IOS 7.1 iphone 4S wifi not available .. help..

iPhone 4S, wifi and bluetooth failure occurred yesterday with my phone. Wifi greyed out and says "wifi not available", which is a most insulting message from Apple. Wifi is most certainly available as I have paid for a portable modem while on my holiday, it's just that this 1.5 year old 4S is useless. It replaced a faulty 1 year old 4S. So many problems in 2.5 years, Apple are quite happily running a hardware based subscription service for their iPhone and iOS. Chatted with Apple online last night and their response is that the phone is out of warranty and I will need to do whatever the Apple Authorised repair centre tells me. As Apple are not recommending a replacement phone, the authorised service centre will charge me full price for a replacement refurb. Quite pathetic.

Apple should be ashamed with their build quality. But unfortunately they are not. My home button has also failed.

I guess we can't edit our prior posts? Anyway, as an update to my post that the hairdryer technique worked, it stopped working again. I got WiFi back for about a day and a half, then lost it again. Tried the hairdryer again a few days later, and only got a few hours before losing WiFi again. I'm just leaving it disabled, and won't bother trying again.

I am surprised to see people blaming this on software. I don't really see how the overheating technique (hairdryer) or reflowing solder would fix a software glitch; this is hardware in my opinion. Perhaps a bad batch of chips, or a bad run of factory soldering, exacerbated by jarring as we have the phones longer. I'm also fairly certain my problem began under iOS 6.x, because I seem to recall performing the upgrade to 7.0 specifically hoping it would fix my WiFi problem.

I'm facing the same problem, trying lot of time resetting the network, hard reset, restore iphone from backup and lots more but the problem still persist. At last i decide to erase the iphone(factory reset) and then voila, the wifi seems working fine up until now. My conclusion, there must be something wrong with the backup from the old ios that not so compatible with the ios 7.1.1 that makes it hang and the wifi getting problems.

The same here. After the 7.1 update came this issue up. I have tried all the tips and tricks - no success. Apple offers me only the replacement phone for 200 EUR since my phone is 6 months out of warranty. No downgrade allowed. I went to local repair shop and they offered me only a temporary fix for 25 EUR. The guy used no hair dryer method but he connected the phone to comp and he reactivated the wifi chip again. It worked but only for two weeks. The guy from the repair shop told me that this is definitely a software issue and Apple has no solution for this. Local Apple reseller sends all the people with this issue to this repair shop because they do not know what to do. There is lots of 4s effected and Apple just ignoring it.

I have called Apple support for several times. My family had a serious car accident abroad and wifi was essential to communicate with the rest of my family since they stayed in the hospital over there. I have tried to call Apple to ask them for support but they actually did not care.

I was proud and happy user of Apple product but after this experience I will switch to android - Moto G or Samsung. I will share my experience with friends and colleagues so they do not pay a premium price for this product.

I also have been using Apple since the mid 80s and am bitterly disappointed in the reliability of their recent products.

I will have to buy a cheap Android to last me till the next iPhone iteration. Can't see the point in buying a brand new iPhone when a 1.5 year old 4S has a hardware failure.

Looking at http://www.news.com.au/technology/gadgets/troubleshooting-for-struggling-apple-i os-7-users/story-fn6vihic-1226723564685 there is one extra tip that seems to help some people:

- Change the name of your device

The new operating system seems to have an issue with apostrophes. At least when it comes to wi-fi.

Check out your device name. If it is called something like “Claire’s iPhone” it could be the apostrophe that is causing the problem.

To change your device name go to Settings > General > About > Name. Tap on the name to edit it and remove the apostrophe. Save the change. Switch off your phone and then switch it back on again.

Your wi-fi should be working.

We have no idea why this seems to work but many users in Apple’s community forums have said that it works.

Let us know if this helped, or not.

Thanks, but not for me! Apple Inc...➖

Same problem here... since the update 7.1!!!!

I call to apple, and they said I have to pay for a new wifi chip...... I'm not happy with this situation!! 😟

How much is the wifi chip? If it's cheaper than a refurbished phone from Apple then that's not so bad. I have been told I have to buy a refurb phone or new phone. Refurb is around half the price of a new phone, which is still not so cheap given the phone is 1.5 years old.

Yea, just started todayI updated to 7.1 as soon as it was available. It seemed to happen after I had turned my cellular network off to save data, now 3G is all I can use. I used to love Apple. I'll never buy another product from them again if the fix isn't free.

Same problem with my 4S. Someone -legal, needs to take on Apple about this. The issue is caused or exacerbated by the software upgrade - which after all this time the unsuspecting public should have been warned about by Apple. It's not as if their product is cheap, far from it! To pay such an amount for a product to work for just over a year in some cases is simply unacceptable. Apple is hiding behind its one year guarantee and must be challenged. Simple answer (certainly my answer) is not to buy their products in future. We minions continue to be treated badly by giant companies who think they are above the law. By the way, hairdryer method worked, but for how long who knows?

Omg you saved my life and my iphone... It really works... !!! I used the hairdryer like the guy in the video and my wifi now is available...!!! Thx man

I did a 30" hard reset (on/off and home buttons simultaneously pressed for 30") , switched the phone back on and the wifi came back.

I am having the same issues with my 64GB 4s, yesterday wifi and bluetooth suddenly stopped working. I didn't realize I had a problem until I tried to pair my phone to a bluetooth speaker and couldn't get bluetooth to work. I also seem to be able to receive or send calls, and can't sent or receive texts. Very frustrating as I didn't want to have to get a new phone right now. Heading to the local Apple Store tomorrow, I hope they'll be willing to help me out for not a lot of money.

Hello everyone,

Today i've tryed something on my own to fix the greyed out wifi. Believe it or not it actually worked for me!

Al you need to do is put you're iphone on airplane mode and turn on do not disturb. then shutdown the iphone place it in a zip bag and put in the freezer for 30 minutes. after that, turn the iphone back on, disable airplane mode and turn of do not disturb. and that's how i got my wifi back to fully working again.