WiFi keep dropping after iOS 5 upgrade

cwrb wrote:

if it's mandate is to be helpful only for small concerns that can be easily fixed by other users, there is a real need for a beter approach that will get Apple's attention.

Yes, that's precisely the mandate of this forum: user-to-user tech support. Apple doesn't participate here. If you need to contact Apple directly, use the Contact Us link at the bottom right of every page on the forums.

If you have a problem have you tried going to an Apple Store or booking a Genius appointment at an Apple Store.

like many others, going to the Apple store was my first approach ... quite a while ago.

trying the Apple support site was another approach tried various times.

i have also tried every approach i could find in this helpful community forum ... nothing works.

while it might be helpful to you, and i could probably store a cut/paste answer, i prefer to not fill a response with all the things i have tried before proving a reply.

suffice it to say, everything has been tried.

the only plausable action is to wait for Apple to take action ... and i don't want to wait any longer.

I am having the exact same issue.

iphone 3gs 32GB running 5.0.1

I upgraded about a month ago but only started seeing the issues last week.

My windows 7 machine can connect to my wif no problem, so can my Samsung Galaxy S but my iphone loses connection and the only way to reconnect is to reboot as I can no longer see any wireless networks!

Even after rebooting once I reconnect, I can only stay connected for around 5 minutes and have to reboot the iphone again to get connected.

I've tried wiping all my iphone settings and setting it up again from scratch, no joy.

I thought it was my router so I bought a replacement but am getting the same problem :-(

I've disabled WPA2 and tried WEP, the same result.

I've even disabled all security on the router and just used MAC filtering, same problem.

Please help!!!!

Welp, for what it's worth my issue stopped after I did a reset on my iPhone. It was a little painful but not as painful as turning wifi off and on every few minutes.

I think that's most likely to solve this problem.

I see the threads and other forums about ipad 2 losing connection. All I can add, is that after four weeks of trying everything, I bought a more powerful modem router and the Solwise power plug system and now everything is working fine. Internet does keep dropping momentarily but it comes back after a few seconds. I think this may be more to do with massive local use and is something we will have to put up with - rather like the digital signal not being what we were lead to believe it was going to be for tv viewing!

If you have a Netgear N600 router, setting the broadcast channel, rather than using "auto" fixed this maddening, maddening problem for my iPhone 4 on 5.1.1

We have an Apple Timecapsule here and our iPads never loose connectivity when on that WiFi router. BUT if we use any 2 of our other WiFi routers, we loose connectivity a lot. We shut down all WiFi in the office, put one iPad on LTE and made it a hotspot, connected another iPad to it tethered and guess what? The iPad on WiFi looses connectivity and the LTE iPad stays up no problem. When I say looses connectivity I mean the WiFi icon goes away altogether. As soon as we exit whatever app we were in and go back to the iOS main interface, wait 5 seconds then the WiFi icon re-appears and all is good. If that does not work (which happens sometimes), we go into settings, WiFi, flick it on/off and voila, it works again.

I also did what a few others suggested and that is get an older WEP based router. That works like a charm.

Other interesting tidbit about iPads/Time capsule. We have a 100Mb pipe for the internet. Both uplink and downlink. If I plug a computer directly into the TimeCapsule using Gigabit ethernet, I get 72Mb down and 65Mb up. But using an iPad 3 or 2 on WiFi, I get 5-8Mb up and down (with no other devices on the Timecapsule). Now if I take the iPad 3 and put it on LTE, disable WiFi and do a speed test, I get 25Mb down and 19Mb up.

Last interesting fact. At home I have an older Linksys router (I think wrtg54) and for the love of me, I cannot get ANY Apple product to connect to it UNLESS I enter the key using hex digits. Anything else and it fails. Same problem with my Macbook Air and Macbook Pro. My Windows 7 machine can just use the passphrase.

[Edit 1] All iPads are running the latest version of iOS as of today (5.1.1)

Message was edited by: ejkitchen

I have similar issue with my iPad2 and I got 5.1.1.

Tried all different methods suggested online with no luck. Went to Apple store twice and they said if it's connected in the Apple store, than it's not their problems. So pretty much useless.

It does seem like the iPad has a weaker wifi than others. I put it side by side with my iPod touch in hotels. iPod touch got full bar, iPad, nothing.

I suspect it's the setting on the router. If you are at home, you can change the settings. However, if you are at a hotel, then you are out of luck, which is very frustrating.

Just in case anyone else runs into this issue.. My iPad1 worked fine with iOS 5.1.1 until I had a power outage. When the power finally came back on I had to reset my FIOS Actiontec router MI424WR rev I. Bottom line after the hard reset restoring the router to its defaults, all of a sudden I had wireless drop outs only detectable with my iPad1.. I'd sit and watch the wireless icon go out and back on about every 30 seconds.. So I reset my iPad wireless by forget settings and no help, hard reset no help.. Then I remembered that I did have interference from my neighbors in that their routers liked to center in on channel 6, and I eventually had to hard set my router to a different channel as the default setting of this router was an AUTOMATIC channel selection based on what other channels were detected. So into the router I went and turned off the AUTOMATIC wireless channel section and low and behold, NO MORE IPAD WIRELESS DROPOUTS!

So apparently there must be something in the channel scan selection logic that causes some hiccup in either the beacon or channel carrier (although you do see it monitoring signal on a different system) that causes iOS 5.1.1 to think the signal dropped.. Some times too I'd see that the iPad would continuiously ask if I wanted to connect to the network that I was connected too.. Assumed this was due to fringe wireless location. Again no other devices, about 15 with PCs, cell's tablets, wireless weather, etc had detected any issues with the wireless signal quality nor signal level, so it has to be an IOS or Apple iPad hardware problem.

Bottom line if your having cycles of drop outs in wireless on your iPad in a dense area of wireless signals being available, turn off automatic channel selection in your wireless router and you should be good to go!

I have iPad 2 and louzy wifi after upgrade to ios5.

APPLE !!!! 5.1 did NOT solve anything!!!!!

I am having excact same problems! and APPLE should really do something about it!!!

Apple is turning into Microsoft, with more and more issues ignored or never fixed. Software failures like Maps and Siri are evidence of this as well, however, the most basic of issues, that gets to the heart of Apple products, Wifi, is unacceptable.

We got the same issue in our ipad2 but the same connection works fine with mbp, iPhone and version 1 iPad. Am surprised that apple has not said anything till now.

Apple iPhone 4s is having same problems.

Nothing has worked to fix this.

Apple dose not give a crap about their customers or products they sell once out of store. The help u get from apple store is ridiculous. I do not reccomend buying anything apple after problems I've have had with my iPhone 3G, 3GS, and 4gs.

There has been so many issues with my iPhone 4gs that I have given up on apple iPhone or apple products. Do not buy and support apple products if u don't wanna get ripped off. Lots of other competitors out there now, so buy and support them.