iPhone 5 wifi issues

Posted this solution July 29. Problem has not returned for nearly 2 months as of today: Had same problem after having iPhone 5 since December. Connected fine to guest on home Cisco wi-fi, but not to standard full functioning protected wi-fi. Tried resetting and all other suggested fixes, but none worked for more than a few days before problem happened again. Wife has iPhone 5 that works fine. I also use her old iPhone 4 as a spare Wi-Fi only device. I looked at the connection info on the iPhone 4, then viewed my iPhone 5 Wi-Fi settings, changed from DHCP to Static and manually entered those settings. No problems now for 3 weeks. Hopefully this problem will be addressed in iOS 7, but this workaround does just fine for now. Changing to Static for one connection has not affected all other connections that continue to successfully use DHCP.

I have solved my problem changing the security setting the router to WEP instead to WPA, no problems in the last 3 days ...... for now.

I had similar problems as described in this long thread with a brand new and expensive Iphone5 so got very worried. However a simple reset network settings sufficed to solve the problem and I now have light speed connections. This is not to deny all the misery described or the failing response of Apple, just to inform other people that not all is lost.

I have had the exact problem with iphone5. Am on my 3rd one & it's no better. No problem with macbook used in same places & never had any trouble with my 4. When will Apple wake up & fix this?

They tried the reset-to no avail.

Toughtoad, Tried that using my iPhone4 but then I didn't get any Wi-fi. Also tried resetting network - no go. My iPhone4 works perfectly - except for the non-working speakers - so I use that to livestream music on my docks - which is 75% of my iPhone use. Apple replaced my 5 last week but same issues. When my contract is up, no more iPhone for me. Apple will lose this customer.

Sorry to hear that. We currently have 8 iPhones in our family, including 3GS(2), 4(2), 4S(2), & 5(2). Some of us are on our 3rd iPhone via routine upgrade and will continue into the future as they have proven to be the most useful, versatile, and reliable phones we've ever had. Hope you have better luck with your next choice of phone!

Hey guys,

I had the same issue with my wifi on my new iPhone 5.

Tried lots of different settings and this worked for me.

I have a 802.11n wifi router. When i changed wifi to 802.11g only, everything started working. I use WPA/TKIP

Just wanted to share with everyone my wifi issues with the iPhone 5 and how I resolved them. I got my iphone 5 right when it first came out. Right from the beginning the wifi would cut out frequently and would run slow when it did connect. I never had any issues with my iphone 4. I tried running the router in both dual band and single band, with different types of encryption and no encryption, without success. I waited for software updates and it did improve slightly. Finally I had it with it and went to the Apple Store and got a replacement. The replacement phone had no issues with wifi. I think that most of the issues everyone is experiencing are hardware issues, as long as you've tried everything else.

Competely agree. My scenario is similar however mine worked fine until a software update as I recall it was 6.1. I think everything everyone has tried ultimately fails eventually in their supposed fixes. I do believe as many before me have concluded since the beginning of this thread, it's a hardware issue possibly triggered by a software update (when it all began).

nutso12 wrote:

Just wanted to share with everyone my wifi issues with the iPhone 5 and how I resolved them. I got my iphone 5 right when it first came out. Right from the beginning the wifi would cut out frequently and would run slow when it did connect. I never had any issues with my iphone 4. I tried running the router in both dual band and single band, with different types of encryption and no encryption, without success. I waited for software updates and it did improve slightly. Finally I had it with it and went to the Apple Store and got a replacement. The replacement phone had no issues with wifi. I think that most of the issues everyone is experiencing are hardware issues, as long as you've tried everything else.

I have tried so many ways to solve this problem. Let me clear the problem here for those who think this is software problem. Everything works fine till upgrading the OS from 6.0 to 6.1. First of all, I pretty sure about the software problem. Hope to solve this by waiting for another major update, but it seemed workless. So, I try to have it replaced. at first try, they dont accept that my iphone 5 has the wifi issue and told me that there should be visible issue to report this and replace the phone.

So, i try it another time, and some how show them how the signal bars decrease and can not even connect to router more that 1 meter away from it by having the video recorded and fortunately when they tried the wifi again, they found out there should be a problem.

anyway, dont convince yourself that it is just the software issue, cause when you are at public placec outside the US also, you can find the problem clearly. you cant connect to the wifi network of public places even your ipad or previous phone could connect really easily with high level of strenght.

Hope this can guide you through this specific problem.

I've done extensive testing now on wifi and iOS 6. I won't deny the fact that hardware issues can happen but there is no denying that they screwed something up with iOS 6 and wifi.

The problem is that, at least from 6.1.+, they attempted to fix quite a bit wrong with the wifi and iOS 6. I have found that the biggest issues are still around with old netgear and cisco products. For me, the problem comes down to encryption - WPA or WPA2 will not work 'well' with netgear and iOS 6, it can sometimes work but not enough to 'live with it'. I've tested this with multiple access point, routers and devices (with firmware 5.0, 5.1, 6.0, 6.1). Guess what works? iOS 5....comparing to an ios 6 on as close to the same device as your going to get too (same ipad models bought at the same time).

I hope iOS 7 fixes these annoying issues, which I know are not hardware related, at least for ME but I doubt it given the fact that iOS 7 seems to be a UI update rather than new features but who knows.

Its a good job Apple aren't trying to succeed in the business side of things, this kind of screw up, with no way to downgrade OS would just not be acceptable on a business level and the devices would be returned straight away.

Unless I get some prove that the software is in fact breaking the hardware, and I'd love to see that happen over on the 10-15 random devices that all suddenly stopped working come iOS 6 - which I can get to work just by playing around with secruity settings on the access points or switching the brands entirely, then I don't believe it is a hardware issue. Though I will admit its strange how people report switching devices fixes their issues, though as I said before, I can get mine to work intermittently so maybe they never notice after switching.

IPHONE 5 wifi problems also wasnt connecting or would connect for like one second then drop it

many times it says that couldnt connect and whatever i have a netgear router which i could tell it was working fine with my computer i did plenty of speakeasy tests and what not. i tried to restore my settings and whatever it didnt work i tried many many things i even got 10 megs of internet rather than the lowest and i still had bad wifi couldnt even load pictures on my phone i tried many things you guys posted i tried to switch it and turn off wpa and no security and try a different setting i tried 1 and 2 and updated inbetween and tried to connect/

THE only thing that worked for me was to restore my phone to factory/ it ***** but it worked when you set up the phone it sets right up into the network. i just wanted everyone to know that was the only thing that even worked for me

For me, the router nor the encryption type didn't seem to have any effect on the issue. I had the latest AirPort Extreme which works great with my laptop and still the iphone 5 was slow and frequently lost the connection, even when standing right next to the router. I recently got a replacement phone which works a lot better but still doesn't work great. So you might be on to something with iOS 6. I just can't believe that if there was a software issue that Apple hasn't fixed it by now. Maybe it's a bad antenna design, or bad Wifi chip.

im not really sure what happened with this version..But i tried everything on my router every setting i could i even tried unsecure and everything i called apple but they dont ever fix it they change some settings and say call back if you cant get it. i called about it today and he refreshed my network settings told me to unplug my router then wait two minutes plug it back in then reset the settings on the phone and then reconnect still nothing so i started looking through any of the threads and the only thing that worked was to restore my phone and connect to the wifi automatically through setting the phone up /