iphone 5 wont stay connected to wifi

I don't know, Jim... I have the same problem with wifi persistence in iOS6, and I'm using an Apple Airport Express with all the current firmware. It would seem to me, that if it is a router problem, it wouldn't be happening with their own routers...

What's the next "excuse"?

I do have to say I think you are partially right on one issue.

I've read most of the pages on here, and maybe someone has already brought this up, and I missed it, but you are right in saying that previous iOS's did shut off wifi when the phone went to sleep (and not plugged in)... but what you're not understanding is the exceptions to that. As far as I understand, with previous iOS's, if the phone had access to cellular data and it went to sleep, wifi would be disconnected. If a push notification came through, a cellular packet would be sent to the phone to wake it and have it connect to wifi. That way, even with the phone sleeping (and not plugged in) you would be able to get iMessages, Skype calls, etc.

In previous iOS's, if the phone did NOT have access to cellular data and went to sleep, wifi would stay on to get all the pushes.

iOS 6 changed this and now wifi shuts down upon sleeping regardless of whether or not the phone has access to cell data.

You can do all the ping tests you want, but I'll tell you that iPhones with iOS6 behave differently than ones with previous iOS's.

The proof is in the pudding... I'm an airline pilot and I spend half the month at international locations. I have an iPhone 4 (and I've had it for a long time, so I know how it acted), and before I get to my international layover, I activate call forwarding to send my cell calls to my Skype In phone number, I turn ON Airplane mode, then turn wifi ON. When I get to the hotel, I set up my Airport Express in my room, so I can have a hotspot.

Prior to iOS6, my phone could be unplugged, asleep, and locked, anywhere in my room and if someone called my cell, my Skype would ring. If someone sent me an iMessage, I would get notified. If I got an e-mail, my phone would "ding." I could sit at a coffee shop in Shanghai or a cafe in Paris, hooked up to their wifi... phone asleep on the table and if my wife called me, Skype would ring through.

Now, with iOS6 it DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY. I do not get Skype calls, I do not get iMessages, I do not get e-mail notifications, my family can not FaceTime me, if I am not tethered to the wall with a power cord. It does not work the way it did with iOS5. Period. This iPhone was my lifeline to my family when I was half way around the world for years, I know how it worked. It's different now. You can tell me until you are blue in the face that nothing changed, but you are wrong. You can ping away at your phones, but iOS6 is broken, making the phone about useless for me, and probably tens of thousands of others who travel frequently or just don't have constant access to cell data in their day-to-day lives.

You do have update yout ios to ios 6.0.2

Just went to put the sim into my old Iphone 4 because I'm fed up with the crap and the sim card is smaller now I am totally p#ssed with this useless equipment

Is it IOS 6.0.1 problem? I am using iPhone 4S..I'm having the same problem...

same problem, my mac works just fine and will connect buy my iphone 5 will only connect when it is right next to the router but as soon as i take a couple steps my phone will drop the connect. I'm very very dissapointed with the iphone 5 this is the second one I use in less than 3 months the other iphone 5 just died one day. A solution would be greatly apreciated.

Is anyone still experiencing the Wifi issue? Where the phone simply won't reconnect to what should be (it won't remember it) a familiar Wifi-connection? I just installed iOS 6.1 and it hasn't solved anything. The "other" solution works fine and my iPhone 5 automatically connects to my Wifi, but that's not how this should work. We bought a phone from Apple and their motto is pretty much that everything "just works". How one of the most basic functions in a phone won't work is simply beyond me.

This is my second iPhone 5 so chances of it being a hardware related issue is small. Anyway, the point still remains that if I won't use the "other" solution, my phone won't automatically connect to my wifi. My phone won't recognize it and because of that I have to enter my password everytime I want to connect. The thing won't remember the password. Does anyone still share that problem?

Message was edited by: Einstein Von Brainstorm

Message was edited by: Einstein Von Brainstorm

I am on my 3rd iPhone 5 in 3 months now and no matter what I have all the same problems with the wifi, my old 3gs works perfect and remembers every router I have everbeen conected to,Im afraid to say that it goodbye iPhone and hello Samsung 3 or Blackberry 10

I am a pilot also and have noticed that I can no longer stay connected to my family through the wifi alone. I am also having issues with connecting to the same wifi systems that I have used in the past. I can not reconnect to wifis in the hotels that I have stayed at in the past and can not stay connected to the ones that i join when I enter new ones.

My iPhone 5 (iOS 6.1) had the following symptoms:

1. No 3G signal (no LTE in my area) after a few days of activation.
2. WiFi seems to keep getting dropped after a few seconds of the iPhone going to sleep, but it'd reconnect (with a slight delay) if I woke it up.

