How do I make IOS 6 keep wifi on when iPod is sleeping?

iOS 6.0.2 has not yet been release to the public. You can Google for iOS 6.0.2 and see any rumors. The terms of use for this forum include:

Stay on topic. Apple Support Communities is here to help people use Apple products and technologies more effectively. Unless otherwise noted, do not add Submissions about nontechnical topics, including:

Speculations or rumors about unannounced products.

IOS 6.0.2 only applies to the iPhone 5 and iPad Mini. Presumably this is because both of those products use the Murata 339S0171 WiFi module.

I have a new iPod touch 5 so I'm back in good for a year of tech support.. They walked me through it over the phone. I saved all the data and I've been resubmitting it every day for every device I own since before thanksgiving.. I don't get replies but I have the case id# and when I call my emails are noted in the system... Lol!!! Shouldn't take too much longer till 6.2.0. comes out now...I'm sure they are tired of my emails!!!

I'm gonna hook up to iTunes and go that route... Here's a link I found but I haven't had time to read it thoroughly yet.. http://m.techcrunch.com/2012/12/18/apple-release-ios-6-0-2-to-zap-wi-fi-bugs-but -users-finding-it-hard-to-download-over-the-air/

This is said to be a direct download. When I get to my desk and get the monkeys off my back I'll try it if doesn't update thriugh iTunes..

I installed the iOS 6.0.2 update using "Software Update" on my iPhone 5 with no problems.

Note that IOS 6.0.2 only applies to the iPhone 5 and iPad Mini. It does not apply to the iPod Touch and won't install on it.

You actually just quoted terms of usage for the forum... wow. Between the techy nerd who thinks that in 2012 each and everyome of use should be network whizes like him (that went out with the 90's) and someone who is quoting terms of usaged small print when, at best, it's hardly applicable to this discussion... I'm not sure what you dudes are trying to do. Really..? Quoting terms of usage?? Wow. Are you guys the one in 10,000 blokes who always read the legal before downloading/installing software? The ones that get up every morning and double check that every thing you own that can have a firmware update is is up to date? All software is always the latest version?

Speculation... here's your speculation: Apple has been under INTENSE pressure over battery life with the iPhone. Since battery technology can't keep up with iPhone technology, this will be the case indefinitely. A management solution, as opposed to a fix or technical solution, would be to be more aggressive about power management.. including turning off wifi when the gadget is not being used. It would be reasonable to give the user the option to enable/disable this in settings.. but, they did not give us this choice, just as they don't give us many other choices... after all, don't we all need someone to do our thinking for us while giving us the illusion that we are in control? iPhones epitomize this contradiction.

Jim, even though he thinks we should be constantly checking every device we have for firmware currency, is not part of the demographic that Apple designs for. That is 90's thinking. Apple should not deploy an updated iOS that will render new routers and modems incompatible. I don't know what they did or if it's the case... Apple sure isn't commenting on it. BUT, the undeniable fact is that upon deployment of iOS6x, many, although perhaps a 'minority', now have their wifi turning off on thier iPods and iPhones when the screen goes black, even though they don't want that to happen. It's an undeniable fact. That the masses should be scrambling to learn that this could be a compatiblity problem with routers or modems is idiotic. My modem is a new model and the standard modem given to most of the clients of my ISP.

Regardless of the reason, this is happening. It is happening as a result of the deployment of OS6x. I was reluctant to install the new iOS in case it would cause probs... I shouldn't have installed it...my bad! Now my iPod Touch is of little use to me. I'm going back to land lines and basic $25 cell phones to communicate.

Apple is not going to announce publicly that this problem exists. Duh. Especially since it only practically effects thousands, not millions of Apple customers.

Jim, I'm not going to update the firmware in my modem, or my camera, or my stove, or my car, or my toaster. Illaass, I'm not going to get a lawyer to read the thousands of pages of legal that tech companies throw at us on a daily basis... and, you are wrong anyway... she wasn't speculating.. me on the other hand, I sure the heck am. What choice do we have?

Cheers!

