Q: Intermittent Wifi issues with iPad 2 and WiFi

alstmo1 wrote:

 

Another observation after updating the router firmware is that everytime i wake the ipad from sleep mode, it appears like the wireless is reconnecting ( wifi sign not showing and appearing after a few seconds). Is like creating a new connection while before i had the the wifi sign immediately after waking up the ipad.

That's exactly what is happening. Your iPAD is quite aggressive at putting the iPADs WiFi into sleep mode (as it should be) in order to conserve your battery charge. The iPads will put the WiFi into sleep mode even when you are actively doing other tasks on the iPAD that do not requrie the WiFi connection.

When the WiFi connection is required again by any app, the iPads start up the WiFi again. At this point if the AccessPoint has timed out it's connection information (IP address, DNS info, WiFi channel used, and/or security pass key, etc) with the iPad, the iPad must also reauthenticate with the router. It is the iPADs reauthentication (or not as the case may be) which causes the intermittent connection issue that so many people are experiencing.

Many people work around the problem at home by setting static address information into the iPAD or changing router configurations such as turning off 'Auto' channel selection, etc. Because the issues is with the iPADs failure to reauthenticate, one other way to work around the issue is to set your router to initiate a reconnection/reauthentication with the iPAD every 60 seconds. You can trick your router into doing this by setting the life of the security key to just 60 seconds. (Of course not all routers give you this option). After 60 seconds when the shared security key has timed out the router will then successfully  initiate a reauthentication with the iPAD ever 60 seconds. I have tested this work around with a Cisco/Linksys router and it worked very well.

But of course none of these work arounds help when you try to connect to third party routers at frineds houses, your work or hotspots where you probably don't have administrative access or control of the router.

After 9 months of software updates that have failed to adequately address the issue, and an inability of Apple to provide a resolution to the issue or even a fixed time frame for a software update to fix it, I was given a full refund on the purchase price of my unit on Friday.

Sorry while I was drafiting this I inadvertently posted the version above before I had finished it.

After 9 months I have finally resolved the intermittent iPAD WIFi conectivity issue in the same way that several others have.

Here's what I have learnt in the process....

The iPAD is quite aggressive at putting the iPADs WiFi into sleep mode (as it should be) in order to conserve your battery charge. The iPads will put the WiFi into sleep mode even when you are actively doing other tasks on the iPAD that do not requrie the WiFi connection.

When the WiFi connection is required again by any app, the iPads start up the WiFi again. At this point if the AccessPoint has timed out it's connection information (IP address, DNS info, WiFi channel used, and/or security pass key, etc) with the iPad, the iPad must also reauthenticate with the router. It is the iPADs reauthentication (or not as the case may be) which causes the intermittent connection issue that so many people are experiencing.

Why doesn't the iPAD reauthenticate successfully with many routers? Why is it that many users other WiFi devices don't have the same incompatibility issues with so many different brands of newer and older routers? I can't categorically state what the source of the problem is but there are indications that it has to do with the limitations of the very old 802.11n draft 2.0 (pre 802.11n full standard) Broadcom chipset that Apple opted to purchase and use. I can speculate that they opted to use this due to cost and/or power consumption considerations.

Many people work around the problem at home by setting static address information into the iPAD or changing router configurations such as turning off 'Auto' channel selection, etc. Because the issue is with the iPADs failure to reauthenticate, one other way to work around the issue is to set your router to initiate a reconnection/reauthentication with the iPAD every 60 seconds. You can trick some routers into doing this by setting the life of the security key to just 60 seconds. (Of course not all routers give you this option). After 60 seconds when the shared security key has timed out the router will then successfully initiate a reauthentication with the iPAD every 60 seconds. I have tested this work around with a Cisco/Linksys router and it worked very well.

But of course none of these work arounds help when you try to connect to third party routers at friends houses, your work, or hotspots where you probably don't have administrative access or control of the router.

After 9 months of software updates that have failed to adequately address the issue, and an inability of Apple to provide a resolution to the issue or even a fixed time frame for a software update, or recall and firmware update to address it, I was given a full refund on the purchase price of my unit on Friday.

Message was edited by: FastBikeGear

so...after reading the above and other posts it would appear that SOME of the iPad2 units have wifi connectivity issues, perhaps due to a malfunction in a particular chipset?  As reiterated (and eloquently I might add) by FastBikeGear, the workaround of changing your router to a static setting might work at home or a network you can control, but it is completely contra to the whole concept of why we all bought an iPad in the first place.

What is odd is that it still sees my home networks (sort of) but any other network is unrecognized, even though it had been able to do so in the past.  Is it even remotely possible that a rogue app has corrupted something?

I will say that AppleCare had been very thorough and nice, although the shipment of my new unit is now delayed by probably another week (sobbing quietly).  Everyone I have spoken to has told me that my quandary is the first that they have heard of this sort of issue (not that I believe them) and they all agree that after all of the remedies I have tried (including a complete reset and trying to do NOTHING but just looking for  - and failing to see - wifi before any of my apps or other settings are re-establhsied/reloaded) that it points to a harware failure.

I shall keep my fingers crossed but I am also thinking that if the next one does not work I will get my money back and waiti for the iPad3.

