iPhone 15 Pro Max Wi-Fi Issues

I've got a fix!!! This was frustrating me to no end. Went to Apple store and talked with one of the experienced techs. He said the issue is the iPhone when you import from an old iPhone imports non-ideal network settings, not just your old iPhone passwords. Fix is below.

Network -> General -> Transfer or Reset iPhone -> Reset Network Settings

Wifi has been working like a charm since I did this. Read about this for hours and never saw this suggested anywhere else so figured I'd contribute.

2.4 band works fine as a stop gap. Not ideal solution but it has been stable for over 24 hours.

I engaged support again today and finally got someone to acknowledge that this is a known, systematic issue and that they are working on a fix. There was, of course, no ETA or indication of how the fix will be issued.

From support chat:

We are further investigating this and please do rest assure that we are all working and looking for a best possible solution.

I understand this is not the outcome you would prefer, I got your back! I’ll document here all the things we have done and make sure this will be heard and taken care of. So that our Apple Engineer might review our case and use this for future reference to prevent your concern to continue to happen. Okay?

Find a solution.

I had same problem on all (4) iPhone 15 pro in the family. Phone can stay on Xfinity internet for just few minutes and data is cut. I have to turn off and on WIFI to continue. I am renting Xfinity's router and wifi box. So we are on 5G for the past few months.

Finally found time to fix this issue yesterday. Called XFinity customer service, who was nice but clueless. I knew it is Wifi 6E issue, and since XFinity is unable to change its setting on the router, I changed following setting on phone and problem is gone. I think Apple is at fault. It should test its Wifi Compatibility with major customers before selling iPhone 15.

Settings->WiFi ->"circled i" next to your wifi SSID -> WiFi 6E mode-> turn off.

I got a fix. For the last few days I lost my internet connection on my iPhone 15 Pro Max. I did have internet on everything else on the house except my phone. I went to settings and I saw the VPN flipping. First I thought that was my modem but the problem persisted at home too. I disconnected the VPN by going to general and then VPN device management and I deleted the VPN. Now is working. I ordered 2 iPhones 15 pro max. One has the VPN and the other didn’t. I guess when the transfer of the old to the new phones that information was transferred but there are some issues.

UPDATE: ok so I received the new router (AXE-16000 Asus 6E) I have segregated SSIDs as follows:

1) 2.4gHz

2) 5gHz (running 20,40,80,160mHz)

3) 5gHz(running 20,40,80,160mHz) with the same SSID as the second band

4) 6gHz Wifi 6E running all bands with a separate SSID.

The iPhone 15 pro max connects to the 4th radio running the 6gHz frequency. It performs almost flawlessly (enough for me to be satisfied with it) and it does not have the disconnecting problem. HOWEVER - if you connect the 15 pro max to the 5gHz networks (either radio) it has the same problem with the 160mHz band. BUT it runs nearly perfectly on the 160mHz band on the 6gHz network. This is an indication (but not solid proof) that this may be a software issue. The only troubleshooting I am not able to do is connecting another device to the 6gHz radio as I do not have another 6E capable device in the house at the moment. I am working on that and should have an answer for this by tomorrow evening.

Hopefully some may find this helpful - I have a call scheduled with Apple on Tuesday evening (I originally didn't anticipate the router arriving until Monday so I hedged my timeline lol)

I have been having the same issue as well. Use a fairly new Ubiquiti Dreammachine which works fine with all of my devices, iphone 14pro is also completely fine. But as soon as I launched the new 15 pro it would show the phone connecting to the network (weirdly identified on Unifi as am iphone 8 and (!) a second iphone 8 plus with two different ip's). The phone also got an IP from the wifi, but was not showing that it was connected to wifi at all, and no internet connection. I read in a post below, that turning off vpn helped. For me it did not, but as soon as I actually deleted the vpn profile the wifi connected that second, and seems to be stable since then... so there seems to be an issue with 5hz wifi and vpn settings in the phone.

When I look into the ubiquiti, I still see 3 different phones connected to my wifi, each has a different IP address and each is identified as an iphone 8 or iphone 8plus. The iphone 15pro is registering the ip from the iphone 8 (I have no actual other phones connected, only the 15pro and a 14pro which shows up correctly. I am not sure how useful this is, but maybe some of you can figure something out with that.