<Edited By Host>

frigate356 wrote:

Speculation... here's your speculation: Apple has been under INTENSE pressure over battery life with the iPhone. Since battery technology can't keep up with iPhone technology, this will be the case indefinitely. A management solution, as opposed to a fix or technical solution, would be to be more aggressive about power management.. including turning off wifi when the gadget is not being used. It would be reasonable to give the user the option to enable/disable this in settings.. but, they did not give us this choice, just as they don't give us many other choices... after all, don't we all need someone to do our thinking for us while giving us the illusion that we are in control? iPhones epitomize this contradiction.

WiFi is NOT turned off when the iPod Touch is sleeping in iOS 6. Notifications and such should still be received. This has nothing to do with any speculated iPhone battery problem.

frigate356 wrote:

Jim, even though he thinks we should be constantly checking every device we have for firmware currency, is not part of the demographic that Apple designs for. That is 90's thinking. Apple should not deploy an updated iOS that will render new routers and modems incompatible. I don't know what they did or if it's the case... Apple sure isn't commenting on it. BUT, the undeniable fact is that upon deployment of iOS6x, many, although perhaps a 'minority', now have their wifi turning off on thier iPods and iPhones when the screen goes black, even though they don't want that to happen. It's an undeniable fact. That the masses should be scrambling to learn that this could be a compatiblity problem with routers or modems is idiotic. My modem is a new model and the standard modem given to most of the clients of my ISP.

If your router has a bug causing it to not implement the IEEE 802.11 WiFi standard correctly as used by iOS 6 then you can't expect Apple to code around this brand X router problem. If you can't or won't check for a router firmware update then you are probably out of luck. It's standard practice to make sure that your software/firmware is up-to-date when you have a problem. You certainly don't have to do it all the time.

Good luck.

In my case, I'm thinking this problem is because of the iPhone hardware. Hopefully this helps someone else.

My wife and I both have an iPhone 5. My phone has this problem, hers doesn't.

I have tried 3 different routers, a different DSL modem, restoring the iPhone and setting up as a new phone, updating the iOS to 6.0.2, and my phone drops Wi-Fi connection after 10 seconds of locking it with it plugged in. I noticed this because iCloud doesn't back up automatically because it's not connecting to Wi-Fi.

My wife's phone backs up fine and stays connected. I can tell they're connected because I have an Airport Extreme and can see the phone disconnect from the Wi-Fi in the airport utility.

This has to be a hardware problem and I'm returning it for a replacement. Any further thoughts?

Well here is my experience. I had no problem with my iPod Touch 4 running IOS 4 or 5. And I still have no problem with my home router a BT HomeHub 3, I get push notifications etc.

What has changed is the behaviour at my work which uses a Cisco login system set to a 12 hour timeout. Now under IOs 6 the wifi is dropped on sleep when the pod is not plugged in and doesn't receive push notifications. This is new behaviour under IOS 6. Then on wake I have to log back in. If I keep it attached to the charger the wifi is maintained when sleeping.

This suggests to me:

* This is a change with IOS 6.

* It is not simply an attempt to save battery life by turning off wifi; it works with my home router fine.

* It is dependent on router type or the form of communication on sleep which has changed and that may be something to do with changes made to fix wifi battery drainage issues.

Stuart

cross post from the other thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4345149?start=180

This is NEW iOS 6 behavior, it has nothing to do with the router and it's stupid.

I need to turn off cellular at work, since there is no reception in my building. In previous versions of the phone I was able to receive push notifications (including e-mail) and iMessages. I have tested this both at home and at work, and now with the phone asleep nothing comes through until I wake the device.

What's worse, is that if I leave the cellular on and it's searching for signal all day (thus draining the battery even more!) push notifications will work over wifi. I know it's not over cellular because there is absolutely not service (lead lined walls).

Obviously this is a software setting, so I'm not buying the excuse from apple that it can't be changed. Just give us the option of having persistent wifi or longer battery life. Or I will be considering the option of using Android.

