Q: Intermittent Wifi issues with iPad 2 and WiFi

It is NOT your network. I have a iPad 2, Iphone 4, two Ipod Touch's 3rd and 4th gen. Everyone of my devices except for my 4th gen ipod touch is doing the same thing. It all started two days ago after I upgraded to IOS 4.3.1 from 4.3. I did not update the 4th gen ipod touch that is why it is still working, it is still on 4.3.

I am so upset, I purchased my iPad 2 on opening day (64 GB 3G/WiFi Verizon), came with 4.3 installed. Worked great for last few weeks, now aftet upgrading to IOS 4.3.1 it won't go to 99% of the webpages. I have found that it will go to Google.com everytime. If you do a search, it comes back right away with the results, but as soon as you try to click on one of those results 99% of the time it will time out.

I purchased this ipad 2 so I would have the best, I am almost ready to trade it in for a Android system.

The worst part is I just paid the money for "The Daily" and now I can't even access the news.

Google Earch works just fine, so does my e-mail app (using Gmail account).

I am also running a VNC server on my home network and I can control my home server remotly with my ipad2 using the VNC app, but once I go external to the "internet" it hangs all the time except for google.com

cybermoser wrote:
Google Earch works just fine, so does my e-mail app (using Gmail account).

I am also running a VNC server on my home network and I can control my home server remotly with my ipad2 using the VNC app, but once I go external to the "internet" it hangs all the time except for google.com

Your problem seems to have different symptoms from the intermittent connections that most of us in this thread are suffering from. It seems to me that something is being filtered along the way. I would start by checking your DNS settings and the settings in your router.

I did not change anything there, the only difference that I have done is upgrade to 4.3.1

UPDATE: I have spent the last 3 hours trying to Restore and now it is stuck in recovery mode and keeps giving me this 1013 error.

Got a 16 GB WIFI only IPAD2.
My wifi connection keeps dropping all the time. I dont have this issue with PC or MAC.
Tried all the options suggested in this forum , nothing worked. Just delayed the intervals when WIFI drops.
Very Frustrating !! Waited a long time for this and now have to deal with this crap!!
Any one know if we return because there is an issue , will Apple charge a restocking fee..:(

Message was edited by: r_app1e

I have had a lot of problems with connecting to wi-fi for the last few weeks (no more than 2-3 weeks though). The iPad (1) seems to lose the connection frequently, especially when the iPad goes into screensave mode (within 3 minutes or so). It also connects to another network (with a much slower connectionspeed).

But! Since I've updated to 4.3.1 yesterday, the wi-fi connection seems stable! I know it hasn't been 24 hours yet, but still, even when the screen goes black for battery saving, when I wake it up again the connection is still there AND with the right network! No problems reaching websites as well! I really hope this is the solution for at least a part of the users here with the wi-fi problems, since it's so frustrating to not be able to use a stable network while other appleproducts have no problems at all!

iOS 4.3.1 seems to be causing some pretty unpredictable changes to users wireless connections. I note the only thing that cybermoser did was upgrade to 4.3.1 and it caused problems for him with his previously stable connections, other users like Maymay27 have found the iOS 4.3.1 solves their problems.

This is pretty odd because unless I missed something (quite possible!) I think that Apple's release notes for iOS made no mention of any changes to their wireless operation.

Weird I didn't think that iOS 4.3.1 was supposed to make any changes to wireless connections? Did I miss something in the release notes?

Maymay27 what version of iOS were you on before upgrading to 4.3.1?

Message was edited by: FastBikeGear

Sorry posted the same stuff twice by mistake

Message was edited by: FastBikeGear

For me my wifi connection became unstable since the 4.3 upgrade and nothing has changed with the 4.3.1 version....Before all this mess I was on 4.2.1..

Message was edited by: Yannou69

Sorry I can't report what effect that 4.3.1 has had on my iPAD because the Apple Service centre has not returned my unit since it went in for the unstable wireless issue for the second time. The first time they said it worked fine but had to admit it didn't work on their network at the time I went in to pick it. Luckily I made them note and sign this on their job sheet (and got a copy of it for myself).

