it is improving situation bit not by a lot. If I reset the network settings it works for a day until it starts acting up again. Maybe it’s a radio sw/hw issue as the affected phone is a european iphone14 while the American iphone15 works. I can see how difficult this is to debug but this really needs to be fixed.
Have you restarted your router?
needleman_mark wrote:
I have a problem that seems to have started in 16.4 but has continued in 16 5. My iPhone 14 pro max disconnects from WiFi once or twice a day and I have to reboot it to get the WiFi back. I have a max ok air and iPad Pro that are on the same WiFi network and they haven’t had this problem
If you turn off Wi-Fi (rather than the phone), then turn it back on does it reconnect?
I think there’s something up with the last iOS update. Everyone who has entered my house with an iPhone has issues connecting to Wi-Fi but the android phones work fine. We’ve tried everything and we still lose Wi-Fi connection randomly. It’s not just when we set the phones down. We’ll be searching something and then the Wi-Fi will drop out. We’ve even tried to mess with settings on the router but it doesn’t change.
Yes. This isn’t a router issue. It’s an iOS issue. Everyone with an Android has no issues. Everyone with an iPhone has the issue (regardless of the iPhone model).
needleman_mark Said:
"WiFi disconnect problem in 16.5": I’ve already tried most of those things: i don’t see how resetting the WiFi router will help (although I’ve tried that) since other devices connected to that router aren’t having any problems"
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Why to Reset the Router:
Two pure examples...
A. New IP Address:
If you are using DHCP for your internet protocol configuration on your router, then you'll get a new IP Address.
B. Power Spike or Power Spur:
Sometimes there may be utility wrk down the street, and the WiFi goes out for a moment or so.
WiFi disconnect problem in 16.5