I’ve also been having the exact issue with my iPhone 15 Pro Max and a brand new Xfinity router.

One problem I’m seeing is that my iPhone keeps changing the Wi-Fi 6E setting from ‘Off’ to ‘Automatic’. When I turn this setting off my phone connects just fine and acts as it should however when it changes back to automatic it has troubles connecting to Wi-Fi. It’s a workaround to have to constantly turn of Wi-Fi 6E but at least I can connect.

The best way to manage devices and bandwidth in wifi networks in my humble opinion is to create a dedicated SSID for each frequency and, or bandwidth combination.

I have a dual band Wifi 6 router that supports 2.4 & 5GHZ channels. The 2.4gHZ has its own SSID and I created two additional SSID’s on the 5GHZ channel with one being 80MHZ and the second at 160MHZ.

This allows for lower speed devices to connect more efficiently. Medium and high speed devices each have their own SSID’s. Distance can cause more network errors so to reduce retries on the 5GHZ channel a user/device can select the 2.4GHZ SSID. Devices close to the router should select either 5GHZ SSID’s.

My High speed wide 160MHZ SSID is mainly to connect my Workstation PC to achieve 1GBPS over wifi up and down. The 160MHZ bandwidth must be setup on a DFS overlapped 5GHZ sub channel. Anyone using these Wide bandwidth channels to achieve 160MHZ can/may experience automatic channel switching back to a 80MHZ channel.

In your case DFS may have kicked in but the router may not have automatically switch you SSID to a lower bandwidth channel. This will cause the SSID to useless until the DFS situation is gone and the router is rebooted. DFS rules don’t require the device to switch back to the DFS channel after the DFS told your router to vacate the channel.

My ASUS router does the downshift to a 80MHz channel but doesn’t go back to 160MHZ. Only way to correct this is to reboot the router.

I setup my router to reboot every day at 4am.

The new wifi 6E with support for 6GHZ I believe solves this issue for 160MHZ channel bandwidth.

Ok, so after I created the Guest SSID on my router/modem (Bell Homehub 3000), I let my new Iphone sit over night on the Guest SSID. I tried switching to my home SSID this morning and there was internet connectivity. Been using it all morning. No issues so far.

The very first time i turned on my new Iphone 15 Pro Max, I could not log into my home SSID. At all. I had not transferred from my old Iphone (11 Pro Max). I wanted to update the firmware on the new Iphone before beginning transfer. The firmware before upgrade was 17.0.2. After the struggle of getting on my home wifi, many battles with getting and staying on wifi to download the new firmware (17.0.3), i finally got it downloaded and installed. New firmware installed but the wifi issue persisted. I checked the IP address in the new Iphone and it kept bouncing onto new addresses and not within the range specified in my router/modem. I checked my wifi device list in my router/modem and it kept generating new devices. It was odd to me because it seemed like the new Iphone was being recognized as a new device every couple seconds. I checked the settings of my old Iphone vs new Iphone for my home SSID. The only difference is the "Private Address." I switched it off on the new Iphone for both home and guest SSID. I then let my new Iphone sit overnight with the guest SSID and logged into my home SSID first thing this morning. It has been stable on my home SSID ever since. I just completed the transfer from old Iphone to new Iphone and it still works. Stable thus far with no issues.

Could it be my modem/router having a firewall preventing the new Iphone from hammering wifi logins (generating new addresses because of the "Private Address" functionality? My modem/router is old tech. 10-15 years. i have had modem/routers go bad over the years and replaced accordingly with the exact same model. This modem/router i have currently was replaced a few years back. Supposedly the "Private Address" functionality is IF the wifi supported it. I'm assuming this is a new thing which was not incorporated into my modem/router which could result in dropped wifi signal.

My advice, try switching off "Private Address" functionality on the wifi you're logging into and reboot modem/router. Hope it works!

Try this as it worked for me.

Turn 160 Band off if enables including DFS

Either split or disable the 2.4Ghz wifi band - Seems this problem doesn’t like combined 2.4/5Ghz.

Make sure no 2.4Ghz devices are within 2 Metres of the router - If there is anything move them or the router to a clear spot.

