iPhone 4 cannot connect to home Wi-Fi

I had a similar problem.

Problem:

iPhone 4 would intermittenly connect to my airport extreme wireless network.

And even when my iPhone 4 was connected, the internet connection was extremely slow or non-existent.

Other Observation:

My MacBook, Samsung laptop (running Windows 7), and iPad 2 would connect to my aiport extreme wireless network and internet connections were fine on all of these devices.

My Solution:

Enabled wireless guest network --> Problem solved, iPhone 4 connected to my wireless network and speed was fast (12.96 mbps download, 3.96 mbps upload from speedtest.net app).

I don't know why enabling the wireles "guest" network would fix the iPhone 4 connection problem to the airport extreme, but it worked for me and wanted to share it.

Tried many of the proposed solutions kindly provided here but to no avail: kept getting cannot connect when trying to connect to home network but no problem in office network; and then, recall the good old cliche: reboot a/k/a turn it off and turn it on again; so pulled the A/C cable from the Apple Time Cap. and reconnected, and lo and behold, connectivity to the wireless network for the iPhone worked again; interestingly, before the reboot, neither the iPhone nor an older iPad Touch nor even a Kindle wireless would connect to the wireless network; but now, all are back in proper connectivity mode. Hope this helps others.

We just did exactly the same (ie pulling out the plug and plugging back in - 2 iPhone 4s and 2 iPod touches that couldn't connect are now connected fine! Love the low tech solution though no idea why we didn't think of it before spening hours searching these forums (fora?) 🙂

I've looked at the first & last page solutions and none of them work!

When I first bought my iphone4 it wouldn't connect to my home wifi network. Then I tried Greg's suggestion of clicking 'forget this network' via the blue arrow, and that worked.

We had to re-set our home router last night, and now I can't connect on my iphone4 at all. It is so frustrating. I have wasted nearly the whole day trying to sort this out because I use my iphone all the time.

I cannot believe that Apple can't sort out this issue, considering the iphone is not cheap.

I am disabled so can't get down to re-set the router yet again but I will see if my husband can do so when he gets home from work.

Shame on you Apple!

I don't understand any of this stuff about WPA2-PSK protocoll or TKIP encryption!

I have switched off my router several times , re-set my iphone network settings, switched my flipping iphone on and off, kept typing in the password, switched on airplane mode, switched off cellular settings and 3G and switched them back on again, taken my iphone back to factory settings, and nothing has worked. I have spent most of the day doing this.

If getting a wifi connection is so technical that I have to understand about protocolls and encryptions then Apple shouldn't be selling their phones to the general public! I am a high school teacher and reasonably intelligent but I am extremely frustrated that once again I cannot connect to my home wifi.

It took me two weeks to connect when my phone was new, and then this forum/ discussion helped me to connect. But last night our BT Total Broadband went down and we needed to re-set our home hub. When I tried to connect again by doing the same thing I did last time it didn't work. I am currently typing this on my netbook which is connected via our wifi, so the problem is not with our service.

Does anyone from Apple actually read these discussions? If they do I want a simple explanation of how I can connect to my home wifi again.

Up until 2-3 weeks ago everything was working fine. Now suddenly im having problems getting my iphone 4 to connect to my wifi. I go to wi-fi networks, and my network shows up and even has the check mark beside it saying that its connected but at the top of my phone where it should show that im on my wifi network it still says "3G". Here i thought maybe there was something wrong with my phone, but then i found out that as soon as i disconnect my laptop from the internet my iphone will be on the wifi network perfectly fine.

Perhaps your WiFi connection is limited to one connection at a time (odd, but possible, perhaps there is a router conguration or the DHCP address somehow for both devices is inappropriately the same and you have to change that manually); or perhaps the wrong channel is being used and there is some conflict; unfortunately, this is technical stuff and a router genius might be needed to help. Have you tried unplugging the router for several moments and then repluging into AC? Perhaps first do that with the cable modem, and then the router; and try also to reboot the iPhone with both reboot buttons held down (instructions for this are on the Apple support site and sometimes it helps).

My status : iPhone 4 didn't connect to regular and well known home network. iPad didn't have a problem. This is all after the IOS5 update.

I wnt in the router setup, I disabeled the security. I saved it like that. I connected my Iphone to the network. Then, I went back and enabled the WEP protocol that was originally ON anyway.

It was enough apparently for the iPhone to recognized this network with my regular password !

Don't know if this will be helpful to you but right now my phone is backing it self up with iCloud !

This isn't really in response to anyone, but I am just feeding back that I finally managed to get on my home wifi, and wanted to share how, just in case it helps anyone else.

For several days I had copied the security password religiously from my router, making sure I typed in the correct upper or lower case letters. Then one day I typed it in using only lower case letters (even though there are some uppercase in my password) and lo and behold it worked and connected to my home wifi.

This wasn't the same solution as last time my iphone wouldn't connect so I don't think it is a definitive answer but it might help someone out there

I don't think it's the protocol (WEP/WPA) that makes a difference. I think it's mostly the fact that I deactivated it and reactivated it that changed something. So try to turn it off for 5 minutes, connects your phone to your network and then enable the protocol that you want. It worked for me anyway !

Same problem here...just got a Iphone 4...can't seem to find the wifi in my house...it occasionally does locate the network, but then 5 minutes later it can't find it again...everything other device can and has access. I've checked passwords, reset router,etc....what is the solution. It is not the router..my daughter has an 3GS and that works without fail...seems we are going backwards here if an older model works better than a newer model.

also, the wifi is critical since the wonderful AT&T 3G network is like an old school modem..I live in NY city, but still the load times are horrendous..and yes, when I speak to AT&T they give me the whole internet lecture on bandwidth ( I was a network engineer for 15 years, I know a little about networking)...they don't deliver what they are offering ...so Wi-Fi is required for the iphone to really function. I'll try to roam and see if I can get on any other networks to see if my iphone just doesn't like mine ( which would be great)...

Just a follow up..I had my iphone with a static ip address, that way my wireless router wasn't dhcp'ing addresses to the random hackers passing by...but I changed the setting to DHCP on my iphone...and that appears to work..I went to dhcp, renewed the lease, and I've had wireless since...we'll see if it works tomorrow..I have wpa2..I didn't want to downgrade security on my whole network just because apple IOS has bugs...

Thanks Greg this worked for my new iPhone 4S when it had this problem. I had also restarted my router in case that helped.

GregTB wrote:

Click Settings->Wi-Fi then find your network on the "Choose a Network..." list and hit the little blue circle on the right side. On the page that appears, choose "Forget this Network." After this has been done, reconnect to your Wi-Fi network.

Please let me know if this helps.

- Greg

Greg - thanks so much - after sitting for hours like an idiot trying over and over to connect to my wifi thing - I did the forget this network - and it worked immediately.

God I feel like an idiot for not naturally trying it - (though I almost did - had some stupid fear it would no longer recognize my network)

Thanks again!

Amy