FaceTime iOS 6 Poor Connection message

Earthstem,

I also have the same issues with FaceTime since my mother and I upgraded our iPads to IOS6. We had been using FaceTime without any issue for many months, but that was before we upgraded to IOS6! She was on IOS4 before, and I was on IOS5.

I am going to try changing the wifi settings on my Mothers router to see if it fixes it. I found it interesting that when I spoke to my mothers ISP (Plusnet), they suggested changing the wifi channel on the router. I suspect that they have already heard from other customers with similar issues since upgrading.

It is not easy to make changes to my mothers router however as I am in Canada and she is in the UK and has no knowledge of computers whatsoever. I am hoping that one of my brothers can call in and make the changes.

Has anyone read anywhere that Apple have acknowledged the issue yet?

Earthstem,

As far as i'm concerned they haven't acknowledge it but if i'm not mistaken they never do anyways 😀 only on rare ocassions. On the positve side there is rumors that at the beginning of November we should be getting iOS 6.0.1 which includes bug fixes and while i see no mention of facetime they do mention some WiFi bugs being fixed. I'm hoping this will do it for us. See below, this is what i read online.

"Apple normally launch new versions of their iOS operating system when they unveil new devices , but both the iPad Mini and 4th generation iPad announced yesterday ran on iOS 6. However, according toBGR it won't be long until iOS 6.0.1 lands on Apple devices.

The website heard from a source inside Apple that iOS 6.0.1 is already being tested and should launch sometime in the next few weeks. The source also documented some of the improvements and bug fixes implement in iOS 6.0.1.

The new version of iOS will resolve a bug that causes horizontal lines to appear on the screen when the keyboard or app folder is open. Additionally, a bug that allowed access to Passbook from the lock-screen will also be fixed, while a cancellation bug affecting Exchange meetings will also be corrected.

Apple iOS 6.0.1 will also resolve a problem which stops the camera's flash going off at the right time, while it'll also fix the issue that sometimes causes cellular data not to work. The WiFi service will also be improved thanks to the update and it'll also add a consolidated data-switch for iTunes Match.

The same source also unveiled that iOS 6.1 will land at the start of next year, but very little is known about the operating system at the current time. 3G will keep you up to date with all the latest news related to Apple's iOS platform."

Well I just updated to 6.0.1 with all the faith in the world for this to be fixed....

And lo and behold - it is not fixed. Way to go Apple.

😟

Well that is disapointing news, I was hoping that the new version would fix the problem with my mothers Ipad2. Its going to be frustrating if we have to wait for the new year for the 6.1 release, that's assuming Apple even have a fix for this on their radar.

Did the update go smoothly, did you do it over the air via iTunes?

Reason I ask is that my mother is in the UK and doesn't have any computer. If she can do it OTA then that would be much easier to arrange (since I'm in Canada and can't pop round and help!)

Hi bbear

Yes - update showed as 47MB and I did it over wifi, no issues with 4S/iPad and took about 10 mins...

Also expereincing on 6.0.1 on wi-fi and over LTE. Here's to hoping that 6.1 fixes this issue.

I have the iphone 5 and my girlfriend has the 4. Ever since iO6 came out we have had the same probs you guys are having. There has even been a new update since then but it didnt address probs with facetime. Now when we facetime, my girl tells me she cant understand what im saying, that it sounds like metal hitting something. Is there any news on apple fixing all this?

By the way...I can hear her fine. She is in the States and im in Australia...

Last weekend I updated my iPad 2 from iOS5 to 6.0.1. FaceTime and iMessage have ceased to work on WiFi net 1 but to my surprize work well on WiFi net 2. WiFi 1 uses a D-Link. WiFi 2 uses Ubiquiti Networks router.

Having used FaceTime for some months without any problems I was dismayed to find how poor it now is after the system upgrade.

We were trying to watch our Sons wedding in NewZealand and was getting the poor connection message which we have never seen before the upgrade.

It also dropped out after a while and would not connect.

Both my son and I have installed the update,he on his iPhone and me on iPad2.

I thought that the only problem with the update was with the maps but I now find FaceTime and other things are having problems.

Apple is supposed to be the very best and this has been my experience before the update,but now it is a disaster!

Please Apple get your act together before you loose your previous excellent reputation and customers!

After 6.0.1 I believe the problem has been made worse. Now it takes several calls and restarting our phones to continue the connection. It's extremely annoying and frustrating and I'm thinking we should all call apple again and is here anyhing else we can do? It is DEFINITELY an apple issue because EVERYTHING else is working just fine yet I have poor quality and bad signal issues ONLY for FaceTime?!? Come on Apple! What did you guys do and how ca we fix it?!? I'm not touching my router because it is fine and running perfect for my laptop, and Roku player- never had any issues. Get rid of that stupid poor connection message- it seems that is part of it! Full bars on wifi yet I have a poor signal?!? Boo!

You're forcing us to use yahoo, and google to video sometimes instead of FaceTime which we love!

Please fix this. It is not our equipment or settings. It is the update.

How can this be resolved?