If running ASUSWRT-Merlin 388.4.0 firmware roll it back to the previous version as this has a huge wifi and router reboot issue. Connecting the iPhone 15 Pro Max to ASUSWRT-Merlin 388.4.0 will kill your network the router will go into a reboot loop every 2 minutes.

I have no idea why the 160 Band with DFS and a combined 2.4/5Ghz network seem to cause wifi dropouts on IP15PM but since making the changes I have not lost connection once.

My guess is the wifi chip being used has some flaw, old firmware that needs updating or bad drivers. Whatever this is seems to be the worst launch issue since antennagate. Hopefully it can be fixed with a patch otherwise a few thousand iPhones will be getting replaced 😞

I finally got help from an Apple Support Supervisor who was able to help resolve the internet issue with my less- than-24-hours-old iphone 15 Pro Max.

She walked me through resetting the network on my old phone and also on my new one. BTW The two phones were side-by-side and still only sporadic internet on the new one vs steady, consistent and no problems with the internet connection on the iPhone 13 Pro Max. That didn't resolve the issue.

Finally, she told me to check the VPN I used. Even though the apps were not fully installed, the VPN was showing as 'light' and available under that app. I removed the app, as she advised and voila...the remaining 3.3 GB of data being restored from the iCloud to set up my new phone instantly were downloaded. So it only took me a little less than 24 hours to set up my new phone and several tries to reach out to, and get a call back, from Apple Support.

That doesn't, obviously, resolve the issue that I still need and want my VPN when I'm not at home. She did create a ticket to send to the Engineering Dept which she told me was swamped with numerous issues related to the new 15 and even some glitches with IOS 17.

For what it's worth, at least I now have internet at home. I still will need VPN and await the day when Apple fixes this glitch.

Received my iPhone 15 Pro Max approximately 2 weeks ago. From the get go, it wouldn't connect to the home wifi. Called Apple Support who had me reset network settings and rejoin home wifi. Still didn't work. I visited Apple Support in person. They told me it was our router at home. Called our internet provider and ordered a new router. Called our cell phone provider because I was ready to return the phone. The tech I spoke with at my cell phone provider asked if I had added my old SIM card from my iPhone 13 Pro Max to the new 15 Pro Max, which I did. Apparently, I didn't need to use my old SIM card. The new iPhone 15s come with an eSim built in. I removed the old Sim card and like magic my phone connected to my home wifi and has been working perfect since. Hope this helps.

Hi all. I had the same issue after restore to my new iPhone 15 pro max. I read everything here and tried it - nothing worked. My previous 13 pro max worked fine side by side.

It was my VPN switch which was referring to an old VPN protocol no longer in use - it kept trying to flick on and failing and the WiFi connected for a few seconds each time. I removed the VPN from my settings everything worked fine. No idea why this was not an issue on the older phone running the same IOS.

Note that this issue happened late in my initial restore which was over the same WiFi so wasn’t noticeable at first. Hope this helps some of you at least.

I had the same issues since I picked up my iPhone on launch day. It's been very inconsistent with the WIFI. 3 other iPhones in the house [12 Pro Max, 12 Mini and 11], 4 iPads and 3 Mac books. All others had zero issues so it was pretty obvious that is was the new iPhone. I was on with Apple support quite a few times, they had me delete VPNs, change this and that, reset network settings [which I would do on my own]. The WIFI would sometimes work and other times not.

Fix: I asked them to ship me a new phone. I received it, sent to old one back and haven't had the issue once with the replacement [up to now]. I did purchase AppleCare+ when I picked up the original phone in September. I don't know if you need that for the replacement option, but that has definitely fixed my issue.

I have been having this issue since it came out and have not been able to figure it out. I do suspect it was related to 5Ghz with my Eero Pro as I hadn't seen it happen elsewhere besides my house, and my past iPhone didn't have issues. Likely a software bug.

I did see the post about changing DNS from Automatic to Manual, and I'm not sure why that would make a difference, but with this being a software issue, you never know. I did make this change and it has seemed to resolve the issue for me. For others that said they did this and it did not work, make sure you are actually changing your DNS servers when choosing this option. If you switch to Manual, it still defaults to whatever your DNS record was on Automatic, likely not changing anything for you. When you get the option to type in a new DNS entry, choose some new ones. I am currently using Google (8.8.8.8) and Cloudflare (1.1.1.1), and saw the problem go away.

Hope this helps others out.