The workaround fixes that seem to have worked for me:

1. Resetting the network settings via Settings > Reset > Reset Network Settings seem to cure the "No 3G signal" symptom.
2. Removing my passcode lock seems to do that. I also tried "Forget this network" and "Renew my lease" on top of that.

Not sure if the symptoms would re-occur again. Crossing my fingers still, but so far, so good.

Solved all my icrap problems got nexus 4 easy fix!

Bye bye Apple .:)

Have to admit, I think that it may be the only way given my personal experience.

androidapplewindowspc wrote:

Solved all my icrap problems got nexus 4 easy fix!

Bye bye Apple .:)

There is simply a hardware or software issue. It is a product problem. Pure and simple. If anyone searches, there are honestly so many threads on wifi not connecting / dropping, I don't see any "solution" posted other than trying various resets, restores, and "manual" entry. Seems no one knows the solution, and all are work-arounds for a real issue that Apple is unaware of the root cause (or aware, but going to address "case by case" at the expense of the users).

I know there are alot of users who never experienced this before, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, nor it's not a real issue. It's extremely frustrating to those of us who experience it. We have to take into account because every user doesn't come into this support site to make a post, doesn't mean that they do not have this issue. Perhaps for the less tech savvy, which clearly this product caters to, they may not even know that their performance is not good.

Personally I had this issue as well when getting a new iPhone 5 for Xmas (had every iteration since the original iPhone). I even did side by side comparisons on my wife's iphone 4Gs, and a friend's iphone5 as well, and clearly saw that there was a problem. Tried all the proposed "solutions". I endured the BS until I went to an apple store and pleaded my case. They gave me a "new" one in a white box, and that was that.

The new one worked perfectly, was extremely happy. Finally, it worked!

That is, until a week ago when I went and foolishly upgraded from iOS 6.0.2 (what I got out of box) to iOS 6.1.2.

Now it's back to the same BS.

So what's clear is:

- It's not the freaking router.

- iOS updates affect it

Now whether there was a broadband / carrier update for the modem along with the iOS update I did last, I cannot say. I should have taken a screen cap of all the versions before I uploaded, but I thought my issues were long behind me.

What also could happen, albeit highly unlikely, is what I saw in another thread (which will link if I think it helps at all) which said that Apple supposed knows of a 'defective wifi chip', and that causes the problem. So if that's true, then my upgrade killed my wifi chip. But I doubt it.

Now I'm still optimistic that I can get it working again because simply it was working before. What I cannot fathom is the amount of time I've wasted on this problem, and how much I cringe each time I see there is a new iOS update. My trust in Apple is shattered.

Meanwhile will continue the tests again to see what I got to "work" for me, if any. I also coincidentally talked to my friend (noted above) who also did an iOS update with his iPhone 5 and his started doing the same with weak wifi connections. Lucky for him, he fixed it with a restore... but my first attempt yielded no results.

I think after all this, my next purchase will not be Apple.

I just got my 4th iPhone 5 after the previous 3 had wifi issues this 4th one in actually works, I think that they have fixed the problem with the newer batch of these phone, so take it back and tell Apple to give you a new one.

i would hazard a guess as it is an IOS 6 issue, new iphone 5 when downloading youtube vids loses wifi connection, same with ipad 3

ipad 3 6.0 10A407

iphone 5 6.1.2 10B146

app in question is Playtube

thing is, I can us TVCatchup all day with no issues or other apps like BBC player, 4oD, Air Video etc

I don't know what the data throughput for those apps is, but it could be that Playtube is hammering the wifi circuitry causing it to shutdown? downloading, realtime converting and saving

anyone with older iphone/ipads and older firmware versions i.e. lower than 6.0 want to download Playtube free version, and download some large youtube videos.

Gonna borrow an ipad2 and do the above and see what happens

scrap that, went downstairs, downloaded a load of stuff on my mum's ipad2 running IOS 6.1 no probs

downloaded a load of stuff on mine, nothing.... only thing I can think of is the distance to the router.....

both upstairs and downstair pick up neighbours btwifi so it can't be that

but why would distance to router whilst downloading cause it to lose signal?

router wifi channel 6, gonna change it and see what happens

further to above, using playtube, downloading youtube videos

if I leave a small gap in time between downloading small files, several hundred meg, it is fine

further away from router plus constant downloading at high speed causing the wifi chip in the router to crash?

or is it intentional? constant high speed traffic, BT router has been set to think file sharing, so shuts down wifi....