Q: Intermittent Wifi issues with iPad 2 and WiFi

For me just the other way around on an b/g network the ipad is,working better...

The update 4.3.2 doesn't solve the problem... pictures in safari aren't downloaded and "?" mark stays on the screen... It's amazing ....

I tried your 'death grip' method with an app called WifiTrack. (see my previous post on this subject)

Sitting 2.5' from an Airport Extreme dual band I registered a -32 signal. I then covered the area where the speaker is (lower right hand corner in portrait mode looking at screen) and got a -58 reading (relative readings where the more negative the number, the worse the signal).

Easily repeatable with a 20 to 25 spread and in different locations still within a 2.5' radius.

That's a big difference holding the iPad that close to the Airport.

Like the old joke: It only hurts when I laugh... I guess I cannot hold the iPad there.

I think there is more going on than that. I cannot believe that after the iPhone 'where you hold the thing' episode that Apple would design a similar flaw.

Talked to a mac sales person. This is the first time an acknowledgment of this issue was affirmed by a mac employee to me. He said mac is coming out with an update in a few days, or a week that is suppose to fix the wifi issue. I'm guessing 4.3.3? I haven't found any posts on this yet. Can anyone confirm.

Yeah, I can replicate the speaker grill death grip consistently.
Signal goes down to one bar and pages don't load.
Wonder if I hold it the wrong way once in a while and that causes wireless to drop.

However, it recovers from the death grip within a few seconds.
When wireless stops working during use I have to turn the radio off and on to get it to work.
These are two different issues.

dimaxp wrote:
Yeah, I can replicate the speaker grill death grip consistently.
Signal goes down to one bar and pages don't load.
Wonder if I hold it the wrong way once in a while and that causes wireless to drop.

I suspect that the connectivity drop out issue most people are experiencing is not related to signal strength - not to say you can't loose connection in this fashion as well with similar symptoms.

I am reasonably confident that the issue is as follows.

When the iPAD connects with an Access Point it does some handshaking/authentication with the iPAD this handshaking sets parameters such as what version of WiFI is being used b/g/n, exchanging the security keys for the wireless session etc.

Then during periods of idleness when the wireless is not required the iPad's Wi-Fi operation 'sleeps' to save battery life. (I suspect that later versions of iOS were more aggressive in doing this to save battery life which is a plausible hypothesis for why users didn't seem to report intermittent wireless connectivity issues with the first iOS released and might explain why later versions of iOS reportedly increased battery life - although I didn't notice extended battery life.)

When the user's activity stimulates the iPad to wake up the Wi-Fi connection the iPad tries to just continue the wireless session. However at this point from the Access Points view the previously negotiated session has expired.

At this point the iPad should correctly re-authenticate with the Access Point ...but it fails to do so.

Why it fails to do so is a matter of some debate as covered in my earlier posts I believe the issue is highly likely to be related to the very old Broadcom Wi-Fi chip that Apple elected to use in the iPad.

Chris_on1cjj wrote:
The update 4.3.2 doesn't solve the problem... pictures in safari aren't downloaded and "?" mark stays on the screen... It's amazing ....

If safari pages are loading fine, but just without pictures that is probably not a wifi problem. Sounds like it could be a dns problem.

Try using google's DNS servers 8.8.8.8 is one of them.

What type of router do you have? Have you updated the firmware recently?

Hi succeed,
I'm using the airport extreme firmware 7.5.2 and change the DNS but the problem still stays the same. My MBP early 2011 has also the same problem...

This may have been covered, but there are a few too many pages to browse through them all to see if this has been mentioned.

After having had my iPad2 for about two weeks, I suddenly started having a consistent problem with the wifi not connecting after sleep. Or rather, the iPad swore it was connected, but no data was getting through. I could either go into network settings and renew lease, disable/enable wifi, or restart the iPad to get back online.

After two days of this, it was getting extremely annoying, so I googled for a bit to see what I could find. The solution that ended up working for me, was turning off my wifi router's automatic channel select. The idea of this is that it should switch to the channel with the least interference on it, as needed. Apparently, the iPad is unable to handle this properly. I used a wifi analyzer on my phone and picked a channel with little interference on it, locked the router to that, and problem vanished instantly.

Have been following this thread from start 'till now because I wanted to get myself an iPad 2 but I was waiting for these problems (wifi issues, bleeding screen,..) to get a proper fix because I bought a iPhone 4 before and it had all different issues but Apple refused to replace my model. So if possible, can anybody confirm the WiFi issues are fixed in 4.3.2?

I don't know if the update 4.3.2 will solve the Wifi issue as I can not updated my iPad...After the download, it failed with the error "this devis is not eligible to the requested build"....So funny as my iPad is in iOS 4.3.1 and Apple now refuse that I update it....what a mess with Apple..Unbelievable

I have an ipad 1 bought in the old ios3 days, when its wifi and 3g connection was actually pretty good, but since upgrading to ios4 in november i have had no end of trouble for both connections, which included a replacement ipad which did not improve, and various conversations with apple, the last one when i was told that ipads didnt go any faster than 0.5 mbs, bless them! My wifi network is through airport extreme and express. And to be honest i had given up that it was an ipad issue, and began to focus on the airport devices. I was also getting a little sick of hearing from others on this site that as their ipads worked fine it must be a router issue. But i upgraded to 4.3.2 yesterday and my speeds are all back to normal, and connection is holding, even imediately after i have turned it back on.
I would note, as i have allready written in a previous thread that it appears those people whose ipads were fine under previous ios versions may now be having a problem with 4.3.2, but for me it is sent from the gods.
I only wish apple would come clean and tell us what they altered, and what they fixed, mainly so i know why i have spent so many days trying to sort my connection out to no avail.

My iPad2 was connecting fine before, and still is after the latest update. If Apple made changes intended to address this issue, they would doubtless have stated so; they did mention fixes to improve Facetime connectivity and connectivity under 3G. Of course, it is possible that a fix made to improve 3G connectivity also affected the wifi connectivity problems--which seem to be fairly rare even though it gets a lot of attention on this thread--by accident.

I'd just like to mention that for me the issue showed up before I updated. It was fine, then out of the blue it started bugging out. I then updated, that made no difference. But changing my router setting did, so I'm happy. Though admittedly not terribly impressed by Apple.