Mighty POd

Thanks for flagging this up. I thought it was just me!  This is my first Apple device and I am astonished that something so basic can be faulty. I have five Windows devices running in my household and have never had any issues of this sort - so I'll be looking for a refund and a switch to another tablet format unless someone from Apple can give a meaningful and constructive response.

I start seeing this issue after I upgraded my iPad 2 to version 4.3.2.  Apple needs to address this major issue ASAP since it's stupid to expect people change their routers setting. Most often we have no control of the router setting.

Given that the device was working prefectly before the upgrade, shame on Apple test engineers for letting this bug to get out.

Looking for an update really soon.

Same problem here... Aslo have 3 friends in the same situation.

Making me really angree especially when I'm with clients showing them something online

I'm losing the wifi even if I let the iPad opened as I'm reading a site slowly

We Will certainly go and ask for a refund soon ... We really don't have Time to be a beta testers

FastBikeGear wrote:

Many people work around the problem at home by setting static address information into the iPAD or changing router configurations such as turning off 'Auto' channel selection, etc. Because the issue is with the iPADs failure to reauthenticate, one other way to work around the issue is to set your router to initiate a reconnection/reauthentication with the iPAD every 60 seconds. You can trick some routers into doing this by setting the life of the security key to just 60 seconds. (Of course not all routers give you this option). After 60 seconds when the shared security key has timed out the router will then successfully initiate a reauthentication with the iPAD every 60 seconds. I have tested this work around with a Cisco/Linksys router and it worked very well.

 

I've tried that with my router and set the ReAuthentication Timer to 60 sec.

So, this way is not usable because during reauthentication the connection will drop for a couple seconds. It's not possible to stream video from a media server for example, playback will just stop.

I have the same problem, and while I can try one of the work arounds at home, it won't fix the problem I have connecting at work. The software I need to function at my job with this ipad requires a constant connection. It takes a few minutes to log back in each time the connection is dropped. I am so frustrated. Why hasn't the media picked up on this like they did with antenna gate? Apple, please fix, I don't want to have to switch to an android tablet!

For me setting static IP or turning off 'Auto' channel selection or changing anyhthing else in the router config does not helping at all.

The only solution when connection is at least stable is setting router to the B\G mode.

But this is not acceptable because I have many clients at home where N is requited and high data rates are necessary....

It would be ok if there was a possibility to make iPad connect using G only mode to the B\G\N configured router so other clients could still use N.

But I don't see the way to do it...

Everybody, I think it is good and well everybody is trying changes on home routers.  Sounds like some combinations of fixes works.  The real issue is this is a *mobile* device.  We don't have such access to routers outside our homes so we need to really tell Apple, loud and clear, to give a real fix.

FWIW, I can tolerate keeping mine with a second, bridged router in the one place in my house where it doesn't work and I have it tethered to my iPhone when I'm moving about.  This buys me some patience in waiting for a real fix but if I didn't have tethering I can tell you I'd have returned it.

Some additional observations:

Using a SMCWBR14S-N4 router

1. Changing the key renewal interval of the pass phrase WPA Algorithms (AES) to 60 seconds does NOT solve the disconnect issue.  Returned it to default 3600 secs.

2. Changing the frequency to any of the 11 channels instead of Autoselect mode does NOT solve the disconnect issue.

3. Changing the network mode to disable the n mode (11b/g mixed, or 11 g only) does NOT solve the disconnect issue.

4. Changing to a static IP address from DHCP does NOT solve the disconnect issue.

This disconnect issue was not resolved by the latest IPAD2 OS upgrade 4.3.2 (H87).  In fact, looking at some other,older discussions, I see that the original iPad (1) has this problem too!  (See the "More Like This" section at the top right side of this page.)

I suspect since many people buy their iPads with wireless cell service included, they don't see that there is a connection problem, hence the low priority for Apple to fix. (It's been well over a year that this has been an issue - go back and look at some of the other discussions!)

The suggestion to switch to a D-Link D-655 has at least one responder stating it does not resolve this issue.  Can anybody verify?  (Unfortunately, once a responder fixes the issue for themselves, they tend to not come back to the forum)

I just ordered the D-Link DIR-644 router and should have it tomorrow.  I'll post back once I have it setup re: whether the problem still exists with this router.

I also had all the same issues described here. My Linksys WRT54G was working with all my devices fine, except the new iPad. iPad would look like it was connected, but wasn't working after 10-30min. I had updated the firmware on the iPad, reset all the network connections, went to the Apple Store, had it completely checked out, nothing made a difference. Per someone's recommendation on the blog, I download a firmware upgrade to the router, and set it in G only mode, and now everything is working well. Thanks, Mark

Thanks JC Pitt, with your suggestion, got mine working!

Our iPad 2 won't connect with my Linksys WR54G router .  But I can't understand how it can work because it never asks for the encryption key.  All  my  other computers require the long encryption key that I either type in or enter with the USB stick "add a device" Linksys feature.  This is NOT the password.  How the heck do you get the encryption key into the iPad, it does not ask for it nor is there any feature to add it? WIndows OS computers ask for it.  I have already updated the router to the latest firmware.  Still no luck.  iPad 2 is brand new and works on other networks elsewhere.