Intermittent Wifi issues with iPad 2 and WiFi

Great it helped! Faster iPad2 and no drop outs. However I used an IP address at the end of my IP address range in the Linksys router. Just to avoid IP address collisions with other units still using DHCP.

I am running the log on a WAP4410N access point and I see this kind of activity

Feb 18 16:12:03 kernel: [SSID1234][34:51:C9:C4:DC:AE] Open Authentication

Feb 18 16:12:03 kernel: [SSID1234][34:51:C9:C4:DC:AE] Associated

Feb 18 16:12:03 kernel: [][34:51:C9:C4:DC:AE] SUBTYPE_AUTH

Feb 18 16:12:03 kernel: [SSID1234][34:51:C9:C4:DC:AE] Open Authentication

Feb 18 16:12:03 kernel: [][34:51:C9:C4:DC:AE] SUBTYPE_AUTH

Feb 18 16:12:03 kernel: [SSID1234][34:51:C9:C4:DC:AE] Open Authentication

Feb 18 16:12:04 kernel: [][34:51:C9:C4:DC:AE] SUBTYPE_AUTH

Feb 18 16:12:04 kernel: [SSID1234][34:51:C9:C4:DC:AE] Open Authentication

Feb 18 16:12:05 kernel: [][34:51:C9:C4:DC:AE] SUBTYPE_AUTH

Feb 18 16:12:05 kernel: [SSID1234][34:51:C9:C4:DC:AE] Open Authentication

Feb 18 16:12:05 kernel: [SSID1234][34:51:C9:C4:DC:AE] Associated

Feb 18 16:12:17 kernel: [][34:51:C9:C4:DC:AE] SUBTYPE_AUTH

Feb 18 16:12:17 kernel: [SSID1234][34:51:C9:C4:DC:AE] Open Authentication

Feb 18 16:12:18 kernel: [][34:51:C9:C4:DC:AE] SUBTYPE_AUTH

Feb 18 16:12:18 kernel: [SSID1234][34:51:C9:C4:DC:AE] Open Authentication

Feb 18 16:12:18 kernel: [SSID1234][34:51:C9:C4:DC:AE] Associated

i.e. basically once per second the Ipad is re-authenticating.

No wonder so many people have problems with these devices, on some access points.

Eventually, after about 20 mins of this, the video stops, because the AP has fallen over.

TheDr1970,

One thing I forgot to mention about my iPad2 failing to find a server was

that last Fall I would wake at 5am and turn it on and it would find the

server and work fine for 10 mins or so, then fail for the rest of the day.

Now when I turn it on it has news and calendar notices on the screen that

had obviously come in overnite. So it must have been active sometime in the

night.

Also, I considered the neighbors routers interfering, but I live in a

very small town and no other routers show except mine.

It's just crazy and frustrating!

Thanks, TaosGuy

@TaosGuy: You mentioned that you have full bars of signal but cannot get to websites. I would still dl that app called Speedtest and see what it claims your speed is. You could also try logging in to the router itself (e.g. 192.168.x.x) to see if you can even do that. You said that sometimes you get alerts during the night but in the morning it only worked for about 10 min and then nothing after that which points to either a very slow or intermittant connection.

I have had some crazy wireless router issues over the years. I have no idea if they were due to interference, walls made of plutonium, hardware incompatibility or just a bad device. You mentioned how it all used to work great. I have experienced routers that just stop doing wireless well. The signal strength dies off over time and I have no clue why. Newer routers do tend to have more "features" you can enable/disable. I have found that some of those make things worse.

Maybe a new iPad will solve it for you but I would still try the new router first.

@Peterh337: I decided to google your router and I see all sorts of complaints about dropping connections, authentication issues, firmware problems, etc. It looks like even the Cisco die-hards hate this model. One guy said the only way he could make it work right was to lock it into:

Force LAN Port Speed to 100M: Enabled

Wireless Network Mode: G Only

Key Renewal: 36000

Static IPs only (no DHCP)

I also noticed a few people saying that iPads seemed the most sensitive to the problems while PC devices experienced problems but less often. I also read that it has real problems giving out DHCP IPs and eventually times out. Especially Apple is most commonly affected.

Guys - I have posted in this long forum how terrible my IPAD WiFi reception has been. I finally bit the bullet and have purchased an AirPort Extreme.

Oh my god - this is the best router I have ever experienced. Signal never drops, range is awesome and has transformed our house.

I can even use my IPAD on the toilet - something I only dreamed of before!!

If you got problems get an AirPort Extreme - expensive, but bloody brillant!!

I had a look at the WAP4410N postings.

Most of them are pre-V2. One poster says V2 fixed his issues.

Mine is brand new, V2-something. And there is no update available.

It works OK with everything - except not reliably with the Ipad2. But then nothing was reliable with the Ipad2. A Draytel 2900, a Linksys AP (don't recall the P/N), the Draytek AP800, and now this.

The Ipad2 works for short accesses but not for movies etc.

What I hear from professional systems integrators is a catalogue of problems with Apple clients being noncompliant e.g. using a connection after the DHCP lease has ended.

