Bizarre WiFi connection issue on iPad Air 5th Gen

Thanks for the thoughts eveybody.

The reason I didn't want to do anything drastic is the iPad in question works fine if I just switch to another network I have running. ALL my other devices, Apple and otherwise work fine on all my networks so I didn't want to do anything drastic and I didn't really want to believe the problem was solely in the iPad - yet.

BUT I think I may have inadvertently discovered something interesting. I turned off Private WiFi for the network that was giving me fits (not sure why it was on in my own house anyway) --- and it started working. Somehow that makes little sense but perhaps it was an issue between the router and iPad for whatever reason. Turning off Private WiFi reset the connection in the router allowing it to properly connect to the iPad. Or something like that. Either way, problem solved.

John

Reinstalling iPadOS is possible but it requries erasing the iPad which, per your wife, is a non-starter.

One thing you don't mention having tried: resetting the Network settings:

If your iPhone or iPad won't connect to a Wi-Fi network - Apple Support

There may be other suggestions in that article that may help, though I think you've tried them already.

Regards.

gerri86 wrote:

Before I call Apple and they tell me to reset the iPad (not gonna happen per wife!), any ideas?? Is there a way to re-install iOS in case it was corrupted and rebooting doesn't solve the problem?

What is the objection to restoring the iPad to a backup? It usually doesn't take more than an hour.

In this situation, I would highly recommend that you back it up (iCloud or encrypted backup to a computer), then restore it to factory state using your computer. This will install a fresh copy of iPadOS (restoring from iCloud, as I understand it, does not do this). Once you've tested it and made sure it's working, restore the backup. Is it a somewhat annoying process? Sure. But is what's happening now annoying?

john3_14 wrote:

BUT I think I may have inadvertently discovered something interesting. I turned off Private WiFi for the network that was giving me fits (not sure why it was on in my own house anyway) --- and it started working. Somehow that makes little sense but perhaps it was an issue between the router and iPad for whatever reason. Turning off Private WiFi reset the connection in the router allowing it to properly connect to the iPad. Or something like that. Either way, problem solved.

It has seemed to be less true than it used to be but iOS/iPadOS used to be notoriously sensitive to WiFi settings. They didn't like older routers especially. Based on the posts I see, it has gotten better, but perhaps you were a victim of it. Glad that you got it working!

It’s the iPad, get it replaced, many of the latest iPad models with M chips seem to have wi-Fi connection issues.

I don’t know if there are specific serial numbers with this issue, or if it’s a random lot with faulty wi-fi cards.

Is your iPad still under warranty?