Confirmed this is not a router issue. Possible hardware/iOS issue, but definitely not router-related. I have a stack of iPod Touch 4Gen units on iOS 6.0.1 that all lose connection to the wifi when in sleep mode. I also have my personal iPad mini on iOS 6.0.2. As a test, I put all of them on the same wifi connection (WPA-Enterprise, SSID not broadcast) and then put them to sleep. After one minute, I woke them up. The iPad remained on the wifi (and even received push notifications while asleep) while all of the iPod Touches dropped off the network and refused to come back up without going back into the wifi settings.

So I reset the network settings on all of the iPods and reconfigured the connection and put them back to sleep. Two of them reconnected. The others had to be sent back to the wifi settings before they would look for the connection again.

I seem to recall a general setting in iOS 5 that allowed me to keep the radio on while the device was sleeping. That setting is most definitely not there now. And I am one unhappy IT guy. I have to let end-users use these devices and they can barely operate a toaster, much less go into the settings every time they wake up the iPod.

As I was typing this, all 6 iPods are now refusing to reconnect to the wifi. The iPad is still beeping happily.

Yet my IOS6 losing wifi only happens with my work wifi and only on battery power. Work on charge, and home router on and off charge, works as IOS5 did.

I wish someone at Apple would drop a clue as to what is going on as it is quiite hard to deduce from symptoms alone.

Hi Jim,

Unfortunately you're either VERY wrong, or misguiding this discussion.

Here are the facts:

1) iOS 6 devices lose their WiFi connection when not connected to power, on sleep. (There are exceptions to this situation, like when the device is actually transferring data when it goes to sleep etc., but these are exceptions. I will list a few below...)

2) Upon rebooting fresh, my iPhone 5 (with iOS 6.0.1) seems NOT to lose Wifi for a while (5-10 minutes, depending/changing on whatever unknown reason), but after that period, it gets to some "DEEP" sleep (I'm making this up) and totally losing connection.

3) I've tested this on TP-Link, Apple Airport, Cisco Aironet and Aruba access-points, both on 2.4 and 5Ghz (as it IS my job, I'm a Network Engineer with an Advanced Wireless Networking Specialization) so I can clearly say this should be considered a BUG, not an incompability. Even if we can lie to ourselves that it's just a compatibility issue, it definitely is not on the AP/Router side.

4) With respect to the tests performed, I've used:

- an iPhone 5 with iOS 6.0.1

- an iPad Mini Wifi with iOS 6.0 (and later 6.0.1)

- an iPad 2 Wifi with iOS 5.1.1

- an iPad 2 3G with iOS 5.1.1

- an iPhone 4S with iOS 5.1.1

- an iPhone 4S with iOS 6.0.1

All devices with iOS 6.x exhibited the same behaviour (losing WiFi immediately or after a non-defined period), while all devices with iOS 5.1.1 preserved their connection, when tested simultaneously.

Tests were done with freshly restored devices, with the exceptional addition of Whatsapp, Viber, Facebook and Twitter. Also, an Exchange 2010 email account was setup on each device. Also, ping tests were done, simultaneously for all devices. During the tests, all devices with 3G/LTE radios had their cellular data turned off.

But, as always, this seems to have exceptions:

1) iOS native apps (like mail) and services (like twitter and facebook notifications) seem to work, even though ping starts to fail, on devices with iOS 6. (this seems to be interesting)

2) 3rd party apps lose connection after the before-mentioned "period", when the device also loses ping connectivity (and wireless de-auth is observed on Enterprise APs).

So, stop being persistent... Even though it SHOULD work as you suggested, it's not. And, no matter how you change your network device, the problem persists. THIS IS SOMETHING APPLE NEEDS TO SOLVE, not network device vendors or users themselves.

Emre

Hmm I thought my home router connectivity was OK as I was getting the push notifications eg iMessage Mail etc. But maybe I just don't use the third party apps that lose connectivity. Not such a biggie for me at home especially as wifi rejoins on wake up and the push notifications I use come through at all times.

It is different using the Cisco access point at work at some point the Cisco must deauthorise as wifi is on sleep, anything coming from the IPod to verify its continuing existence then goes nowhere and the outside world doesn't send anything to the router. Waking the iPod then requires a Cisco login which is not normally required for 12 hours.