@matthewfromtavistock: Of course an AirPort solved the issues! It doesn’t have the same “features” as most standard wifi routers! The whole point though is not being forced to spend extra money to replace an otherwise good router just because Apple felt like being difficult. My big issue earlier in this thread is that if Apple was going to make all their products so finicky then why don’t they DISCLOSE that! In the “network setup” section there should be a caution or warning box that states clearly “xyz feature(s) will not work properly with Apple devices. If you own a non-Apple router you must be aware that you might experience xyz problems unless you make certain changes.” The fact is that nearly ALL standard homes use PC/Microsoft based products.

@peterh337: Have you tried disabling DHCP and assigning a static IP? I would be interested if that solves the problem. When you run the SppedTest app what speeds do you get for upload and download?

My AP has a fixed IP itself. DHCP is done by the router (a corporate-grade Draytek 2955).

If you mean using fixed IPs for the wifi clients, that would be impractical for most users.

On the WAP4410N, I run a default AP config except that there is no DHCP (which is done by the main router). I use only one SSID (the other 3 are unused) which causes any QOS options to be greyed-out. I am using WPA/AES, not WPA2 because one of the client laptops does not support WPA2.

Not true. I have an Airport Extreme and I've experience the iPad WiFi issues. It seems to be specific to the iPad, not a router. (For most people anyway).

I only use a fixed IP address for the iPad. The PCs, Macbooks, iPhones, HTC still use DHCP. Use a fixed address at the upper range of addresses to avoid collisions.

Yes, but what I am specifically wondering is if changing from DHCP to static IP will resolve some of these iPad connectivity issues.

It sounds like it is an impractical fix for peterh337 because the environment is too large. For a home user though, it is a quick easy test.

Certainly Apple are known for doing stunts like renewing DHCP every 10 seconds.

This could cause the DHCP server to fall over (if it is buggy) or just deliver poor performance because dishing out new IPs is not going to be a high priority task.

Apple seem to be doing this because their "world model" is a lot of mobile people who are constantly roaming from one place to another, mostly interacting with others via brief "messages", in a hypothetical universe (which I have never seen here in Europe, where wifi is pretty well tied down nowadays, and a lot of travellers have Mobile Data disabled due to massive roaming charges) in which the client device is constantly switching from one wifi AP to another wifi AP, or to 3G, back to wifi, back to 3G, etc.

In that scenario, dumping your connection and restarting it very frequently is going to provide a better "user experience" 😉 than running with a working connection until it stops working and only then looking for the next one. And the presumed brief exchanges will work just fine.

What you must not try is doing something "serious".

So it doesn't suprise me that using a fixed client IP solves some problems. But the only time a wifi client can work with a fixed IP is if it never leaves your house.

I agree with all of that. A fixed IP is not realistic in many environments but it would at least narrow down the cause of the problem. If it really fixes the problem then people can stop getting their iPads replaced or purchasing repeaters, etc to boost their signal. The focus can be narrowed to solving a DHCP issue.

The challenge would be finding an AP which works, given how intermittent this problem is.

I bet you anything you like that this issue is a very hot potato in the consumer IT business, with manufacturers scrambling to work out how to fix it, because Iphones/Ipads are now so common that an issue like this is going to generate a lot of tech support traffic.

Unfortunately most APs on the market today are no longer supported. A product is supported with firmware updates for perhaps 6-12 months after introduction and then bug fixing resources are terminated from it.

The AP I bought is a current product sold by Amazon etc but the firmware version

is the latest available:

http://www.cisco.com/cisco/software/release.html?mdfid=282414137&softwareid=2824 63166&release=2.0.3.3&rellifecycle=&relind=AVAILABLE&reltype=all

from June 2011, which predates much of the Ipad2 sales and certainly predates IOS5, both of which seem to have bigger wifi issues than previous Ipads or IOS4.

So most people are effectively stuck.

I got an update from Draytek for the AP800 (v1.03) but that didn't quite fix it. That came out a few months ago.

And no vendor will discuss where they are because the warranty liability would be huge. Imagine every I-device owner taking one wifi AP back to a shop 🙂

Elsewhere in this forum I have suggested that the folowing should be used as a working hypothesis:

'ipad2s will function properly only with routers that either support QoS or have QoS disabled/deactivated'.

I believe this is what TheDr1970 is trying to say and I can imagine him tearing his hair out with the frustration of trying to get his message across.

Five computers ran wirelessly off my old router, an iMac, a Dell desktop, an IBM x41 ThinkPad, an iPad and an iPad 2. WiFi worked perfectly with all of them except the iPad 2. Forget all except the iPads; the iPad 1 worked Okay within the house but not far outside the house. The iPad 2 was useless unless you were sitting on top of the router (a slight exageration for emphasis).

With a new different make of router, right out of the box, both iPads worked perfectly from the far end of the garden 40 yards away. That's an impressive improvement for the iPad and a phenominal improvement for the ipad 2. No need to measure the speed, the improvement hits you in the face. I have made no attempt to measure the maximum distance for reception.

None of the router settings has been interfered with and the QoS settings were visited and found to be disabled by default. Some third party routers come with QoS disabled as the default, some with QoS enabled. Apple, of course, does not support QoS and their routers are therefore equivalent to QoS disabled.

Staying at a hotel and using the three mobile computers guess which one did not function properly. The iPad 2. I have not dared to try the home router with QoS enabled for fear of upsetting it!

What does all this mean? if you suspect you have this sort of problem it is essential to check the QoS settings; they should be set to disabled/deactivated.