I have also been experiencing poor connection using facetime on my ipad 2. I did not assdociate it with my ios6 upgrade until Isaw all these posts. Today I tried to facetime with my son and kept getting connection lost and it did not go through. We both haver skype so I used that to contact him and it went through fine. I believe that since I could skype with my son my wifi and router are not the issue. I have been using facetime for a year without problems until I upgraded to ios6. I hope this is fixed soon. It is the only reason I am using an ipad.

Sorry for the long message but hopefully this information will be of some help to people..

Today my brother-in-law called in to help my mother in the UK. He ran some speed tests using the Speedtest-X app. The results definitely point to the upload speed on the iPad being an issue, however also the wifi router seemed to be part of the problem.

It is to much of a coincidence that the router has never required a reboot/power-cycle until we updated to IOS6 - I think somehow IOS6 screwed with the router.

Equipment used..

In the UK:

Windows8 Laptop

iPad2 running IOS 6

iPad3 running IOS 6.0.1

Thompson 585 modem/router (wireless b/g)

In Canada:

iPad3 running IOS 6.0.1

Thompson Speedtouch modem connected to Netgear R6300 wifi router (using wireless-N connection to iPad3)

--------------------------------------------

Speedtest Results:

Test conditions:

Speed tests performed using server located in London, unless mentioned otherwise

All tests performed with laptop/iPad in close proximity to the router (within a few feet)

BEFORE power-cycling router..

Using Win8 laptop CONNECTED TO ROUTER USING ETHERNET CABLE..

Server: Milton Keynes

Ping: 15ms

Download: 5.5mbps

Upload: 380 Kbps (note, service provider (Plusnet) say that best we can expect is 400)

Using Win8 laptop connected using wifi..

Ping: 15

Download: 5.6mbps

Upload: 150kbps !!

Using iPad2 running IOS 6..

Ping: 41

Download: 5.03mbps

Upload: 150kbps

----------------------------------------------

AFTER power-cycling router..

Using Win8 laptop connected using wifi..

Ping: (not recorded)

Download: 5.5 Mbps

Upload: 350kbps - i.e TWICE as fast as it was before!

Using iPad3 running IOS 6.0.1..

Ping: 281

Download: 5mbps

Upload: 250kbps .. much faster but STILL much slower than the laptop

Next we updated my Mothers iPad2 to IOS 6.0.1 but it did not help, upload performance is still noticeably worse than the iPad3

Using iPad2 running IOS 6.0.1..

Ping: 473

Download: 5.5mbps

Upload: 150kbps

----------------------------------------------

Notes,

a) the poor/unstable ping may be an issue with the server in London, or some issue on the route to getting to that server. I don't know whether the ping time is relevant to Facetime, upload speed seems to be the critical factor here.

b) My brother-in-law changed the wifi setting to WPA2-only for the security setting. The channel was already set to Auto. The router was changed to mode b/g. Changing these setting had no effect (on the iPad in Canada I was still seeing the frozen picture and also black screen with 'Poor connection' message)

----------------------------------------------

CONCLUSION:

1. iPad2 upload performance is almost 1/2 that of iPad3 (both running IOS 6.0.1)

2. Thompson modem/router had become bogged down, possibly as a consequence of updating the iPad2 to IOS 6. Power-cycling fixed this.

3. Changing security setting and channel (to auto) didn't help.

4. Upload performance of iPad3 is still noticeably poor compared to Windows8 laptop

I think that Apple still have some work to do. Upload is poor on iPad3, and even worse on iPad2. I wonder if the hardware is different on iPad2 and if they will be able to fix this - or maybe they don't even care about iPad2 users any more??

I bought an ipad for Facetime primarily too, with IOS 6 started having the dropped connections, this occurs on iphone 4s and ipod touch too .. at one point I tried a facetime connection with the iphone 4s and ipad in the same room connected to the same wifi router - it didn't even connect and try to ring the other device!

I am thinking there are issues with a backend Apple Facetime server/process involved here. In my case, when I can connect with video it fails with a poor connection message usually within a minute. Maybe the service is becoming a victim of it's own success and the servers are just getting too busy? Possible? Likely?

SteveTheTechGuy,

the very reason why I updated my mothers iPad2 from IOS4 originally is that as soon as Apple rolled out IOS6 Facetime completely broke for her - couldn't even establish the connection when trying to make a call!. My theory is that Apple must have changed something with the servers (presumably to work with IOS6 and iPhone5), or possibly as you suggest, those servers just got overloaded.

Anyway, my mother (in the UK) and myself (in Canada) are now both on IOS 6.0.1 so she will be easier to support from here compared to if she had stuck with IOS4

Her upload speed is very mariginal but thankfully Facetime is working at the moment. Hopefully with the next IOS update the wifi connection will improve on her iPad2, although I am not convinced the wifi peformance is the only thing causing these Facetime issues.

I shudder to think how many issues people with the new iPad4 are likely to face if Facetime attempts to stream video at 720p

Yes, it would be interesting to see what connections got opened up during a Facetime session and then see if they were all still available when the "poor reception" connection problems occur.

Could be a server overload / failure due simply to high demand. I wonder if the service gets more reliable as most of North America goes to bed late at night?