The saga has got even more interesting since I have pointed out that Apple has weren't able to get the iPAD certified to the 802.11n standard. Their compliance certificate shows they were only able to get the iPAD certified to a several years old and obsolete draft standard, despite the standard being finalised and published sometime before the first generation iPad was released.

I have been told that I am the first customer in the world to notice/discover this, which I doubt very much. I am sure that Apples certification team were certainly aware of it!

Because this seems such an incredibly unlikely story, below is a link to a copy of their certificate that is public on the Wi-Fi Alliances web site:

http://www.wi-fi.org/searchproducts.php?search=1&lang=en&filter_categoryid=24&listmode=1

I particularly enjoyed this quote on the web site.

"Do not buy any equipment that isn't Wi-Fi CERTIFIED -- you will end up tossing it."
-- Michael Disbato, Burton Group (IT analyst firm)

Sorry you haven't gotten your iPad fixed yet. I hope it works for you when it is returned.

I believe that you have the wrong idea of how the WiFi certification process has worked for IEEE 802.11n. The WiFi Alliance began certification of IEEE 802.11n products in June 2007 with the draft 2 standard as a starting point. See http://www.wi-fi.org/80211n-draft2.php. This step defined the initial test suite and the firm set of features tested.

At the end of September, 2009 the WiFi Alliance expanded its test suite to include some new features that were added to the final version of the standard. See http://www.wi-fi.org/newsarticles.php?f=media_news&newsid=892. As the WiFi Alliance says, "The updated Wi-Fi CERTIFIED n program maintains the requirements of the draft 2.0 program and adds testing for some new optional features". This does not invalidate previous WiFi certification and certainly does not affect the iPad which uses none of the new optional features.

Bottom line: The iPad certainly has been certified as compliant according to the WiFi Alliance. That's why it's in the list of certified products.

However, I doubt that the certification process detail is relevant to whatever problems some people are now reporting.

UPDATE: Well at 2:30 AM I finally got 4.3.1 re-installed on the sytem and it is still intermediate internet connect. I fogot to mention that I have full bars on my wireless connection and those bars never go away. (WiFi bars). Sometimes it will go to the pages and others it won't. Before this my Ipad 2 worked PERFECT with IOS 4.3

I didn't read anything about a fix with wi-fi either, although I had hoped it would mention something about it.. Before, I had 4.3, the problems started about 2-3 weeks ago, I think just about after an update to 4.3, but around the same time our network was having problems (internetconnection lost during the night, and that still happens about 2-3 times a week), so I couldn't say where the problems were exactly. But right now, the iPad is still on the same network as yesterday since the update, even after waking it up after 5 hours of inactivity... So for now it seems like for me the problem is solved... I hope...

Having just bought an iPad 2 this week I immediately became aware of intermittent WiFi issues, despite having run my wireless router and numerous devices without any issues for several years.

My symptoms were exactly as others described here, WiFi signal would be full strength and within any 10-20 min time span of lack of activity, I would then see applications pinwheeling while trying to download data.

The only solution would be to either restart the iPad, turn WiFi off and on again, or the quickest being to just renew my lease.

My setup was as follows:

iPad 2 running iOS 4.3.1

Linksys Wireless-N ADSL2+ Gateway WAG160N
Firmware Version:V1.00.15 (most up to date)
Mixed network mode
Radio Band: Wide 40MHz
Channel: 13 2.472 GHz (nothing else in the local vicinity within 2-3 channels)
SSID hidden
Security Mode: WPA2-Personal
Encryption: TKIP or AES
Key Renewal: 60 Mins
Wireless MAC filtering enabled

Having read through most of the thread I was prepared for a week of testing various security modes and different routers etc.

But having read about the following (along with other peoples suggestions):

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1398

I thought the best starting point for testing would be to change the radio band to 20MHz (the default for the router). Low and behold 2.5 days later and I have not had any WiFi issues since.