You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

💡 Did you know?

⏺ If you can't accept iCloud Terms and Conditions... Learn more >

⏺ If you don't see your iCloud notes in the Notes app... Learn more >

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

iPhone5 issues with WPA2/AES Wifi

I am using a Dual- Band Linksys E2500 router with WPA2 Personal (WPA2/AES) enabled. None of my other apple products (iPhone4S, iPhone4, iPad2 and the New iPad) have had problems connecting to my router. But everything changed when I got my iPhone5.


Basically the iPhone5 is capable to connect to the WPA2-Personal wifi network but after 1-2min starts to drop network packages, hence, I cannot browse any page (not even the router page 192.168.1.1) even though I still have a valid IP and the wifi icon is shown on my top screen.


I pinged the phone from my router diagnostics page and while I can browse the web with the iPhone5, I can see no packages lost. However after 1-2min the iPhone5 cannot open any websites while still connected to the wifi, it starts to show network packages lost.


A workaround that I found was to create a "Guest" network (which is not WPA2-Personal) or even WEP. There are no issues when connecting to these alternate networks.


Can anyone out there confirm this issue?? Is it software or hardware related?? It seems to me there are issues with WPA2-Personal (WPA2/AES)


Thanks in advance,

C

iPhone 5, iOS 6

Posted on Sep 23, 2012 6:50 AM

Reply
544 replies

Oct 16, 2012 12:24 PM in response to C4RLOCO

I am really thankful for this thread. I had a phone that either wouldn't connect or the connection wouldn't last very long on WIFI with AES and it didn't work at all on TKIP. I was going to wait for a software update but this thread pursuaded me to get my hardware replaced and it works great now. As a cool sideaffect I also had the no push email issue and that has also been resolved. I have no idea how that could be related to the hardware but I'm not going to question it too much. Thanks again.

Oct 16, 2012 7:07 PM in response to C4RLOCO

Dear all, and Apple Engineers.


I used to run a troubleshooting BiG Mac site several years ago with 1million hits a month. I am PhD and scientist and finding solutions to problems is in my DNA. In fact, I provided jobs to people that eventually became Apple engineers.


I read all the thread here because I also had the same problem this week during my business trip. Each hotel I went to, I had trouble with iPhone 5 WIFI but no issues with my iPad 2 running iOS5. Of course, I had no way to know if the hotels routers were running WPA2 wit AES but I supposed that Hotels like Hyatt, Meridien and Hilton must have. I presume that just like me, you backup up your iPhone 4 before upgrading to iphone5 and that you restored your iPhone 4 settings in your iPhone 5. I am not sure if this is correct or not but it is maybe not a good idea to restore networks settings that were good 2 years ago. This was my hunch. So I try resetting things and firstly, I tried Network Settings Reset. And it worked...EVERYTHING WENT BACK TO NORMAL.


So the SOLUTION to ALL your network connectivity problems with wifi on iPhone 5 is: go to SETTINGS--> GENERAL--> RESET--> RESET NETWORK SETTINGS


VOILA!


stop returning your iPhone 5 :-) it is working properly.


have a great week!


Frank

Oct 16, 2012 10:02 PM in response to C4RLOCO

I have been having problems as well. Last night I thought I would try switching to WEP instead as a quick fix until a firmware update is released. Airport Extreme doesn't seem to offer a WEP option though so I currently have no security (I live in a quite street so I am not too concerned but far from ideal). Anyway, with WPA2 turned off the iPhone 5 works great, everything is so much more snappy now especially in Safari.


I know this isn't ideal but I did desperately need Wi-Fi to transfer a few large files across so I am glad this worked for the time being.


I will try Silverstar555 solution this morning, hopefully that works so my network can be secure again!

Oct 16, 2012 10:14 PM in response to Silverstar555

Hey Frank,

Not to discredit you in any way but your fix to ALL wifi problems does not work. Someone else posted this solution, it may work for some but it did not work for me. I tried that as well as setting up the phone as new, neither worked on a wpa2 secured network. I even made the genius at the apple store try it in the store, he reset the network settings, he restored the phone, and he set the phone up as new and it was never able to connect to the apple store's secured network. You know what DID work? Getting a NEW phone! So to all you people with issues out there I would demand a replacement and make the apple store test the wifi in store before you take it home.

Oct 16, 2012 10:27 PM in response to Defwu3

Thanks Defwu3. Same here, nothing mentioned above is working with my iPhone 5. But wi-fi is working absolutely perfect at my school network and at my friend's place. I have a 2WIRE DSL router. Tried everything mentioned above but the only response I get is 'Unable to connect'. but WHY????

May be I need to see Genius at apple store. But this is very annoying.

Oct 16, 2012 10:32 PM in response to panirav

Here's the thing though- a lot of apple stores don't have a password protected wifi. The one I went to didn't. I made the genius set up a protected wifi in store to prove to him my phone didn't work because on unprotected networks it worked perfectly. When the new phone came in I made them do it all over again to be sure I didn't get another dud.

Oct 16, 2012 11:12 PM in response to panirav

Is the consensus here that this is a hardware problem? Wifi with my iPhone 5 seems to work with everything except WPA2.


The article at http://tabletcrunch.com/2012/10/15/ios-6-wifi-bricking-iphone-5-sprint/ suggests that it's a authentication token issue. If this is true, it doesn't explain why people have had success connecting to WPA2 networks with newly replaced iPhone 5's.


Curiouser and curiouser....

Oct 17, 2012 6:41 AM in response to C4RLOCO

After three hours of trying to resolve the same isse, including a useless call to Apple support, I figured out that it was an issue with my SSID. Specifically, I selected the - copy my 2.4Ghz settings for my 5.6. I guess IOS 6 can't deal with two SSID's of the same name. Using two different SSID names immediately solved the problem, and I can connect to either one with success.


Does anyone know if having two different SSID's names for the 2.4 and 5.6 affects the "8211ac" benefit?

iPhone5 issues with WPA2/AES Wifi

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.